that he was sufficiently offended to keep entirely to himself all details of his machine—whatever it might be—I breathed more easily.
Some of these days one of Hawkins' inventions is going to take him on a personally conducted tour to a quiet little grave, and I have no wish to learn the itinerary beforehand.
Now, bitter experience has taught me that eternal vigilance is the price of freedom from complicity with the mechanical contrivances of Hawkins, and I should have been suspicious. Yet when Hawkins appeared Sunday morning and asked me to go for a little jaunt up the Hudson in his launch, I accepted with guileless good faith.
His launch was—perhaps it is still—the neatest of neat little pleasure boats, and when we left the house I anticipated several hours of keen enjoyment.
Crossing Riverside Drive, it struck me that Hawkins was hurrying, but the balmy air, the sunshine, and the beautiful sweep of the river filled my mind with infinite peace, and it was not until we had descended to the little dock that I smelled anything suggestive of rat.
Hawkins climbed into the launch, and I smiled benignly on him as I handed down the lunch and our overcoats. I had just finished passing them over when I stopped smiling so suddenly that it jarred my facial muscles.
“Where has the engine gone?” I demanded.
“That engine, Griggs,” responded Hawkins, pleasantly, “has gone where all other steam engines will go within the next two years—into the scrap heap.”
“Which very cheerful prophecy means——”
“It means, my dear boy, that before you stands the first full-sized working model of the Hawkins A. P. motor, patent applied for!”
The inventor flicked off a waterproof cover and exposed to view in the stern of the launch what looked like an inverted wash-boiler. At first glance it appeared to be merely a dome of heavy steel, bolted to a massive bed-plate, but I didn't spend much time examining the thing.
“There, Griggs,” began Hawkins, triumphantly, “in that small——”
“Hawkins,” I
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