I thought of our wives, sitting calmly in my home, ignorant of our plight. I wondered what their sentiments would be when some kindly ambulance surgeon had brought home such fragments of Hawkins and me as might have been collected with a dust-pan and brush. I wondered whether the accursed Anti-Fire-Fly would dump us out and flutter away into eternity, to leave our fate unexplained, or whether it would accompany us to our doom and be found gloating over the respective grease-spots that would represent all that was mortal of Hawkins and myself. And at about this point in my meditations, I noted that we were sailing over Union Square. “Isn't it fine?” cried Hawkins enthusiastically. “You never came down-town like this before, Griggs.” “I never expect to again, Hawkins,” I sighed. “Why not? Why, Griggs, this thing is only the nucleus of my future airship, and yet see how it floats! Oh, I've thought it all out in the last five minutes. It's astonishing that it never occurred to me before. Now, these wings, you see, are so constructed----” “See here, Hawkins,” I said, “do you mean to say that you expect to get out of this thing alive?” “Certainly,” replied the inventor in astonishment. “There's no danger. I can see that now, although I was a trifle startled at first. It's only a matter of minutes when we shall go near enough to one of those big office buildings to grab it and stop ourselves.” “And clamber down the side--twenty or thirty stories?” “And even if we can't land, we shan't fall. The construction of these wings is such----” “Oh, hang the construction of your wings!” I cried. “We're going right toward the bay--suppose the wind dies down and lets us into the water?” “Well, these wings are water-proof, you know,” said Hawkins. “They might----” “Yes, and the bay might dry up, so that we could walk back if we escaped being broken in pieces, Hawkins,” I sneered. Hawkins subsided. The breeze did not. It was one of the most impolitely persistent breezes I have ever encountered. It seemed bent on landing us in New York harbor, and before many minutes we were suspended high above that expansive, and in some circumstances, charming body of water. [Illustration: “_Before many minutes we were suspended high above that expansive, and in some circumstances charming, body of water_.”] Furthermore, having wafted us something like a quarter of a mile from shore, it proceeded to die out in a manner which was, to say the least, disheartening. Hawkins grew paler by perceptible shades as we progressed, ever nearer the water and farther from hope; and it was not until I opened my mouth to vent a few last invidious criticisms of him and his methods that the inventor's face brightened. “By Jove, Griggs! Look! That ferry-boat! That fellow on the roof! He's got a boat-hook! Hey! Hey! Hey! you!” The individual gazed aloft and nearly collapsed with astonishment.