Mr. Hawkins' Humorous Adventures Part 23

"William ought to be in the prize-ring," continued the inventor sadly.

"But he's a bright chap. He'll keep his mouth shut. Lucky--er--n.o.body else was in the house, wasn't it?"

"How are you going to account to Mrs. Hawkins for those black eyes?"

"Oh--we can say that we were boxing and you hit me. That's easy."

"She'll believe that, too, Hawkins," I said, gazing at the battered countenance. "You look more as if you'd had a collision with an express train."

"Oh, she'll believe it, all right," said the inventor cheerily. "For once--just for once, Griggs--something has happened which my better half won't be on to. You'll see I'm right. There isn't a clue."

"Well, perhaps," I sighed.

"And now let's have some of that old Scotch. I feel a little weak."

We loitered into the next apartment--the dining-room. We turned our footsteps toward the sideboard. We stopped--both of us--as if transformed to stone.

The door was off the silver-safe. The drawers lay about the floor.

And the little safe itself was as empty as the day it left the cabinet-maker!

"D-d-d'you see it, too?" cried Hawkins in a scared, husky voice.

"Yes," I replied, stooping to look into the safe. "It must have been a sneak-thief, Hawkins. Every vestige of your beautiful service is gone!"

The inventor glared long at the wreck.

"And now that's got to be explained," he muttered at last, continuing his journey to the sideboard. "How can I get around it?"

He poured out a generous dose of the Scotch, imbibed it at a swallow, and shuffled drearily back to the library, where he dropped once more into a chair and stared through fast-swelling eyes at the glazed tile fire-place.

And I? Well, just then I heard Mrs. Hawkins' step on the vestibule flooring without; she had returned for the minutes of the last meeting.

The bell rang. I walked quickly upstairs to call up the police and notify them. It wasn't my place to answer that bell, with William in the house.

CHAPTER IX.

The gathering at the Hawkins' home that night was, I suppose, in the nature of a house-warming.

The Blossoms, the Ridgeways, the Eldridges, the Gordons were there, in addition to perhaps a dozen and a half other people whom I had never met. Also, Mr. Blodgett was there.

Old Mr. Blodgett is Hawkins' father-in-law. There is a Mrs. Blodgett, too, but she is really too sweet an old lady to be placed in the mother-in-law category.

Blodgett, however, makes up for any deficiencies on his wife's part in the traditional traits. He seems to have a.n.a.lyzed Hawkins with expert care and precision--to have appraised and cla.s.sified his character and attainments to a nicety.

Consequently, Hawkins and Mr. Blodgett are rarely to be observed wandering hither and thither with their arms about each other's waists.

Finally, I was there myself with my wife.

It seems almost superfluous to mention my presence. Whenever Hawkins is on the verge of trouble with one of his contrivances, some esoteric force seems to sweep me along in his direction with resistless energy.

Sometimes I wonder what Hawkins did for a victim before we met--but let that be.

Dinner had been lively, for the guests were mainly young, and the wines such as Hawkins can afford; but when we had a.s.sembled in the drawing-room, conversation seemed to slow down somewhat, and to pa.s.s over to a languid discussion of the house as a sort of relaxation.

Then it was that a pert miss from one of the Oranges remarked:

"Yes, the frescoing is lovely--almost all of it. But--whoever could have designed that frieze, Mr. Hawkins?"

"Er--that frieze?" repeated the inventor, a little uncomfortably, indicating the insane-looking strip of painting a foot or so wide which ran along under the ceiling.

"Yes, it's so funny. Nothing but dots and dots and dots. Whoever could have conceived such an idea?"

"Well, I did, Miss Mather," Hawkins replied. "I designed that myself."

"Oh, did you?" murmured the inquisitive one, going red.

Hawkins turned to me, and the girl subsided; but old Mr. Blodgett had overheard. He felt constrained to put in, with his usual tactful thought and grating, nasal voice:

"It's hideous--simply hideous. I don't see--I can't see the sense in spending that amount of money in plastering painted roses and undressed young ones all over the ceiling, Herbert."

"No?" said Hawkins between his teeth.

"Folly--pure folly," grunted the old gentleman. "No reason for it--no reason under the sun."

Hawkins at least reserves family dissensions for family occasions. He held his peace and his tongue.

"Yes, sir," persisted Blodgett, "everything else out of the question, the house might catch fire to-night, and your entire stock of painted babies go up in smoke. Then where'd they be? Eh?"

"See here," said Hawkins, goaded into speech, "you just keep your mind easy on that score at least, will you, papa, dear?"

"What's that? What's that?"

"This house isn't going up in smoke," went on the inventor tartly. "You can take my word for it."

"Isn't, eh?" jeered the elderly Blodgett with his nasty sneering little chuckle. "And how do you know it's not? Eh? Smarter men than you, my boy, and in better built houses have----"

"Look here! This particular place isn't going to burn, because----"

Hawkins rapped out.

"What isn't going to burn, Herbert?" inquired Mrs. Hawkins, with a cold, warning glance at her husband as she perceived that hostilities were in progress. "Is he teasing you again, papa?"

"Teasing me!" sniffed Blodgett with an unpleasant leer at Hawkins.

"Teasing that antiquity!" Hawkins growled in my ear. "Say, isn't that enough to----"

"Don't whisper, Herbert--it isn't polite," continued Mrs. Hawkins, the playfulness of her manner somewhat belied by the glitter in her eye.