"Oh, but it isn"t!" cried the inventor.
"Hawkins!" I gasped, springing to my feet. "What do you mean?"
"I mean just this: Do you see that little vat in the corner?"
I stared fearfully in the direction indicated. A little vat, indeed, I saw. It stood there, half-filled with a sticky mess, through which an agitator, run by the electric motor, was revolving slowly.
"That"s Hawkinsite, in the process of manufacture!" the inventor announced.
A sickly terror crept over me. I made instinctively for the door.
"Oh, come back," said Hawkins. "You can"t get out, anyway, until I undo the lock. But there"s no danger whatever, my dear boy. Just sit down and I"ll explain why."
I had no choice about sitting down; a most peculiar weakness of the knees made standing for the moment impossible. I drew my chair to the diagonally opposite corner of the apartment, and sat there with my eyes glued upon the vat.
"Now, when all these fellows go about nitrating their glycerine," said Hawkins serenely, "they simply overlook the scientific principle which I have discovered. For instance, out there at Pompton the vat exploded in the very act of mixing in the glycerine. That"s just what is being done over in that corner at this minute----"
"Ouch!" I cried involuntarily.
"But it won"t happen here--it can"t happen here," said the inventor impatiently. "I am using an entirely different combination of chemicals.
Now, if there was any trouble of that sort coming, Griggs, the contents of that vat would have begun to turn green before now. But as you see----"
"Haw--Hawkins!" I croaked hoa.r.s.ely, pointing a shaking finger at the machine.
"Well, what is it now?"
"Look!" I managed to articulate.
"Oh, Lord!" sniffed the inventor. "I suppose as soon as I said that, you began to see green shades appear, eh? Why--dear me!"
Hawkins stepped rapidly over to the side of his mixer. Then he stepped away with considerably greater alacrity.
There was no two ways about it; the devilish mess in the vat was taking on a marked tinge of green!
"Well--I--I guess I"ll shut off the power," muttered Hawkins, suiting the action to the word.
"When the agitator has stopped, Griggs, the ma.s.s will cool at once, so you needn"t worry."
"If it didn"t cool, would it--would it blow up?" I quavered.
"Oh, it would," admitted Hawkins, rather nervously. "But as soon as the mixing ceases, the slight color disappears, as you see."
"I don"t see it; it seems to me to be getting greener than ever."
"Well, it"s not!" the inventor snapped. "Five minutes from now, that stuff will be an even brown once more."
"And while it"s regaining the even brown, why not clear out of here?" I said eagerly.
"Yes, we may as well, I suppose," said Hawkins, with a readiness which refused to be masked under his a.s.sumption of reluctance. "Come on, Griggs."
Hawkins turned the lever on his fancy lock, remarking again:
"Come on."
"Well, open the door."
"It"s op--why, what"s wrong here?" muttered the inventor, twisting the lever back and forth several times.
"Oh, good heavens, Hawkins!" I groaned. "Has your lock gone back on you, too?"
"No, it has not. Of course not," growled the inventor, tugging at his lever with almost frantic energy. "It"s stuck--a little new--that"s all.
Er--do you see a screw-driver on that table, Griggs?"
I handed him the tool as quickly as possible, noting at the same time that despite the cessation of the stirring "Hawkinsite" was getting greener every second.
"I"ll just take it off," panted Hawkins, digging at one of the screws.
"No time to tinker with it now."
"Why not? There"s no danger."
"Certainly there isn"t. But you--you seem to be a little nervous about it, Griggs, and----"
"Hawkins," I cried, "what are those bubbles of red gas?"
"What bubbles?" Hawkins turned as if he had been shot. "Great Scott, Griggs! There were no bubbles of red gas rising out of that stuff, were there?"
"There they go again," I said, pointing to the vat, from which a new ebullition of scarlet vapor had just risen. "What does it mean?"
"Mean?" shrieked Hawkins, turning white and trembling in every limb.
"Yes, mean!" I repeated, shaking him. "Does it mean that----"
"It means that the cursed stuff has over-heated itself, after all.
Lord! Lord! However did it happen? Something must have been impure.
Something----"
"Never mind something. What will it do?"
"It--it--oh, my G.o.d, Griggs! It"ll blow this house into ten thousand pieces within two minutes! Why--why, there"s power enough in that little vat to demolish the Brooklyn Bridge, according to my calculations.
There"s enough explosive force in that much Hawkinsite to wreck every office building down-town!"
"And we"re shut in here with it!"
"Yes! Yes! But let us----"
"Here! Suppose I turn the water into the thing?"
"Don"t!" shouted the inventor wildly, battering at the door with his fists. "It would send us into kingdom come the second it touched! Don"t stand there gaping, Griggs! Help me smash down this door! We must get out, man! We must get the women out! We must warn the neighborhood!
Smash her, Griggs! Smash her! Smash the door!"