Bellboys, clerks, and waiters pelted with hand grenades its smoldering remains and squirted chemical fire-extinguishers upon it; but the Gasowashine's day was done. Its turbulent spirit had passed to another sphere. Later, when some measure of order had been restored to the dining-room, when the door had been boarded up and the inquisitive police satisfied and the street crowd dispersed; when a sympathetic waiter had partially cleansed Hawkins, and that gentleman had suggested that we might as well depart, he received a peremptory invitation to call upon the proprietor in his private office. The proprietor was a calm, cold man. He viewed Hawkins with an inscrutable stare for some time before he spoke. “I hardly know, Mr. Hawkins,” he said at last, “whom to blame for this.” “Well, I know! That hulking lummox who knocked over my----” “At any rate, the machine was yours, I fear you will have to pay for the damage.” “I will, eh?” blustered Hawkins. “Well, I told your man Macdougal that if one dish was broken I'd pay for it. Here's the dollar for the dish! Come, Griggs.” “Um-um. So you refuse to settle?” smiled the proprietor. “Absolutely and positively!” declared Hawkins. “Well, I think that, pending a suit for damages, I can have you held on a charge of disorderly conduct,” mused the calm man. “Mr. Macdougal, will you kindly call an officer?” Hawkins wilted at that. His checkbook came forth, and the string of figures he was compelled to write made my heart bleed. When he had exchanged the slip for a receipt, Hawkins and I made for the side door and slunk out into the night. The Gasowashine, I presume, or such combustible fragments as remained, found an inglorious grave next day in the ranges of the same kitchen which had witnessed the start of its short little life. CHAPTER VII. Perhaps some of the blame should rest upon the barbaric habit of having Sunday dinner in the middle of the afternoon. Had it been evening when Hawkins and his better half sat down to dinner with us, it would not, naturally, have been daylight; and much unpleasantness might have been avoided, for the gas had not yet been turned on in the modeled Hawkins residence, and an inspection would have been impossible. Again, I may have started the trouble myself by bringing up the subject of the renovations. “Yes, the work's all done,” said Hawkins, with a more genial air than he usually exhibited when that topic was touched. “I tell you, it's a model home now.” “Particularly in containing no new inventions by its owner,” added Mrs. Hawkins. “Oh, those may come later,” said the gifted inventor, casting a complacent wink in my direction. “Not if I have anything to say about it,” replied the lady rather tartly. “We escaped with our lives when the house was wrecked, but next time----” “Madam,” flared Hawkins, “if you knew what that house----”