Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures Part 20

Not that I am in any way unsympathetic as to church work and benighted savages and such matters; but when half a dozen women get together and discuss a few heathen and a great many hats and similar things, the solitary man in the house is apt to feel----

At any rate, when I saw Mrs. Hawkins enter my door that evening, the first of the Executive Committee to arrive, I experienced a sinking sensation for the moment. Then I secured my hat, mumbled a few excuses, and disappeared, to see how Hawkins was spending the evening.

The inventor himself answered my ring.

"Ah, Griggs," he remarked. "Committee talk you out of the house?"

"Something of the sort," I admitted.

"Glad you came in. There's something I want to--but hang up your hat."

"Hawkins," I said, closing the door, "why do you pay a large overfed English gentleman to stand around the premises if it's necessary for you to answer the bell? I'm not much on style, you know, but----"

"William? Oh, it's his night out," laughed Hawkins. "I believe the cook and the girls have gone, too, for that matter."

"Then we're altogether alone?"

"Yes," said the inventor comfortably, pus.h.i.+ng forward one of the big library chairs for my accommodation, "all alone in the house."

"And it's a mighty nice house," I mused, gazing into the next apartment, the dining-room. "That's a splendid room, Hawkins."

"Isn't it?" smiled Hawkins, drawing back the heavy curtains rather proudly. "Most of the little wrinkles are my own ideas, too."

"That sideboard?" I asked, indicating a frail-looking but artistic bit of furniture built into the wall.

"That, too--combination of sideboard and silver-safe."

"Safe!" I laughed. "You don't keep the silver in there?"

"Why not?"

"My dear man, any one could pry that door off with a pen-knife."

"Admitted. But supposing your 'any one' to be a burglar, he'd have to get to the door before he could pry it off, would he not, Griggs?"

"Burglars do not, as a rule, find great difficulty in entering the average house," I suggested.

"Aha! That's just it--the average house!" cried the inventor. "This isn't the average house, Griggs. The burglar who tries to get into this particular house is distinctly up against it!"

"Indeed?"

"Yes, sir! The crook that attempts a nocturnal entrance here has my sincere and heartfelt sympathy."

"Hawkins' Patent Automatic Burglar Alarm?" I suggested.

"What the deuce are you sneering at?" snapped the inventor. "No, there's no patent burglar alarm in this house."

"Hawkins' Steel Dynamite-Proof Shutters?"

Hawkins ignored the remark and busied himself lighting a cigar.

"Hawkins' Triple-Expansion Spring-Gun?" I hazarded once more.

"Oh, drop it! Drop it!" cried Hawkins. "Positively, Griggs, your efforts at humor disgust one. In some ways, you are as bad as a woman. Go back and sit with the Executive Committee."

"What's the connection?"

"Why, the thing I expected to show you in a few minutes is the very same one which my wife fought against for two weeks, before she let me put it into operation peacefully!" Hawkins burst out. "There's where the connection comes in between your degenerate little wits and those of the generality of women."

"If it was an invention, I don't blame your wife one little bit, Hawkins," I said. "I can see just how she must have felt about----"

"There's the evening paper, if you want to read," spat forth the inventor, poking the sheet across the library table.

Therewith he turned his back squarely upon me and settled down to a book.

It wasn't polite of Hawkins.

Indeed, after a short s.p.a.ce the situation waxed distinctly uncomfortable; and although I am pretty well accustomed to the inventor's moods, I must admit that in another five minutes I should have cleared out had it not been for a rather unexpected happening.

Hawkins was sitting near the window--in fact, his chair brushed the hangings. As I sat gazing pensively at the back of his neck, a sudden breeze swayed the curtains above him.

There was an undue amount of swis.h.i.+ng overhead, it seemed to me.

Something near the top of the window, and concealed by the hangings, rattled distinctly; simultaneously a gong struck sharply somewhere up-stairs.

Hawkins whirled about, a most remarkable expression on his lately sullen countenance. As nearly as I could a.n.a.lyze it, it was a mixture of joy, excitement, and trembling expectancy.

"One!" he exclaimed.

The bell struck again.

"Two!" cried Hawkins. "By Jove! That's----"

Cras.h.!.+

Out of the curtains something dropped heavily on the inventor!

For an instant it held the appearance of a grain sack, but there was something distinctly solid about it, too, for it dealt Hawkins a resounding whack upon his cranium before it rolled to the floor.

"Phew!" he gasped, sinking back into his chair caressing the b.u.mp with an unsteady hand. "That--that did startle me, Griggs!"

"I shouldn't wonder," I smiled. "What on earth did you have concealed up there?"

"Aha! You'd never guess," remarked Hawkins, his ill-humor departed.

"No, I don't believe I should," I mused, staring at the pile of canvas on the floor. "Did the painters leave it?"

"They did not," replied Hawkins coldly. "That, Griggs, is the Hawkins Crook-Trap!"

"Hawkins--Crook-Trap!" I repeated.