“Hence,” finished Hawkins, dramatically, “the fuel retains its chemical integrity indefinitely, and, as it circulates automatically through the motor, the little engine will run for months at a time without a particle of attention. Is that quite clear?”
“Perfectly,” I lied.
“All right. Now I'll show you how she starts,” smiled the inventor, opening with a key a little door in the wash-boiler and lighting a match.
“Careful, Hawkins, careful,” I ventured, backing toward the cabin.
“My dear fellow,” he sneered, “can you not grasp that in an engine of this construction, there is absolutely no danger of any kind of explo——”
Just then a heavy report issued from the wash-boiler. A sheet of flame seemed to flash from the little opening and precipitate Hawkins into my arms.
At any rate, he landed there with a violent shock, and I clutched him tightly, and tried to steady the launch.
“Leggo! Leggo!” he screamed. “Let me go, you idiot! It always does that! It's working now.”
He was right. The launch was churning up a peculiarly serpentine wake, and the motor was buzzing furiously.
Hawkins dived toward his machinery, tinkered it with nervous haste for a little, and finally managed to head the boat down-stream just as a collision with the Palisades seemed inevitable.
“Really, Griggs,” he remarked, smoothing down his ruffled feathers, “you mustn't interfere with me like that again. We might have hit something that time.”
“We did come near uprooting that cliff,” I admitted.
Hawkins thereupon ignored me for a period of three minutes. Then his temper returned and he began a discourse on the virtues of his motor.
It was long and involved and utterly unintelligible, I think, to any one save Hawkins. It lasted until we had passed the Battery and were in the shadow of Governor's Island.
Then it seemed time for me to remark:
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