Perhaps some of the blame should rest upon the barbaric habit of having Sunday dinner in the middle of the afternoon.
Had it been evening when Hawkins and his better half sat down to dinner with us, it would not, naturally, have been daylight; and much unpleasantness might have been avoided, for the gas had not yet been turned on in the modeled Hawkins residence, and an inspection would have been impossible.
Again, I may have started the trouble myself by bringing up the subject of the renovations.
“Yes, the work's all done,” said Hawkins, with a more genial air than he usually exhibited when that topic was touched. “I tell you, it's a model home now.”
“Particularly in containing no new inventions by its owner,” added Mrs. Hawkins.
“Oh, those may come later,” said the gifted inventor, casting a complacent wink in my direction.
“Not if I have anything to say about it,” replied the lady rather tartly. “We escaped with our lives when the house was wrecked, but next time——”
“Madam,” flared Hawkins, “if you knew what that house——”
Just here my wife broke in with a spasmodic remark anent the doings of the Russians in Manchuria, and a discussion of the merits of Hawkins' inventions was happily averted.
But the spunky light didn't die out of Hawkins' eye. He appeared to be nursing something beside wrath, and when we arose from the table he remarked shortly:
“Come up to the house, Griggs, and smoke a cigar while we look it over.”
“And note the charm of the inventionless home,” supplemented his wife.
“Inventionless fiddlestick!” snapped Hawkins as he slammed the door behind us. “It's a wonder to me that women weren't created either with sense or without tongues.”
I made no comment and we walked in silence to the Hawkins house.
It had been done over in a style which must have made Hawkins' bank account look like an Arabian grain field after a particularly bad locust year; but beyond noting the general beauty of the decorations, I found nothing remarkable until we reached the second floor.
There, as we gazed from the back windows, it struck me that something familiar had departed, and I asked:
“What's become of the fire-escape?”
“Don't you see, eh?” said the inventor, with a prodigiously mysterious smile.
“Hardly. Have you made it invisible?”
“No and yes,” chuckled Hawkins. “What would you say, Griggs, to a fire-escape that you kept indoors until it was needed?”
“I should say 'nay, nay,' if any one wanted me to use it.”
“No, I mean—oh, come up-stairs and I'll show it to you at once.”
“Show me what, Hawkins?” I cried, detaining him with a firm hand. “Is it another contrivance? Has it a motor? Does it use gasolene or gunpowder or dynamite?”
“No, it does not!” said the inventor gruffly, trudging toward the top of the house.
“There!” he exclaimed when we had reached the upper floor. “That's it. What do you think of it?”
It was a device of strange appearance. It seemed to be a huge clothes-basket, such as is used for transportation of the family “wash,” and it was piled with what appeared to be the remains of as many white sun-umbrellas as could have been collected at half a dozen seaside resorts.
“What is it?” I said with a blank smile. “Junk?”
“No, it's not junk. That mass of ribs and white silk which looks like junk to your unaccustomed eye constitutes a set of aeroplanes or wings.”
“But the other thing is merely the common or domestic variety of wash-basket, is it not?”
“Well—er—yes,” admitted Hawkins with cold dignity. “That happened to be the most suitable thing for my purpose in this experimental model. Now, you see, when the wings are spread the basket is suspended beneath just as the car of a balloon is suspended from a gas-bag, and——”
“Aha! I see it all now!” I cried. “You fill the basket, point it in the right direction, and it flaps its wings and flies away to the washlady!”
“That, Griggs,” sneered Hawkins, “is about the view a poor little brain like yours, permeated with cheap humor, would take. Really, I don't suppose you could guess the purpose or the name of that thing if you tried a week.”
“Candidly, I don't think I could. What is it?”
“It's the Hawkins Anti-Fire-Fly!” said the inventor.
“The Hawkins—what?” I ejaculated.
“The Anti-Fire-Fly!” repeated Hawkins enthusiastically. “Say, Griggs, how that will sound in an advertisement: 'Fly Away From Fire With The Anti-Fire-Fly!' Great, isn't it?”
“So it's a fire escape?”
“Certainly,” chuckled Hawkins, digging around among the ribs and bringing into tangible shape what looked like several sets of huge bird-wings. “No more climbing down red-hot ladders through belching flames! No more children being thrown from fifth story windows! No, siree! All we have to do now is to place the Anti-Fire-Fly on the window-sill, spread the wings, jump into the basket, push her off, and——”
“And drop to instant death!”
“And float gently away from the fire and down to the earth!” concluded Hawkins, opening the window and shoving out the basket until it fairly hung over the back yard. “Just watch me.”
“See here!” I cried. “You're not going to get into that thing?”
“I'm not, eh? You watch me!”
Hawkins had clambered into the basket before I could lay a hand on him.
“Now!” he cried, giving a push with his foot.
My breathing apparatus seemed to go on strike. Hawkins, basket, wings, and all dropped from the window.
For an instant they went straight toward the earth; then, like a parachute opening, the wings spread gracefully, the descent slackened, and Hawkins floated down, down, down—until he landed in the center of the yard without a jar.
Really, I was amazed. It seemed to be either a special dispensation of Providence or an invention of Hawkins' which really worked.
A minute or two later he had labored back to my side, up the stairs, with the aerial fire-escape on his back.
“There!” he exclaimed. “What do you think of that?”
“It certainly seems to be a success.”
“Well, rather! Now come up to the roof and have a drop with me. We'll go into the street this time, and——”
“Thank you, Hawkins,” I said, positively. “Don't count me in on that. I'll wait for the fire before dabbling with your Anti-Fire-Fly.”
“Oh, well, come with me, anyway. I'm going down once more. You've no idea of the sensation.”
It was a considerable feat of engineering to persuade the Anti-Fire-Fly into passing through the scuttle, but Hawkins finally accomplished it, and pushed the contrivance to the edge of the roof.
“Now that thing will carry a small family with ease and safety,” he said proudly. “Just sit down in the basket and feel the roominess. Oh, don't be afraid. I'll come, too.”
“Yes, it's very nice,” I said somewhat nervously, after crouching beside him for a moment. “I think I'll get out now.”
“All ri—oh! Here! Wait!” cried Hawkins, grabbing my coat and pulling me back. “Sit down!”
“What for?”
“The—the—the wings!” stuttered the inventor. “The—the wind!”
“Great Scott!” I shouted as a sudden breeze caught the wings and tilted the basket far to one side. “Let me out!”
“No, no!” shrieked Hawkins wildly. “You'll break your neck, man! We're right on the edge of the roof now, and——”
And we were over the edge!
There was the street—miles below! Sickening dread choked me. I closed my eyes and gripped the basket as the accursed thing swayed from side to side and threatened every instant to precipitate us on the hard stones.
But it grew steadier presently. I looked about.
There was Hawkins hanging on for dear life, and white as death, but still serene. There, also, were numerous graveled roofs—some twenty feet below.
We were going up! Also, I was startled to note that the high wind was driving us down-town at a rapid pace.
“See here, Hawkins!” I said. “What does this mean?”
“M-m-means that a big wind has caught us,” replied the inventor with a sickly smile.
“And when do you suppose it's going to let go of us?”
“Well—we—we may be able to catch one of those high roofs over there,” murmured Hawkins with assurance that did not reassure. “You—you know we can't go up very far, Griggs. This thing was not built for flying.”
“For anything that wasn't made for the purpose, it's doing wonders,” I retorted. Then a sudden puff sent us up fully ten feet. “Heavens! There goes our chance at those roofs!”
“Dear me! So it does!” muttered the inventor as we sailed gracefully over the chimney-tops. “How unfortunate!”
“It'll be a lot more unfortunate when we pitch down into the street!” I snarled.
“Now, Griggs,” said Hawkins argumentatively as we sped down-town on the steadily rising wind, “why do you always take this pessimistic view of things? Can't you see—is it beyond your little mental scope to realize that we have fairly fallen over a great discovery, something that men have been seeking for ages? Don't you comprehend, from the very fact of our being up here and still rising that these wings accidentally embody the vital principles of the dirigible——”
“Oh, dry up!” I growled as we flitted swiftly past a church steeple.
Hawkins regarded me sadly, and I sadly regarded the street below and tried to assimilate the fact that we were two hundred feet above the ground and rising at every puff of wind; that we were in a crazy clothes-basket, suspended from a crazier pair of wings, absolutely at the mercy of the breeze and likely at any moment to drop to eternal smash!
I did realize, without any effort, that my lower limbs were developing excruciating shooting pains from the cramped position.
The time passed very slowly. The houses below passed with astounding rapidity.
I thought of our wives, sitting calmly in my home, ignorant of our plight. I wondered what their sentiments would be when some kindly ambulance surgeon had brought home such fragments of Hawkins and me as might have been collected with a dust-pan and brush.
I wondered whether the accursed Anti-Fire-Fly would dump us out and flutter away into eternity, to leave our fate unexplained, or whether it would accompany us to our doom and be found gloating over the respective grease-spots that would represent all that was mortal of Hawkins and myself.
And at about this point in my meditations, I noted that we were sailing over Union Square.
“Isn't it fine?” cried Hawkins enthusiastically. “You never came down-town like this before, Griggs.”
“I never expect to again, Hawkins,” I sighed.
“Why not? Why, Griggs, this thing is only the nucleus of my future airship, and yet see how it floats! Oh, I've thought it all out in the last five minutes. It's astonishing that it never occurred to me before. Now, these wings, you see, are so constructed——”
“See here, Hawkins,” I said, “do you mean to say that you expect to get out of this thing alive?”
“Certainly,” replied the inventor in astonishment. “There's no danger. I can see that now, although I was a trifle startled at first. It's only a matter of minutes when we shall go near enough to one of those big office buildings to grab it and stop ourselves.”
“And clamber down the side—twenty or thirty stories?”
“And even if we can't land, we shan't fall. The construction of these wings is such——”
“Oh, hang the construction of your wings!” I cried. “We're going right toward the bay—suppose the wind dies down and lets us into the water?”
“Well, these wings are water-proof, you know,” said Hawkins. “They might——”
“Yes, and the bay might dry up, so that we could walk back if we escaped being broken in pieces, Hawkins,” I sneered.
Hawkins subsided. The breeze did not.
It was one of the most impolitely persistent breezes I have ever encountered. It seemed bent on landing us in New York harbor, and before many minutes we were suspended high above that expansive, and in some circumstances, charming body of water.
{Illustration: “Before many minutes we were suspended high above that expansive, and in some circumstances charming, body of water."}
Furthermore, having wafted us something like a quarter of a mile from shore, it proceeded to die out in a manner which was, to say the least, disheartening.
Hawkins grew paler by perceptible shades as we progressed, ever nearer the water and farther from hope; and it was not until I opened my mouth to vent a few last invidious criticisms of him and his methods that the inventor's face brightened.
“By Jove, Griggs! Look! That ferry-boat! That fellow on the roof! He's got a boat-hook! Hey! Hey! Hey! you!”
The individual gazed aloft and nearly collapsed with astonishment.
“Catch us!” bawled the inventor frantically. “Catch the basket with that hook! We want to come aboard! Hurry up!”
The boat was going in our direction and rather faster. The man on the roof seemed to comprehend. He reached up with his hook. He leaped a couple of times in vain.
And then we felt a shock which told of our capture! I breathed a long, happy sigh.
In dealing with Hawkins' inventions, long, happy sighs are premature unless you are positive that your entire anatomical structure is complete, and likewise certain that the contrivance lies at your feet in a condition of total wreck.
The basket was suspended from a thin, steel frame, from which several dozen stout cords rose to that idiotic pair of wings. When we were fairly caught, Hawkins cried:
“Now, Griggs, stand up and catch the frame and pull the whole business down with us. And you, down there, pull hard! Pull hard, now!”
I seized the steel frame on one side, Hawkins on the other, and we pulled. And the man with the boat-hook pulled. And at the psychological moment the wind rose afresh and pulled at the wings with a mighty pull!
Some seconds of dizzy swirling in the air, and the clothes-basket portion of the Anti-Fire-Fly lay on the roof of the ferry-boat, while Hawkins and I hung far above, entangled in the cords and clutching them wildly and rising steadily once more!
“Great Caesar's ghost!” gurgled the inventor. “This is awful!”
“Awful!” I gasped when breath had returned. “It's—it's——”
“Lord! Lord! We're going straight for Staten Island. Don't move, Griggs.”
“I can't,” I said. “I'm caught tight here. Good-by, Hawkins.”
“We're—we're not done for yet,” quavered that individual. “We may hit land. But isn't—isn't it terrible?”
“Oh, no,” I groaned. “It's all right. No more climbing down red-hot ladders through belching flames! No more throwing children from——”
“Don't joke, Griggs,” wailed Hawkins. “I will say I'm sorry I got you into this.”
“Thank you, Hawkins,” I said, nearly strangled by a cord which persisted in twisting itself about my neck. “So am I.”
Conversation lagged after that. For my part, I was too dazed and too firmly enmeshed in the cords to say much.
I fancy that the same applied to Hawkins, but he happened to be facing ahead, and now and then he called back bulletins of our progress.
“Getting nearer the island,” he announced after some ten minutes of the agony.
A little later: “Thank Heaven! We're almost over land!”
And still later, when I had been choked and twisted almost into insensibility by the eccentric dives of the affair and the consequent tightening of the cords, he revived me with:
“By George, Griggs, we're sinking toward land!”
I managed to look downward. Hawkins had told the truth. The wind was indeed going down, and with it the remains of the Anti-Fire-Fly.
Beneath appeared a big factory, its chimney belching forth black smoke in disregard of the Sabbath, and we seemed likely to land within its precincts.
“I knew it! I knew it!” Hawkins cried joyfully. “We're safe, after all, just as I said. We'll drop just outside the fence.”
“Thank the Lord,” I murmured.
“No! No! We'll drop right on that heap of dirt!” predicted Hawkins excitedly. “Yes, sir, that's where we'll drop. D'ye see that fellow wheeling a wheelbarrow toward the pile? Hey!”
The man glanced up in amazement.
“Farther down every minute!” pursued Hawkins. “I knew we'd be all right! Maybe the Anti-Fire-Fly isn't such a bad thing after all, eh?”
“Maybe not,” I sighed. “But I'll take the red-hot ladder.”
“Go ahead and take it,” chattered the inventor. “We're not thirty feet from the ground and steering straight for that dirt-pile. Yes, sir, the wind's gone down completely. Hooray!”
“Hey, youse!” shouted the man with the wheelbarrow, somewhat excitedly.
“Well?” bawled Hawkins.
“Steer away from it!” continued the workman, waving his arms at the pile.
“We can't steer,” replied Hawkins cheerfully. “But it's all right.”
“The poile! The poile! Sure, we've just drew the foire, an' thim's the hot coals! Be careful o' the cinder poile!”
“What did he say?” asked Hawkins superciliously.
“'Be careful of the cinder pile,' I think.”
“Oh, we won't hurt your old cinder pile!” called the inventor jocosely, as the wreck of the Anti-Fire-Fly swooped down with a rush.
“But the cinders!” howled the man. “Bedad! They're into it! Mike! Mike! Bring the hose! The hose!”
And we were into it.
A final rush of air and we struck the pile with a thud. And for my part, I had no sooner landed than I bounced to my feet with a shriek, for that cinder pile was about the hottest proposition it has ever been my misfortune to meet.
The cords were all about me, and as I pulled wildly in one direction, I could feel Hawkins pulling as wildly in the opposite.
“Let go! Let go, Griggs!” he screamed. “Come my way! Lord! I'm all afire! Come, quick!”
“I'm not going to climb back over that infernal heap!” I shouted. “You come this way!”
“But my feet! They're burning, and——”
A mighty stream of water knocked me headlong to the ground. Sizzling, steaming on the red-hot cinders, it caught Hawkins and hurled his panting person to the other side, Anti-Fire-Fly and all. Mike had arrived with the hose.
After a period of wallowing in water and mud I regained my feet.
Hawkins was already standing a little distance away, torn, scorched, drenched, black with cinders and staring wild-eyed about him.
“Why—why—Griggs,” he mumbled, “what—did—we——”
“Oh, we flew away from fire with the Anti-Fire-Fly!” I said.
Such was the end of the Anti-Fire-Fly.
Attired in such of our own raiment as had survived the cinder pile and the hose, and in other bits of clothing contributed by kindly factory workmen, we took the next boat for New York, and a cab thereafter.
We reached home in time to see the ladies mounting the Hawkins' steps, presumably to investigate the reason for our prolonged inspection.
For a few moments they seemed quite incapable of speech. Mrs. Hawkins was the first to regain the use of her tongue.
“Herbert,” she said in an ominously calm tone, “what was it this time?”
Hawkins smiled foolishly.
“It was the Hawkins Anti-Fire-Fly,” I said spitefully. “Fly away from fire with the Anti-Fire-Fly, you know. Tell your wife about it, Hawkins.”
Then Mrs. Hawkins addressed her husband and said—but let that pass.
We have all the essential facts of the case as it is. Moreover, a possible taste just now.
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