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A smile of relief illumined Hawkins' face. "Well? Quick, man!" "We can have a brakeman detach the Alcomotive!" "And what good'll that do, when she's pushing the train?" "True, true!" groaned the inventor. "I didn't think of that!" "I'm going to bring every one into these forward cars," announced the conductor. "It's the only chance of saving a few lives when the crash comes."
"But why don't you come and see for yourself?" the inventor cried impatiently. "It's it's " He paused for a moment. "Why, it's the Hawkins Alcomotive!" he added. "And what under heavens is the Hawkins " "Well, you don't suppose I'm carrying scale drawings of the thing on me, do you? You don't suppose that I'm prepared to give a demonstration with magic lantern pictures on the spot?
"Well, you'll have confidence enough before the day's over," said the inventor, grabbing me with some determination. "For once, I'll get the best of your sneers. You come along!" "Let go!" I shouted. "Here," said Hawkins to the mechanic who was warily eying the Alcomotive, "help Mr. Griggs up." Hawkins boosted and the man grabbed me.
There was no way for Hawkins to reach the contrivance, for the car was four or five feet distant from the train proper, and to attempt a leap or a climb to the Alcomotive, with the whole affair rocking and swaying as it was, would simply have been to pave the way for a neat "Herbert Hawkins" on the marble block of their plot in Greenwood Cemetery. "Well, what under the sun " began Hawkins.
We ran through the coaches until we had reached the front of the train. Hawkins went out upon the platform. The Alcomotive was apparently intact. The engineer stood over the machinery, white as chalk, and his lips mumbled incoherently. "What is it?" cried Hawkins. "How'n blazes do I know?" demanded the engineer. "But didn't you stop her?" "Certainly not. She she stopped herself."
"Well, I guess we started enough to suit him!" observed Hawkins grimly, as we whizzed past towers and banged over switches in our exit from the yard. We certainly were started. Whatever subsequent disadvantages may have developed in the Alcomotive, it possessed speed.
"Push that back where it was." "Nit!" yelled the engineer, picking up his coat and running to the side of the car. "I ain't going to make my wife a widow for no darned invention or no darned job! See?" "You're not going to jump?" squealed the inventor. "You bet I am!" replied the mechanic, making a flying leap. He was gone. The Alcomotive was now without any semblance of a controlling hand.
"But will that thing pull a train? Is that the notion?" "Notion! It's no notion it's a simple, mathematical certainty, my dear Griggs. In that Alcomotive it's run by vapors of alcohol, you know we have sufficient power to pull fifteen parlor cars, twelve loaded day-coaches, twenty ordinary flat-cars, eighteen box-cars, or twenty-seven "
He sat back and watched the scenery slide by kinetoscope fashion. "Lord, Lord, where's the old locomotive now?" he laughed pityingly. "Don't shout till you're out of the wood, Hawkins," I cautioned him. "We haven't reached Philadelphia yet." "But can't you see that we're going to? Won't that poor little mind of yours grapple with the fact that the Hawkins Alcomotive is a success a success?
You're coming on the Alcomotive with me!" "Not on your life, Hawkins!" I cried energetically. "If this railroad wishes to trust its passengers and rolling-stock and road-bed to your alcohol machine, that's their business. But they've got a hanged sight more confidence in you than I have."
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