“We're going to turn back pretty soon, aren't we, Hawkins?”
“Turn back? What for?”
“Well, if we're going up the Hudson, we can't run much farther in this direction.”
“Hang the Hudson!” smiled the inventor. “We'll go down around Sandy Hook, eat our lunch, and be back in the city at two, sharp. Why, Griggs, this is no scow. What speed do you suppose this motor can develop?”
“I give it up.”
“One hundred knots an hour!”
“Indeed?”
“Confound it! You don't believe it, do you?” snapped Hawkins, who must have read my thoughts. “Well, she can make it easy. I'll just start her up to show you.”
Argument with Hawkins is futile. I saved my breath on the chance of finding better use for it later on.
Hawkins unlocked his little door, fished around in the machinery, and fastened the door again with a calm smile.
Simultaneously, the launch seemed to leap from the water in its anxiety to get ahead. For a few seconds it quivered from end to end. Then it settled down at a gait that actually made me gasp.
I am not positive that we made one hundred knots to the hour, but I do know that I never traveled in an express train that hastened as did that poor launch when the Hawkins A. P. motor began to push it through the water.
An account of our trip down the Narrows and into the Lower Bay would be interesting, but extraneous. Hawkins sat erect beside his infernal machine, looking like a cavalryman in the charge. I squatted in the cabin and watched things flash past.
The main point is that we reached the open water without smashing anything or smashing into anything.
“Well, I think we may as well swing around,” said Hawkins, glancing at his watch. “It's wonderful, the control I have over the launch now. Every bit of the steering-gear is located in that steel dome, along with the motor, Griggs. Nothing at all exposed but this little wheel.
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