The name and the precise location of the hotel are immaterial. If you happened to be there that night you know very nearly all that occurred; if not, you have in all probability never heard of it, for I understand that the proprietors took every precaution against publicity.
Let it suffice, then, that the hotel is a prominent and a fashionable one, located somewhere between the Battery and the Bronx, and that Hawkins and I sat at a table in the restaurant on that particular evening and feasted.
The inventor had called at my office and dragged me away to dine with him, rather to my surprise, for I believed him to be somewhere in the South with his wife.
You see, after a certain explosion in their home, a month or two of reconstruction had been necessary; and I opine that Mrs. Hawkins had thought best to remove her husband while the repairs were being made. If he had been there it is dollars to doughnuts he would have invented a new bricklayer or a novel plastering machine and wrecked the whole place anew.
It was in reply to my query as to his presence in New York that Hawkins said:
“Well, you know, Griggs, it impressed me as very foolish from the first—that idea of my wife's of getting out of town while the place was being rebuilt.”
“She may have had her reasons, Hawkins,” I suggested.
“Possibly, although I fail to see what they were. When a man's own home is being built—or rebuilt—his place is on the spot, to see that everything is done right. Now, how, for instance, could I, away down in Georgia, know that those workmen were properly fitting up my new workshop?”
“Workshop?” I gasped. “Are you having another one built?”
“Certainly,” snapped Hawkins. “I didn't mention it to Mrs. Hawkins, for she seems foolishly set against my continuing my scientific labors. But I fixed it on the sly with the architect. It's all finished now—has been for a week and over—power and everything else.”
“Hawkins,” I said, sadly, “are you going right on with your experimenting?”
“Of course I am,” replied the inventor, rather warmly. “It's altogether beyond your poor little brain, Griggs, but scientific work is the very breath of my life! I can't be happy without it; I'm not going to try. Why, all those seven weeks down South one idea simply roared in my head. I had to come home and perfect it—and I did. I've been in New York nearly three weeks, working on it,” concluded Hawkins, complacently.
“And you've managed to perfect another accursed——” I began.
Just then I ceased speaking and watched Hawkins. His ears had pricked up like a horse's. I, too, listened and heard what seemed to be a heavy automobile outdoors; at any rate, it was the characteristic chugg-chugg-chugg of a touring car, and nowadays a commonplace sound enough.
But it affected Hawkins deeply. An ecstatic smile overspread his face, and he drew in his breath with a long, happy:
“A-a-a-a-a-ah!”
“Been buying a new auto, Hawkins?” I asked, carelessly.
“Auto be hanged!” replied the inventor, energetically. “Do you imagine that an automobile is making that noise? I guess not! That's my new invention, Griggs!”
“What!” I cried. “Here? In this hotel?”
“Right here in this hotel—right under our feet,” said Hawkins, proudly. “That noise comes from the Hawkins Gasowashine!”
I think I stared open-mouthed at Hawkins for a moment or two; I know that I leaned back and shook with as violent mirth as might be permitted in so solemnly proper a resort.
“Well, does that impress you as particularly humorous?” demanded Hawkins, angrily.
“Hawkins,” I said, “why don't you start in and write nonsense verse? There's a fortune waiting for you.”
“I must say, Griggs,” rejoined the inventor, sourly, “that you have very little comprehension of the advertising value of a good name. Who under the sun would ever remember the 'Hawkins Gasolene Washing Machine,' if they saw it in a magazine? But—'The Gasowashine'!”
“So it's a washing machine?”
“Of course. It's the one perfect contrivance for washing and drying dishes; and let me tell you the basic principle of that machine breathes genius, if I do say it. Why, Griggs, just think! You can pile in three or four hundred dishes, simply start the motor, and then sit down while the clean, dry dishes are piled neatly on the table.”
“And they're really using it here? It—it works?” I asked, wonderingly.
“Well, they're going to use it,” said Hawkins, rising. “I have consented to allow them to try my model. It arrived here just before we did.”
“Hawkins, have we been sitting right over that thing all this time?”
“Don't try to be comic, Griggs,” said the inventor, bruskly. “I'm going down to see who's fooling with that motor. It should not have been touched, although I must say it's a satisfaction to sit in a first-class place like this and hear my own machinery running. Are you coming?”
I will admit that I was curious about the contrivance. I followed Hawkins through the crowded dining-room to a door in the back.
Then, dodging a dozen hurrying waiters, we made our way down an incline into the kitchen and through that apartment, past steam tables and ranges and pots and kettles and other paraphernalia of the cuisine.
At the farther end of the room stood a massive affair of oak. It looked, as nearly as it resembled any other thing on earth, like a piano box; but on each side, near the top, was a huge fly-wheel, the two being apparently fastened to the ends of an axle.
For the rest of the mechanism, it was all concealed. I rightly surmised the monstrosity to be the Gasowashine.
The fly-wheels were revolving slowly, and this seemed to irritate Hawkins.
“Good-evening, Mr. Macdougal,” he said to a puzzled looking gentleman, who stood eying the affair. “Mr. Griggs, Mr. Macdougal, the manager. So some one started it, did he?”
“One of the 'buses happened to touch it, and it started itself,” replied the manager, gazing on the contrivance. “It's quite safe to have about, is it not, Mr. Hawkins?”
“Safe? Certainly it is safe.”
“I mean to say, it won't injure the dishes?” the gentleman continued, with a doubtful smile. “You see, we have filled the main compartment with hot water, as you directed, and put in three hundred pieces of our best crockery.”
“Mr. Macdougal,” said Hawkins icily, “if one dish is broken, I'll pay for it and make you a present of the machine, if you say so. If you do not wish to make the test, doubtless there are other hotel men in New York who will appreciate its advantages.”
“Not at all, not at all,” cried the manager. “I appreciate fully——”
“All right,” said Hawkins shortly. “Now, the dishes are all in, are they? Very well. I'll explain the thing to Mr. Griggs and then start it. You see, Griggs, the dishes are in here.”
He tapped the side of the big box.
“When I turn on the power, they are thoroughly rubbed and soused by my Automatic Scrubber—a separate patent, by the way—and then they reach this spot.”
He rapped upon the box near the end.
“Here they are forced against a continuous dish-towel, which runs across rollers all the time. Just think of it! Sixty yards of dish-towel, rolling over and over and over! After that—but you shall see how they look after that. I'll start her.”
He twisted a valve of some sort. The chugg-chugging became more pronounced, and the fly-wheels revolved with very perceptibly increased rapidity.
From somewhere inside the thing emanated a gentle rattle and swish of crockery and suds. Hawkins stood back and regarded it proudly.
“There's another great point about the Gasowashine, too,” he said. “As you see, it's too heavy to shove from place to place. What do we do?”
“Leave it where it is,” I hazarded.
“Not at all. We simply invert it! The whole business is water-tight. Every door fits so closely that it's impossible for a drop to escape. Now, if I wished to move it to the other end of this room, I should simply turn the Gasowashine upside down, allow it to rest upon the fly-wheels, which keep on revolving of course, and steer it wherever I desired.”
“And so you might go a little better and put on a saddle and a steering-wheel and take a ride around the Park while you were washing dishes?” I suggested, somewhat to the manager's amusement.
“Possibly you think it's impracticable?” Hawkins rapped out. “Perhaps you don't realize that there's a five horsepower motor running that?”
“There, there, Hawkins,” I said soothingly, “if you say that Washy-washine is good for a trans-kitchen on a transcontinental tour, I'll take your word for it.”
“You don't have to!” cried the inventor wrathfully. “I'll demonstrate it. See here, you!”
This to a corpulent French gentleman in white, who had just flipped an omelette to a platter and sent it upon its way. “Come and give me a hand here. Just help turn this thing over.”
“Comme cela?” inquired the astonished cook, making pantomime with his hands.
“Exactly. That's right. Catch hold of the other side and don't let go until I tell you.”
The cook complied. Really, the Gasowashine seemed to turn more easily than might have been expected from its huge bulk.
A strain or two, a puffed command from Hawkins, an ominous sliding about of hidden dishes, and the machine lurched forward, poised a moment on its edge and turned quite gently, so that the wheels approached the floor.
“Now, easy! Easy!” cried Hawkins. “Don't let the wheels down until I tell you, and don't let go till I give the word. Now down! Down! Gently.”
The cook seemed to be feeling for a new grip.
“Here! What are you doing?” cried the inventor. “Don't touch any of those handles.”
“It is that I seek a place for ze hand,” murmured the cook apologetically.
“Well, find it and let her down. Got your grip?”
“Aha! I have eet!” announced the Frenchman, clutching one of the brass knobs.
“All right. Down!”
Down went the Gasowashine. And a very small fraction of one second later things began to happen.
Each of Hawkins' inventions possesses a latent devil. You have only to brush against the handle or the valve or the string, or whatever it may be that connects him with the outer world, and the demon awakes.
In this case, the cook must have pinched the tail of the devil of the Gasowashine, for he sprang into action with a rush.
“Is it to release the hold?” asked the Frenchman as the wheels touched the floor.
“No, not till I—hey!” cried Hawkins, starting back in amazement.
“Our—our dishes!” ejaculated the manager breathlessly.
The Gasowashine and the cook were traveling across the kitchen together. The Frenchman, with remarkable presence of mind, was behind the machine and dragging back with all his might; but as well could he have hauled to a standstill the locomotive of the Empire State Express.
The Gasowashine, puffing heavily as any racing auto, had plans of its own and was executing them to the accompaniment of a simply appalling rattle of crockery.
“Don't let go! Don't let go!” cried Hawkins. “Keep hold, my man!”
“I do! I do! Mais, mon Dieu!” called the Frenchman jerkily.
“But, Mr. Hawkins,” gasped the manager as we hurried after, “what will become of our china?”
“The devil take your china!” snapped Hawkins, forgetful of his recent guarantee. “If they run into the wall, it'll break the motor!”
They were not going to run into the wall. The Gasowashine approached the side of the apartment, swerved easily to the left, and made for the incline which led to the hotel dining-room.
“Good gracious!” screamed the manager. “Not up there! Knock that thing over on its side, Henri!”
“Don't you do it, Henri,” cried Hawkins. “If you do it'll smash.”
“Let it smash!” roared the manager. “Throw it over, Henri!”
“But I cannot,” gasped the Frenchman as the Gasowashine sets its wheels upon the incline.
“Here! Somebody get in front of that thing!” commanded Macdougal. “Don't let it go up. Knock it over!”
“If you knock that over!” stormed Hawkins, springing to the side of his contrivance and feeling excitedly for the valve which should shut off the supply of gasolene.
Two or three waiters, having in mind that their jobs depended upon Macdougal's approbation rather than Hawkins' strove to obey the former's injunction. They ran to the fore end of the Gasowashine and seized it and pushed back upon it and sideways.
And did the Gasowashine mind? Hardly.
It bowled the first man over so neatly that he fell squarely beneath one of his fellows, who was descending loaded with dishes. It rolled one of its wheels across the toes of the next antagonist, and drew from him a shriek which sent people in the dining-room to their feet.
After that coup, the Gasowashine had things all its own way on the incline.
The French cook still maintained his hold. Hawkins pranced alongside and fumbled feverishly, first with that knob, then with this little wheel.
Several of them he managed to move, but to no good end. Whether excitement had confused Hawkins' mind on the details of his invention I cannot say; but certainly, far from controlling the Gasowashine, he made matters worse.
The machine puffed harder, the wheels revolved more rapidly, and the whole affair climbed steadily toward the dining-room, dragging the tenacious cook along the incline in a sitting posture.
Thus was made the first public appearance of the Gasowashine, to the utter amazement of some hundred diners.
Bursting through the doors, it snorted for a moment, and seemed to be considering the long rows of tables before it. Several waiters, gasping with astonishment at the uncouth apparition, ran to check its progress.
That seemed to stir the Gasowashine anew. It emitted a sharp puff of rage and plunged headlong forward.
Hawkins pranced along by its side, half turning as he ran to cry:
“Now, just—just make way, ladies and gentlemen, please. It's not at all dangerous. Just make way.”
They made way, without losing any undue amount of time.
One or two women fainted unostentatiously.
Most of them, men and women, scrambled away from the main aisle, which seemed to have been selected by the Gasowashine for its further performances.
“Hawkins,” I panted when I had managed to regain breath, “why don't you knock the cursed thing over?”
“There, there, there, Griggs,” sizzled Hawkins, dashing the perspiration from his eyes. “I've almost control of it now. I'll just shut off this——”
He gave a powerful twist at one of the handles.
“That'll——” he began.
“Pouff!” roared the Gasowashine, rearing up and lunging wildly from side to side for a moment.
Then it started down the aisle in earnest. Bang! Bang! Bang! echoed from the crockery inside. Puff! Puff! Puff! said the motor, driving its hardest.
{Illustration: “I shall let go? Yes?”}
“Ciel!” wailed the cook “I shall let it go? Yes?”
“No!” shouted Hawkins, running beside the unhappy man. “In just a second it'll——”
It did, although not perhaps what Hawkins expected.
I saw a little door in the side of the infernal machine flip open. I perceived a shower of finely subdivided crockery hanging over the cook for a moment.
Then the bits of china and some two or three gallons of greasy water descended upon the Frenchman and the door flipped to once more. The Gasowashine had dislodged the cook and was free to pursue its wanderings unhindered.
And certainly it made the most of the opportunity.
For three or four yards it bumped along, ramming its top-heavy nose into the carpet and seeming to become more and more enraged at its slow progress. Then it paused a moment and pawed at the floor with its whizzing wheels.
I fancied that I could upset it then, and sprang forward to do so, regardless of Hawkins.
I might have known better. I was within perhaps ten feet of the Gasowashine when another door, this time a smaller one toward the front, squeaked for a moment and then flew open. Simultaneously a bolt of something white shot forth and made for my head.
Regardless of appearances, I dropped flat to the floor and wriggled out of the danger zone.
When I arose, I realized what new disaster had taken place. It was the sixty yards of dish-towel this time!
Presumably, a roller had smashed and released the thing; at any rate, there it was, yard after yard of it, trailing after the Gasowashine as it thumped energetically toward the street door.
And that was not the worst. The end of the toweling entwined itself about one of the dining-tables and held there. The table went over, collided with the next and emptied that, too.
Then the next followed and the next, each new crash echoed by the frightened squeals of the guests, now lined up against the opposite walls.
The tenth table, with its load of crockery and glassware, had been sent to destruction before Macdougal, the manager, finally gained the dining-room. Tears rose to his eyes as he made a rapid survey of the havoc, but he kept his wits and shouted:
“Knock it over! Somebody knock it over!” A big military-looking man in evening clothes sprang forward. I offered a prayer for him and held my breath. He rushed to the Gasowashine, seized it with his mighty arms, and gave a shove.
“M-m-m-mister,” quavered Hawkins, wriggling from under one of the tables, “don't do that! The g-g-g-gasolene tank!”
But it was done. With a dull crash, the only perfect machine for washing and drying dishes fell to its side. The big man smiled at it.
And then—well, then a sheet of flame seemed to envelope the unfortunate. A heavy boom shook the apartment, the big glass door splintered musically and fell inward, the lights in that end of the room were extinguished.
Then followed the screams of the terrified guests, the patter of numberless fragments of crockery and countless drops of filthy dishwater as they reached the floor. And then the big man picked himself up some twenty feet from the spot where he had dared the wrath of the Gasowashine.
And Hawkins standing majestically in the wreck of a table, with one foot in a salad bowl and the other oozing nesselrode pudding, while an unbroken stream of mayonnaise dressing meandered down the back of his coat—Hawkins, standing thus, shook his fist at the big man and, above the turmoil, shouted at him:
“I told you so!”
Such was the fate of the first, last, and only Gasowashine.
Bellboys, clerks, and waiters pelted with hand grenades its smoldering remains and squirted chemical fire-extinguishers upon it; but the Gasowashine's day was done. Its turbulent spirit had passed to another sphere.
Later, when some measure of order had been restored to the dining-room, when the door had been boarded up and the inquisitive police satisfied and the street crowd dispersed; when a sympathetic waiter had partially cleansed Hawkins, and that gentleman had suggested that we might as well depart, he received a peremptory invitation to call upon the proprietor in his private office.
The proprietor was a calm, cold man. He viewed Hawkins with an inscrutable stare for some time before he spoke.
“I hardly know, Mr. Hawkins,” he said at last, “whom to blame for this.”
“Well, I know! That hulking lummox who knocked over my——”
“At any rate, the machine was yours, I fear you will have to pay for the damage.”
“I will, eh?” blustered Hawkins. “Well, I told your man Macdougal that if one dish was broken I'd pay for it. Here's the dollar for the dish! Come, Griggs.”
“Um-um. So you refuse to settle?” smiled the proprietor.
“Absolutely and positively!” declared Hawkins.
“Well, I think that, pending a suit for damages, I can have you held on a charge of disorderly conduct,” mused the calm man. “Mr. Macdougal, will you kindly call an officer?”
Hawkins wilted at that. His checkbook came forth, and the string of figures he was compelled to write made my heart bleed.
When he had exchanged the slip for a receipt, Hawkins and I made for the side door and slunk out into the night.
The Gasowashine, I presume, or such combustible fragments as remained, had witnessed the start of its short little life.
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