We were sitting on my porch, smoking placidly in the sunset glow, when Hawkins aroused himself from a momentary reverie and remarked:

“Now, if the body were made of aluminum it would be far lighter and just as strong, wouldn't it?”

“Probably, Hawkins,” I replied, “but it would also be decidedly stiff and inconvenient. Just imagine how one's aluminium knees would crackle and bend going up and down-stairs, and what an awful job one would have conforming one's aluminum spinal column to the back of a chair.”

“No, no, no, no,” cried Hawkins, impatiently. “I don't mean the human body, Griggs; I——”

“I'm glad to hear it,” I said. “Don't you go to inventing an aluminum man, Hawkins. Good, old-fashioned flesh and bones have been giving thorough satisfaction for the past few thousand years, and it would be wiser for you to turn your peculiar talents toward——”

“There! there! That will do!” snapped the inventor, standing stiffly erect and throwing away his cigar. “This is not the first time that that mistaken humor of yours has prevented your absorbing new ideas, Griggs. Incidentally, I may mention that I was referring to the body of an automobile. Good-evening!”

Whereupon Hawkins stalked up the road in the direction of his summer home, and I wondered for a minute if his words might not be prophetic of future trouble.

Now, where any aspersion is cast upon his inventive genius, Hawkins is quick to anger, but usually he is equally ready to forgive and forget. Hence it astonished me that two whole weeks passed Without the appearance of his genial countenance on my premises.

They were really two weeks of peace unbroken, but I had begun to think that it might be better for me to stroll over and beg pardon for my levity when one bright morning Hawkins came chug-chugging up the drive in a huge, new, red automobile.

It was of the type so constructed that the two rear seats of the car may be dropped off at will, converting it into a carriage for two, and the only peculiar detail I noted was the odd-looking top or canopy.

“Well, what do you think of her?” demanded Hawkins with some pride.

“She's all right,” I said, admiringly.

“Body's built of aluminum,” continued the inventor. “Jump in and feel the action of her.”

As I have said, barring the canopy, the thing appeared to be an ordinary touring-car, and I was tired of lolling in the hammock. Without misgiving, I climbed in beside Hawkins, and he turned back to the road.

The auto did run beautifully. I had never been in a machine that was so totally indifferent to rough spots.

When we came to a hillock, we simply floated over it. If we reached an uncomfortably sharp turn, the auto seemed to rise and cut it off with hardly a swerve.

Once or twice I noticed that Hawkins deliberately steered out of the road and into big rocks; but the auto, in the most peculiar manner, just touched them and bounced over with never a jar.

In fact, after two miles of rather heavy going, I suddenly realized that I hadn't experienced the slightest of jolts.

“Hawkins,” I observed, “the man that made the springs under this thing must have been a magician.”

“Well, well!” said the inventor. “On to it at last that there is something out of the ordinary about this auto, are you? But it's not the springs, my dear boy, it's not the springs!”

“What is it?”

“Griggs,” said Hawkins, beaming upon me, “you are riding in the first and only Hawkins' Auto-aero-mobile! That's what it is!”

“Another invention!” I gasped.

“Yes, another invention. What the deuce are you turning pale about?”

“Well, your inventions, Hawkins—”

“Don't be such a coward, Griggs. Except that I had the body built of aluminum, this is just an ordinary automobile. The invention lies in the canopy. It's a balloon!”

“Is it—is it?” I said weakly.

“Yes, sir. Just at present it's a balloon with not quite enough gas in it to counterbalance the pull of gravitation on the car and ourselves. I've got two cylinders of compressed gas still connected with it. When I let them feed automatically into the balloon, and then automatically drop the iron cylinders themselves in to the road, we shall fairly bound over the ground, because the balloon will just a trifle more than carry the whole outfit.”

“Well, don't waste all that good gas, Hawkins,” I said hastily. “I can—I can understand perfectly just how we should bound without that.”

“Don't worry about the gas,” smiled Hawkins placidly. “It costs practically nothing. There! One of the cylinders is discharging now.”

I glanced timidly above. Sure enough, the canopy was expanding slowly and assuming a spherical shape.

Presently a thud announced that Hawkins had dropped the cylinder. Then he pulled another lever, and the process was repeated.

As the second cylinder dropped, we rose nearly a foot into the air. Still we maintained a forward motion, and that was puzzling.

“How is it, Hawkins,” I quavered, “that we're still going ahead when we don't touch the ground more than once in a hundred feet?”

“That's the propeller,” chuckled the inventor. “I put a propeller at the back, so that the auto is almost a dirigible balloon. Oh, there's nothing lacking about the Hawkins Auto-aero-mobile, Griggs, I can tell you.”

When I had recovered from the first nervous shock, the contrivance really did not seem so dangerous.

We traveled in long, low leaps, the machine rarely rising more than a foot from the ground, and the motion was certainly unique and rather pleasant.

Nevertheless, I have a haunting fear of anything invented by Hawkins, and my mind would insist upon wandering to thoughts of home.

“Not going down-town, are you, Hawkins?” I asked with what carelessness I could assume.

“Just for a minute. I want some cigars.”

“Hawkins,” I murmured, “you are a pretty heavy man. When you get out of this budding airship, it won't soar into the heavens with me, will it?”

“It would if I got out,” said the inventor, with pleasant assurance. “But I'm not going to get out. We'll let the cigar man bring the stuff to us.”

So it would rise if any weight left the car! That was food for thought.

Suppose Hawkins, who operated the auto according to the magazine pictures of racing chauffeurs, leaning far forward, should topple into the road? Suppose a stray breeze should tilt the machine and throw out some part?

Up without doubt, we should go, and there seemed to be quite an open space up above, through which we might travel indefinitely without hitting anything that would stay our celestial journey.

“How do you let the gas out of the balloon, Hawkins?” I ventured presently.

“Oh, the cock's down underneath the machine,” said that gentleman briefly. “Don't worry, Griggs. I'm here.”

That, in a nutshell, was just what was worrying me, but there seemed to be nothing more to say. I relapsed into silence.

We rolled or floated or bounced, or whatever you may choose to call it, into town without accident or incident. People stared considerably at the kangaroo antics of our car, and one or two horses, after their first glance, developed furor transitorius on the spot; but Hawkins managed to pull up before his cigar store, which was in the outskirts of the town, without kicking up any very serious disturbance.

The cigars aboard, I had hoped to turn my face homeward. Not so Hawkins.

“Now, down we go to the square,” he cried buoyantly, “do a turn before the court house, float straight over the common, and then bounce away home. I guess it'll make the natives talk, eh, Griggs?”

“Your things usually do, Hawkins,” I sighed. “But why perform to-day? This is only the first trial trip. Something might go wrong.”

“My dear boy,” laughed the inventor, “this is one of those trial trips that simply can't go wrong, because every detail is perfected to the uttermost limit.”

That settled it; we made for the square.

The square, be it remarked, is in the center of the town. The court house stands on one side, the post office on the other, and the square itself is a beautifully kept lawn.

We were just in sight of the grass when I fancied that I detected a rattle.

“What's that noise, Hawkins?” I said.

“Give it up. Something in the machinery. It's nothing.”

“But I seem to feel a peculiar shaking in the machine,” I persisted.

“You seem to feel a great many things that don't exist, Griggs,” remarked Hawkins, with a touch of contempt.

“But——”

“Hey, mister!” yelled a small boy. “Hey! Yer back seat's fallin' off!”

“What did he say?” muttered Hawkins, too full of importance to turn his head.

“Hey! Hey!” cried the youngster, pursuing us. “Dat back seat's most fell off!”

“What!” shrieked Hawkins, whirling about. “Good Lord! So it is! Catch it, Griggs, catch it quick!”

I turned. The boy was right. The rear seats of the automobile had managed to detach themselves.

In fact, even as we stared, they were hanging by a single bolt, and the head of that was missing.

“Griggs! Griggs!” shouted Hawkins, wildly endeavoring to stop the engine. “Grab those seats before they fall! I didn't screw 'em on with a wrench—only used my hands—but I supposed they were fast. Heavens! If they drop, we shall go——”

Just at that moment a sudden jolt sent the seats into the road.

Two hundred pounds of solid material had left the Hawkins Auto-aero-mobile!

Hawkins didn't have to finish the sentence.

It became painfully evident where we should go.

We went up!

Up, up, up! In the suddenness of it, it seemed to me that we were shooting straight for the midday sun, that another thirty seconds would see us frying in the solar flames.

As I gripped the cushions, I believe that I shrieked with terror.

But Hawkins, scared though he was, didn't lose his head entirely. The machine hadn't turned turtle. It was ascending slowly in its normal attitude, and as a matter of cold fact we hadn't risen more than thirty feet when Hawkins remarked, shakily:

“There, there, Griggs! Sit still! It's all right. We're safe!”

“Safe!” I gasped, when sufficient breath had returned. “It looks as if we were safe, doesn't it?”

“N-n-never mind how it looks, Griggs. We are. The propeller's working now.”

“What good does that do us?” I demanded.

“Good!” cried the inventor, pulling himself together. “Why, we shall simply steer for the roof of a house and alight.”

“Always provided that this cursed contrivance doesn't heave us out first!”

“Oh, it won't,” smiled Hawkins, settling down to his machinery once more. “Dear me, Griggs, do look at the crowd!”

There was indeed a crowd. They had sprung up on the instant, and they were racing along beneath us across the common, quite regardless of the “Keep Off the Grass” signs.

“How they will stare when we step out on the roof, won't they?” observed Hawkins.

“If we don't step out on their heads!” I snapped. “Steer away from those telegraph wires, Hawkins.”

“Yes, yes, of course,” said the inventor, nervously regarding the thirty or forty wires strung directly across our path. “Queer this thing doesn't respond more readily!”

“Well, make her respond!” I cried, excitedly, for the wires were dangerously near.

“I'm doing my best, Griggs,” grunted the inventor, twisting this wheel and pulling that lever. “Don't worry, we'll sail over them all right. We'll just—pshaw!”

With a gentle, swaying kind of bump, the auto stopped. We had grounded, so to speak, on the telegraph wires.

“That's the end of this trial trip!” I remarked, caustically. “The epilogue will consist of the scene we create in distributing our brains over that green grass below.”

“Oh, tut, tut!” said Hawkins. “This is nothing serious. I'll just start the propeller on the reverse and we'll float off backward.”

“Well, wait a minute before you start it,” I said. “They're shouting something.”

“Don't jump! Don't jump!” cried the crowd.

“Who the dickens is going to jump?” replied Hawkins, angrily, leaning over the side. “Fools!” he observed to me.

“The hook and ladder's coming!” continued a stentorian voice.

{Illustration: “Don't jump! Don't jump!” cried the crowd.}

“Well, they'll have their trouble for their pains,” snapped Hawkins. “We shall be on the ground before they get here.”

“Why not wait?” I said. “We'll be sure to get down safely that way, and you don't know what you may do by starting the machinery. The wires are all mixed up in it, and they may smash and drag us down, or upset us, Hawkins.”

“Croak! Croak! Croak!” replied Hawkins, sourly. “Go on and croak till your dying day, Griggs. If any one ever offers a prize for a pessimistic alarmist, you take my advice and compete. You'll win. I'm going to start the engine and get out of this.”

He pulled the reverse lever, and the engine buzzed merrily. The auto indulged in a series of unwholesome convulsive shivers, but it didn't budge.

“Hey! Hey!” floated up from the crowd.

“Oh, look and see what they're howling about now,” growled Hawkins.

The cause of their vociferations was only too apparent.

Ping! Ping! Ping! One by one, sawed in two by the machine, the telegraph wires were snapping!

“Stop it! Stop it, Hawkins!” I cried. “You're smashing the wires!”

“Well, suppose I am? That'll let us out, won't it?”

“See here,” I said, sternly, “if an all wise Providence should happen to spare us from being dragged down and dashed to pieces, consider the bill for repairs which you'll have to foot. You stop that engine, Hawkins, or I'll do it myself.”

“Well——” said the inventor, doubtfully. “There! Now be satisfied. I've stopped it, and we'll wait and be taken down the ladder like a couple of confounded Italian women in a tenement house fire.”

Hawkins sat back with a sullen scowl. I drew a long breath of relief, and began to scan the landscape for signs of the hook and ladder company.

They were a long time in coming. Meanwhile, we were hanging in space, a frisky balloon overhead, and below, Hawkins' engine having considerately left a little of the telegraph company's property uninjured, six telegraph wires and a gaping crowd.

But the ladders couldn't be very far off now, and we seemed safe enough, until—

“What's that sizzling, Hawkins?” I inquired.

“I don't know,” he replied, gruffly.

“Well, why don't you try to find out?” I said, sharply. “It seems to me that we're resting pretty heavily on those wires.”

“Indeed?”

“Yes.” I glanced out at the balloon canopy. “Great Scott, Hawkins, the balloon's leaking!”

“Eh? What?” he cried, suddenly galvanized into action. “Where, Griggs, where?”

“I don't know. But that's what is happening. See how the wires are sagging—more and more every second.”

“Great Cesar's ghost! Listen. Yes, the wires must have hit the escape valve. Why, the gas is simply pouring out of the balloon. And the machine's getting heavier and heavier. And we're just resting on those six wires, Griggs! Oh, Lord!”

“And presently, Hawkins, we shall break the wires and drop?” I suggested, with forced calm.

“Yes, yes!” cried the inventor. “What'll we do, Griggs, what'll we do?”

Frightened as I was, I couldn't see what was to be gained by hysterics.

“I presume,” I said, “that the best thing is to sit still and wait for the end.”

“Yes, but think, man, think of that awful drop! Forty feet, if it's an inch!”

“Fully.”

“Why, we'll simply be knocked to flinders!”

“Probably.”

“Oh, the idiots! The idiots!” raged Hawkins, shaking his fists at the crowd. “Why didn't they bring a fire net? Why hasn't one of them sense enough to get one? We could jump then.”

Ping! The first of the six wires had snapped.

Ping! The second had followed suit.

The Hawkins Auto-aero-mobile was very delicately balanced now on four slim wires, and the balloon was collapsing with heart-rending rapidity. From below sounds of excitement were audible, here and there a groan and now a scream of horror, as some new-comer realized our position.

“Hawkins,” I said, solemnly, “why don't you make a vow right now that if we ever get out of this alive——”

Ping! went the third wire. The auto swayed gently for a moment.

“You'll never invent another thing as long as you live?”

“Griggs,” said Hawkins, in trembling tones, “I almost believe that you are right. Where on earth can that hook and ladder be? Yes, you are right. I'll do—I'll—can you see them yet, Griggs? I'll do it! I swear——”

Ping! Ping! Ping!

Still sitting upon the cushions, I felt my heart literally leap into my throat. My eyes closed before a sudden rush of wind. My hands gripped out wildly.

For one infinitesimal second, I was astonished at the deathly stillness of everything. Then the roar of a thousand voices nearly deafened me, the seat seemed to hurl me violently into the air, for another brief instant I shot through space. Then my hands clutched some one's hair, and I crashed to the ground, with an obliging stout man underneath.

And I knew that I still lived!

Well, the auto had dropped—that was all. Ready hands placed me upon my feet. Vaguely I realized that Dr. Brotherton, our physician, was running his fingers rapidly over my anatomy.

Later he addressed me through a dreamland haze and said that not a bone was broken. I recall giving him a foolish smile and thanking him politely.

Some twenty feet away I was conscious that Hawkins was chattering volubly to a crowd of eager faces. His own features were bruised almost beyond recognition, but he, too, was evidently on this side of the River Jordan, and I felt a faint sense of irritation that the Auto-aero-mobile hadn't made an end of him.

My wits must have remained some time aloft for a last inspection of the spot where ended our aerial flight. Certainly they did not wholly return until I found myself sitting beside Hawkins in Brotherton's carriage.

We were just driving past a pile of red scrap-metal that had once been the auto, and the wondering crowd was parting to let us through.

“Well, that's the end of your aerothingamajig, Hawkins,” I observed, with deep satisfaction.

“Oh, yes, experience is expensive, but a great teacher,” replied the inventor, thickly, removing a wet cloth from his much lacerated upper lip to permit speech. “When I build the next one——”

“You'll have to get a divorce before you build the next one,” I added, with still deeper satisfaction, as I pictured in imagination the lively little domestic fracas that awaited Hawkins.

If his excellent lady gets wind of the doings in his “workshop,” Hawkins rarely invents the same thing twice.

“Well, then, if I build another,” corrected Hawkins, sobering suddenly, “I shall be careful not to use that rear arrangement at all. I shall place the valve of the balloon where I can get at it more easily. I shall——”

“Mr. Hawkins,” said Brotherton, abruptly, “I thought I asked you to keep that cloth over your mouth until I get you where I can sew up that lip.”

Apart from any medical bearing, it struck me that that remark indicated good, sound sense on Brotherton's part.