In the country, social intercourse between Hawkins' family and my own is upon the most informal basis. If it pleases us to dine together coatless and cuffless, we do so; and no one suggests that a national upheaval is likely to result.
But in town it is different. The bugaboo of strict propriety seems to take mysterious ascendancy. We still dine together, but it is done in the most proper evening dress. It seems to be the law—unwritten but unalterable—that Hawkins and I shall display upon our respective bosoms something like a square foot of starchy white linen.
I hardly know why I mention this matter of evening clothes, unless it is that the memory of my brand-new dress suit, which passed to another sphere that night, still preys upon my mind.
That night, above mentioned, my wife and I dined in the Hawkins' home.
Hawkins seemed particularly jovial. He appeared to be chuckling with triumph, or some kindred emotion, and his air was even more expansive than usual.
When I mentioned the terrible explosion of the powder works at Pompton—hardly a subject to excite mirth in the normal individual—Hawkins fairly guffawed.
“But, Herbert,” cried his wife, somewhat horrified, “is there anything humorous in the dismemberment of three poor workmen?”
“Oh, it isn't that—it isn't that, my dear,” smiled the inventor. “It merely struck me as funny—this old notion of explosives.”
“What old notion?” I inquired.
“Why, the fallacy of the present methods of manipulating nitro-glycerine.”
“I presume you have a better scheme?” I advanced.
“Mr. Griggs,” cried Hawkins' wife, in terror that was not all feigned, “don't suggest it!”
“Now, my dear——” began Hawkins, stiffening at once.
“Hush, Herbert, hush! You've made mischief enough with your inventions, but you have never, thank goodness, dabbled in explosives.”
“If I wanted to tell you what I know about explosives, and what I could do——” declaimed Hawkins.
“Don't tell us, Mr. Hawkins,” laughed my wife. “A sort of superstitious dread comes over me at the notion.”
“Mrs. Griggs!” exclaimed Hawkins, eying my wife with a glare which in any other man would have earned him the best licking I could give him—but which, like many other things, had to be excused in Hawkins.
“Herbert!” said his wife, authoritatively. “Be still. Actually, you're quite excited!”
Hawkins lapsed into sulky silence, and the meal ended with just a hint of constraint.
Mrs. Hawkins and my wife adjourned to the drawing-room, and Hawkins and I were left, theoretically, to smoke a post-prandial cigar. Hawkins, however, had other plans for my entertainment.
“Are they up-stairs?” he muttered, as footsteps sounded above us.
“They seem to be.”
“Then you come with me,” whispered Hawkins, heading me toward the servants' staircase.
“Where?” I inquired suspiciously.
There was a peculiar glitter in his eye.
“Come along and you'll see,” chuckled Hawkins, beginning the ascent. “Oh, I'll tell you what,” he continued, pausing on the second landing, “these women make me tired!”
“Indeed?”
“Yes, they do. You needn't look huffy, Griggs. It isn't your wife or my wife. It's the whole sex. They chatter and prattle and make silly jokes about things they're absolutely incapable of understanding.”
“My dear Hawkins,” I said soothingly, “you wrong the fair sex.”
“Oh, I wrong 'em, eh? Well, what woman knows the first thing about explosives?” demanded Hawkins heatedly. “Dynamite or rhexite or meganite or carbonite or stonite or vigorite or cordite or ballistite or thorite or maxamite——”
“Stop, Hawkins, stop!” I cried.
“Well, that's all, anyway,” said the inventor. “But what woman knows enough about them to argue the thing intelligently? And yet my wife tells me—I, who have spent nearly half a lifetime in scientific labor—she actually tells me to—to shut up, when I hint at having some slight knowledge of the subject!”
“I know, Hawkins, but your scientific labors have made her—and me—suffer in the past.”
“Oh, they have, have they?” grunted Hawkins, climbing toward the top floor. “Well, come up, Griggs.”
I knew the door at which he stopped. It was that of Hawkins' workshop or laboratory. It was on the floor with the servants, who, poor things, probably did not know or dared not object to the risk they ran.
“What's the peculiar humming?” I asked, pausing on the threshold.
“Only my electric motor,” sneered Hawkins. “It won't bite you, Griggs. Come in.”
“And what is this big, brass bolt on the door?” I continued.
“That? Oh, that's an idea!” cried the inventor. “That's my new springlock. Just look at that lock, Griggs. It simply can't be opened from the outside, and only from the inside by one who knows how to work it. And I'm the only one who knows. When I patent this thing——”
“Well, I wouldn't close the door, Hawkins,” I murmured. “You might faint or something, and I'd be shut in here till somebody remembered to hunt for me.”
“Bah!” exclaimed Hawkins, slamming the door, violently. “Really, for a grown man, you're the most chicken-hearted individual I ever met. But—what's the use of talking about it? To get back to explosives——”
“Oh, never mind the explosives,” I said wearily. “You're right, and that settles it.”
“See here,” said Hawkins sharply; “I had no intention of mentioning explosives to-night, for a particular reason. In a day or two, you'll hear the country ringing with my name, in connection with explosives. But since the subject has come up, if you want to listen to me for a few minutes, I'll interest you mightily.”
Kind Heaven! Could I have realized then the bitter truth of those last words!
“Yes, sir,” the inventor went on, “as I was saying—or was I saying it?—they all have their faults—dynamite, rhexite, meganite, carbonite, ston——”
“You went over that list before.”
“Well, they all have their faults. Either they explode when you don't want them to, or they don't explode when you do want them to, or they're liable to explode spontaneously, or something else. It's all due, as I have invariably contended, to impure nitro-glycerine or unscientific handling of the pure article.”
“Yes.”
“Yes, indeed. Now, what would you say to an explosive——”
“Absolutely nothing,” I replied decidedly. “I should pass it without even a nod.”
“Never mind your nonsense, Griggs. What would you—er—what would you think of an explosive that could be dropped from the roof of a house without detonating?”
“Remarkable!”
“An explosive,” continued Hawkins impressively, “into which a man might throw a lighted lamp without the slightest fear! How would that strike you?”
“Well, Hawkins,” I said, “I think I should have grave doubts of the man's mental condition.”
“Oh, just cut out that foolish talk,” snapped the inventor. “I'm quite serious. Suppose I should tell you that I had thought and thought over this problem, and finally hit upon an idea for just such a powder? Where would dynamite and rhexite and meganite and all the rest of them be, beside——”
He paused theatrically.
“Hawkinsite!”
“Don't know, Hawkins,” I said, unable to absorb any of his enthusiasm. “But let us thank goodness that it is only an idea as yet.”
“Oh, but it isn't!” cried the inventor.
“Hawkins!” I gasped, springing to my feet. “What do you mean?”
“I mean just this: Do you see that little vat in the corner?”
I stared fearfully in the direction indicated. A little vat, indeed, I saw. It stood there, half-filled with a sticky mess, through which an agitator, run by the electric motor, was revolving slowly.
“That's Hawkinsite, in the process of manufacture!” the inventor announced.
A sickly terror crept over me. I made instinctively for the door.
“Oh, come back,” said Hawkins. “You can't get out, anyway, until I undo the lock. But there's no danger whatever, my dear boy. Just sit down and I'll explain why.”
I had no choice about sitting down; a most peculiar weakness of the knees made standing for the moment impossible. I drew my chair to the diagonally opposite corner of the apartment, and sat there with my eyes glued upon the vat.
“Now, when all these fellows go about nitrating their glycerine,” said Hawkins serenely, “they simply overlook the scientific principle which I have discovered. For instance, out there at Pompton the vat exploded in the very act of mixing in the glycerine. That's just what is being done over in that corner at this minute——”
“Ouch!” I cried involuntarily.
“But it won't happen here—it can't happen here,” said the inventor impatiently. “I am using an entirely different combination of chemicals. Now, if there was any trouble of that sort coming, Griggs, the contents of that vat would have begun to turn green before now. But as you see——”
“Haw—Hawkins!” I croaked hoarsely, pointing a shaking finger at the machine.
“Well, what is it now?”
“Look!” I managed to articulate.
“Oh, Lord!” sniffed the inventor. “I suppose as soon as I said that, you began to see green shades appear, eh? Why—dear me!”
Hawkins stepped rapidly over to the side of his mixer. Then he stepped away with considerably greater alacrity.
There was no two ways about it; the devilish mess in the vat was taking on a marked tinge of green!
“Well—I—I guess I'll shut off the power,” muttered Hawkins, suiting the action to the word.
“When the agitator has stopped, Griggs, the mass will cool at once, so you needn't worry.”
“If it didn't cool, would it—would it blow up?” I quavered.
“Oh, it would,” admitted Hawkins, rather nervously. “But as soon as the mixing ceases, the slight color disappears, as you see.”
“I don't see it; it seems to me to be getting greener than ever.”
“Well, it's not!” the inventor snapped. “Five minutes from now, that stuff will be an even brown once more.”
“And while it's regaining the even brown, why not clear out of here?” I said eagerly.
“Yes, we may as well, I suppose,” said Hawkins, with a readiness which refused to be masked under his assumption of reluctance. “Come on, Griggs.”
Hawkins turned the lever on his fancy lock, remarking again:
“Come on.”
“Well, open the door.”
“It's op—why, what's wrong here?” muttered the inventor, twisting the lever back and forth several times.
“Oh, good heavens, Hawkins!” I groaned. “Has your lock gone back on you, too?”
“No, it has not. Of course not,” growled the inventor, tugging at his lever with almost frantic energy. “It's stuck—a little new—that's all. Er—do you see a screw-driver on that table, Griggs?”
I handed him the tool as quickly as possible, noting at the same time that despite the cessation of the stirring “Hawkinsite” was getting greener every second.
“I'll just take it off,” panted Hawkins, digging at one of the screws. “No time to tinker with it now.”
“Why not? There's no danger.”
“Certainly there isn't. But you—you seem to be a little nervous about it, Griggs, and——”
“Hawkins,” I cried, “what are those bubbles of red gas?”
“What bubbles?” Hawkins turned as if he had been shot. “Great Scott, Griggs! There were no bubbles of red gas rising out of that stuff, were there?”
“There they go again,” I said, pointing to the vat, from which a new ebullition of scarlet vapor had just risen. “What does it mean?”
“Mean?” shrieked Hawkins, turning white and trembling in every limb.
“Yes, mean!” I repeated, shaking him. “Does it mean that——”
“It means that the cursed stuff has over-heated itself, after all. Lord! Lord! However did it happen? Something must have been impure. Something——”
“Never mind something. What will it do?”
“It—it—oh, my God, Griggs! It'll blow this house into ten thousand pieces within two minutes! Why—why, there's power enough in that little vat to demolish the Brooklyn Bridge, according to my calculations. There's enough explosive force in that much Hawkinsite to wreck every office building down-town!”
“And we're shut in here with it!”
“Yes! Yes! But let us——”
“Here! Suppose I turn the water into the thing?”
“Don't!” shouted the inventor wildly, battering at the door with his fists. “It would send us into kingdom come the second it touched! Don't stand there gaping, Griggs! Help me smash down this door! We must get out, man! We must get the women out! We must warn the neighborhood! Smash her, Griggs! Smash her! Smash the door!”
“Hawkins,” I said, resignedly, as a vicious “sizzzz” announced the evolution of a great puff of red gas, “we can never do it in two minutes. Better not attract the rest of the household by your racket. They may possibly escape. Stop!”
“And stay here and be blown to blazes?” cried Hawkins. “No, sir! Down she goes!”
He seized a stool and dealt a crashing blow upon the panel. It splintered. He raised the stool again, and I could hear footsteps hurrying from below. I opened my mouth to shout a warning, and——
Well, I don't know that I can describe my sensations with any accuracy, vivid as they were at the time.
Some resistless force lifted me from the floor and propelled me toward the half shattered door. Dimly I noted that the same thing had happened to Hawkins. For the tiniest fraction of a second he seemed to be floating horizontally in the air. Then I felt my head collide with wood; the door parted, and I shot through the opening.
I saw the hallway before me; I remember observing with vague wonder that the gas-light went out just as it caught my eye. And then an awful flash blinded me, a roar of ten thousand cannon seemed to split my skull—and that was all.
My eyes opened in the Hawkins' drawing-room—or what remained of it. Our family physician was diligently winding a bandage around my right ankle. An important-looking youth in the uniform of an ambulance surgeon was stitching up a portion of my left forearm with cheerful nonchalance.
My brand new dress suit, I observed, had lost all semblance to an article of clothing; they had covered me, as I lay upon the couch, with a torn portiere.
{Illustration: “I saw the figure of a policeman standing tiptoe upon a satin chair."}
The apartment was strangely dark. Here and there stood a lantern, such as are used by the fire department. In the dim light, I saw the figure of a policeman standing tiptoe upon a satin chair, plugging with soap the broken gaspipe which had once supported the Hawkins' chandelier.
The ceiling was all down. The walls were bare to the lath in huge patches. The windows had disappeared, and a chill autumn night wind swept through the room.
Bric-a-brac there was none, although here and there, in the mass of plaster on the floor, gleamed bits of glass and china which might once have been parts of ornaments. Hawkinsite had evidently not been quite as powerful as its inventor had imagined, but it had certainly contained force enough to blow about ten thousand dollars out of Hawkins' bank account.
From the street came the hoarse murmur of a crowd. I twisted my head and my eyes fell upon two firemen in the hallway. They were dragging down a line of hose from somewhere up-stairs.
Across the room sat my wife and Mrs. Hawkins, disheveled, but alive and apparently unharmed. Hawkins himself leaned wearily back upon a divan, a huge bandage sewed about his forehead, one arm in a sling, and a police sergeant at his side, notebook in hand.
I felt a fiendish exultation at the sight of that official; for one fond moment I hoped that Hawkins was under arrest, that he was in for a life sentence.
“He's conscious, doctor,” said the ambulance surgeon.
“Ah, so he is,” said my own medical man, as the ladies rushed to my side. “Now, Mr. Griggs, do you feel any pain in the——”
“Oh, Griggs!” cried Hawkins, staggering toward me. “Have you come back to life? Say, Griggs, just think of it! My workshop's blown to smithereens! Every single note I ever made has been destroyed! Isn't it aw——”
In joyful chorus, my wife, Mrs. Hawkins and I said:
“Thank Heaven!”
“But think of it! My notes! The careful record of half a——”
“Herbert!” said his—considerably—better half. “That—will—do!”
“It—oh, well,” groaned the inventor disconsolately, limping back to the divan and the somewhat astonished sergeant of police. Hawkins must have had some sort of influence with the press. Beyond a bare mention of the explosion, the matter never found its way into the newspapers.
After I got around again I tried in vain to spread the tale broadcast. I had some notion that the notoriety might cure Hawkins.
But, after all, I don't know that it would have done much good. I cannot Hawkinsite is likely to be greatly worried by mere newspaper notoriety.
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