"Mr. Griggs," cried Hawkins" wife, in terror that was not all feigned, "don"t suggest it!"
"Now, my dear----" began Hawkins, stiffening at once.
"Hush, Herbert, hush! You"ve made mischief enough with your inventions, but you have never, thank goodness, dabbled in explosives."
"If I wanted to tell you what I know about explosives, and what I could do----" declaimed Hawkins.
"Don"t tell us, Mr. Hawkins," laughed my wife. "A sort of superst.i.tious dread comes over me at the notion."
"Mrs. Griggs!" exclaimed Hawkins, eying my wife with a glare which in any other man would have earned him the best licking I could give him--but which, like many other things, had to be excused in Hawkins.
"Herbert!" said his wife, authoritatively. "Be still. Actually, you"re quite excited!"
Hawkins lapsed into sulky silence, and the meal ended with just a hint of constraint.
Mrs. Hawkins and my wife adjourned to the drawing-room, and Hawkins and I were left, theoretically, to smoke a post-prandial cigar. Hawkins, however, had other plans for my entertainment.
"Are they up-stairs?" he muttered, as footsteps sounded above us.
"They seem to be."
"Then you come with me," whispered Hawkins, heading me toward the servants" staircase.
"Where?" I inquired suspiciously.
There was a peculiar glitter in his eye.
"Come along and you"ll see," chuckled Hawkins, beginning the ascent.
"Oh, I"ll tell you what," he continued, pausing on the second landing, "these women make me tired!"
"Indeed?"
"Yes, they do. You needn"t look huffy, Griggs. It isn"t your wife or my wife. It"s the whole s.e.x. They chatter and prattle and make silly jokes about things they"re absolutely incapable of understanding."
"My dear Hawkins," I said soothingly, "you wrong the fair s.e.x."
"Oh, I wrong "em, eh? Well, what woman knows the first thing about explosives?" demanded Hawkins heatedly. "Dynamite or rhexite or meganite or carbonite or stonite or vigorite or cordite or ballist.i.te or thorite or maxamite----"
"Stop, Hawkins, stop!" I cried.
"Well, that"s all, anyway," said the inventor. "But what woman knows enough about them to argue the thing intelligently? And yet my wife tells me--I, who have spent nearly half a lifetime in scientific labor--she actually tells me to--to shut up, when I hint at having some slight knowledge of the subject!"
"I know, Hawkins, but your scientific labors have made her--and me--suffer in the past."
"Oh, they have, have they?" grunted Hawkins, climbing toward the top floor. "Well, come up, Griggs."
I knew the door at which he stopped. It was that of Hawkins" workshop or laboratory. It was on the floor with the servants, who, poor things, probably did not know or dared not object to the risk they ran.
"What"s the peculiar humming?" I asked, pausing on the threshold.
"Only my electric motor," sneered Hawkins. "It won"t bite you, Griggs.
Come in."
"And what is this big, bra.s.s bolt on the door?" I continued.
"That? Oh, that"s an idea!" cried the inventor. "That"s my new springlock. Just look at that lock, Griggs. It simply can"t be opened from the outside, and only from the inside by one who knows how to work it. And I"m the only one who knows. When I patent this thing----"
"Well, I wouldn"t close the door, Hawkins," I murmured. "You might faint or something, and I"d be shut in here till somebody remembered to hunt for me."
"Bah!" exclaimed Hawkins, slamming the door, violently. "Really, for a grown man, you"re the most chicken-hearted individual I ever met.
But--what"s the use of talking about it? To get back to explosives----"
"Oh, never mind the explosives," I said wearily. "You"re right, and that settles it."
"See here," said Hawkins sharply; "I had no intention of mentioning explosives to-night, for a particular reason. In a day or two, you"ll hear the country ringing with my name, in connection with explosives.
But since the subject has come up, if you want to listen to me for a few minutes, I"ll interest you mightily."
Kind Heaven! Could I have realized then the bitter truth of those last words!
"Yes, sir," the inventor went on, "as I was saying--or was I saying it?--they all have their faults--dynamite, rhexite, meganite, carbonite, ston----"
"You went over that list before."
"Well, they all have their faults. Either they explode when you don"t want them to, or they don"t explode when you do want them to, or they"re liable to explode spontaneously, or something else. It"s all due, as I have invariably contended, to impure nitro-glycerine or unscientific handling of the pure article."
"Yes."
"Yes, indeed. Now, what would you say to an explosive----"
"Absolutely nothing," I replied decidedly. "I should pa.s.s it without even a nod."
"Never mind your nonsense, Griggs. What would you--er--what would you think of an explosive that could be dropped from the roof of a house without detonating?"
"Remarkable!"
"An explosive," continued Hawkins impressively, "into which a man might throw a lighted lamp without the slightest fear! How would that strike you?"
"Well, Hawkins," I said, "I think I should have grave doubts of the man"s mental condition."
"Oh, just cut out that foolish talk," snapped the inventor. "I"m quite serious. Suppose I should tell you that I had thought and thought over this problem, and finally hit upon an idea for just such a powder? Where would dynamite and rhexite and meganite and all the rest of them be, beside----"
He paused theatrically.
"Hawkinsite!"
"Don"t know, Hawkins," I said, unable to absorb any of his enthusiasm.
"But let us thank goodness that it is only an idea as yet."