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.”