There are some men to whom experience never teaches anything.
Hawkins is one of them; I am another.
As concerns Hawkins, I feel pretty sure that some obscure mental aberration lies at the seat of his trouble; for my own part, I am inclined to blame my confiding, unsuspicious nature.
Now, when the Hawkins" cook and the Hawkins" maid came ""cross lots" and carried off our own domestic staff to some festivity, I should have been able to see the hand of Fate groping around in my locality, clearing the scene so as to leave me, alone and unprotected, with Hawkins.
Moreover, when Mrs. Hawkins drove over in style with Patrick, to take my wife to somebody"s afternoon euchre, and brought me a message from her "Herbert," asking me to come and a.s.sist him in fighting off the demon of loneliness, I should have realized that Fate was fairly clutching at me.
By this time I should be aware that when Hawkins is left alone he doesn"t bother with that sort of demon; he links arms with the old, original Satan, and together they stroll into Hawkins" workshop--to perfect an invention.
But I suspected nothing. I went over at once to keep Hawkins company.
When I reached his place, Hawkins didn"t meet my eye at first, but something else did.
For a moment, I fancied that the Weather Bureau had recognized Hawkins"
scientific attainments, and built an observatory for him out by the barn. Then I saw that the thing was merely a tall, skeleton steel tower, with a wind-mill on top--the contrivance with which many farmers pump water from their wells.
"Well," remarked Hawkins, appearing at this point, "can you name it?"
"Well," I said, leaning on the gate and regarding the affair, "I imagine that it is the common or domestic windmill."
"And your imagination, as usual, is all wrong," smiled Hawkins. "That, Griggs, is the Hawkins Pumpless Pump!"
"What!" I gasped, vaulting into the road. "Another invention!"
"Now, don"t be a clown, Griggs," snapped the inventor. "It is----"
"Wait. Did you lure me over here, Hawkins, with the fiendish purpose of demonstrating that thing?"
"Certainly not. It is----"
"Just one minute more. Is it tied down? Will it, by any chance, suddenly gallop over here and fall upon us?"
"No, it will not," replied Hawkins shortly. "The foundations run twenty feet into the ground. Are you coming in or not?"
"Under the circ.u.mstances--yes," I said, entering again, but keeping a wary eye on the steel tower. "But can"t we spend the afternoon out here by the gate?"
"We cannot," said Hawkins sourly. "Your humor, Griggs, is as pointless as it is childish. When you see every farmer in the United States using that contrivance, you will blush to recall your idiotic words."
I was tempted to make some remark about the greater likelihood of memory producing a consumptive pallor; but I refrained and followed Hawkins to the veranda.
"When I built that tower," pursued the inventor, waving his hand at it, "I intended, of course, to use the regulation pump, taking the power from the windmill.
"Then I got an idea.
"You know how a grain elevator works--a series of buckets on an endless chain, running over two pulleys, just as a bicycle chain runs over two sprockets? Very well. Up at the top of that tower I extended the hub of the windmill back to form a shaft with big cogs. Down at the bottom of the well there is another corresponding shaft with the same cogs. Over the two, as you will see, runs an endless ladder of steel cable. Is that clear?"
"I guess so," I said, wearily. "Go on."
"Well, that"s as far as I have gone. Next week the buckets are coming. I shall hitch one to each rung of the chain, or ladder, throw on the gear, and let her go.
"The buckets will run down into the well upside down, come up on the other side filled, run to the top of the tower, and dump the water into a reservoir tank--and go down again. Thus I pump water without a pump--in other words, with a pumpless pump!
"Simple! Efficient! Nothing to get out of order--no valves, no pistons, no air-chambers--nothing whatever!" finished Hawkins triumphantly.
"Wonderful!" I said absently.
"Isn"t it?" cried the inventor. "Now, do you want to look over it, to-day, Griggs, or shall we run through those drawings of my new loom?"
Hawkins has invented a loom, too. I don"t know much about machinery in general, but I do know something about the plans, and from what I can judge by the plans, if any workman was fool-hardy enough to enter the room with Hawkins" loom in action, that intricate bit of mechanism would reach out for him, drag him in, macerate him, and weave him into the cloth, all in about thirty seconds.
But an explanation of this to Hawkins would merely have precipitated another conflict. I chose what seemed to be the lesser evil; I elected to examine the pumpless pump.
"All right," said the inventor happily. "Come along, Griggs. You"re the only one that knows anything about this. In a week or two, when somebody writes it up in the _Scientific American_, you"ll feel mighty proud of having heard my first explanation of the thing."
The pump was just as Hawkins had described--a thin steel ladder coming out of the well"s black mouth, running up to and over the shaft, and descending into the blackness again. When we reached its side, it was stationary, for the air was still.
"There!" cried Hawkins. "All it needs is the buckets and the tank on top. That idea comes pretty near to actual execution, Griggs, doesn"t it?"
"Most of your ideas do come pretty near to actual execution, Hawkins," I sighed.
That pa.s.sed over Hawkins" head.
"Now, look down here," he continued, leaning over the well with a calm disregard of the frailty of the human make-up, and grasping one of the rungs of the ladder. "Just look down here, Griggs. Sixty feet deep!"
"I"ll take your word for it," I said. "I wouldn"t hold on to that ladder, Hawkins; it might take a notion to go down with you."
"Nonsense!" smiled the inventor. "The gear"s locked. It can"t move. Why, look here!"
The man actually swung himself out to the ladder and stood there. It made my blood run cold.
I expected to see Hawkins, ladder, and all shoot down into the water, and I wondered whether Heaven would send wind enough to hoist him out before he drowned.
But nothing happened. Hawkins himself stood there and surveyed me with sneering triumph.
"You see, Griggs," he observed caustically, "once in a while I do know something about my inventions. Now, if your faint heart will allow it, I should advise you to take a peep down here. So far as I know, it"s the only well in the State built entirely of white tiles. Just steady yourself on the ladder and look."
Like a senseless boy taking a dare, I reached out, gripped the rung above Hawkins, and looked down.
Certainly it was a fine well. I never paid much attention to wells, but I could see at a glance that this one was exceptional.
"I had it tiled last week," continued Hawkins. "A tiled well is absolutely safe, you see. Nothing can happen in a tiled well, no----"
That was another of Hawkins" fallacies. Something happened right then and there.
A gentle breeze started the windmill. Slowly, spectacularly, the ladder began to move--downwards!