“Under the circumstances--yes,” I said, entering again, but keeping a wary eye on the steel tower. “But can't we spend the afternoon out here by the gate?” “We cannot,” said Hawkins sourly. “Your humor, Griggs, is as pointless as it is childish. When you see every farmer in the United States using that contrivance, you will blush to recall your idiotic words.” I was tempted to make some remark about the greater likelihood of memory producing a consumptive pallor; but I refrained and followed Hawkins to the veranda. “When I built that tower,” pursued the inventor, waving his hand at it, “I intended, of course, to use the regulation pump, taking the power from the windmill. “Then I got an idea. “You know how a grain elevator works--a series of buckets on an endless chain, running over two pulleys, just as a bicycle chain runs over two sprockets? Very well. Up at the top of that tower I extended the hub of the windmill back to form a shaft with big cogs. Down at the bottom of the well there is another corresponding shaft with the same cogs. Over the two, as you will see, runs an endless ladder of steel cable. Is that clear?” “I guess so,” I said, wearily. “Go on.” “Well, that's as far as I have gone. Next week the buckets are coming. I shall hitch one to each rung of the chain, or ladder, throw on the gear, and let her go. “The buckets will run down into the well upside down, come up on the other side filled, run to the top of the tower, and dump the water into a reservoir tank--and go down again. Thus I pump water without a pump--in other words, with a pumpless pump! “Simple! Efficient! Nothing to get out of order--no valves, no pistons, no air-chambers--nothing whatever!” finished Hawkins triumphantly. “Wonderful!” I said absently. “Isn't it?” cried the inventor. “Now, do you want to look over it, to-day, Griggs, or shall we run through those drawings of my new loom?” Hawkins has invented a loom, too. I don't know much about machinery in general, but I do know something about the plans, and from what I can judge by the plans, if any workman was fool-hardy enough to enter the room with Hawkins' loom in action, that intricate bit of mechanism would reach out for him, drag him in, macerate him, and weave him into the cloth, all in about thirty seconds. But an explanation of this to Hawkins would merely have precipitated another conflict. I chose what seemed to be the lesser evil; I elected to examine the pumpless pump. “All right,” said the inventor happily. “Come along, Griggs. You're the only one that knows anything about this. In a week or two, when somebody writes it up in the _Scientific American_, you'll feel mighty proud of having heard my first explanation of the thing.” The pump was just as Hawkins had described--a thin steel ladder coming out of the well's black mouth, running up to and over the shaft, and descending into the blackness again. When we reached its side, it was stationary, for the air was still.