“Catch us!” bawled the inventor frantically. “Catch the basket with that hook! We want to come aboard! Hurry up!” The boat was going in our direction and rather faster. The man on the roof seemed to comprehend. He reached up with his hook. He leaped a couple of times in vain. And then we felt a shock which told of our capture! I breathed a long, happy sigh. In dealing with Hawkins' inventions, long, happy sighs are premature unless you are positive that your entire anatomical structure is complete, and likewise certain that the contrivance lies at your feet in a condition of total wreck. The basket was suspended from a thin, steel frame, from which several dozen stout cords rose to that idiotic pair of wings. When we were fairly caught, Hawkins cried: “Now, Griggs, stand up and catch the frame and pull the whole business down with us. And you, down there, pull hard! Pull hard, now!” I seized the steel frame on one side, Hawkins on the other, and we pulled. And the man with the boat-hook pulled. And at the psychological moment the wind rose afresh and pulled at the wings with a mighty pull! Some seconds of dizzy swirling in the air, and the clothes-basket portion of the Anti-Fire-Fly lay on the roof of the ferry-boat, while Hawkins and I hung far above, entangled in the cords and clutching them wildly and rising steadily once more! “Great Caesar's ghost!” gurgled the inventor. “This is awful!” “Awful!” I gasped when breath had returned. “It's--it's----” “Lord! Lord! We're going straight for Staten Island. Don't move, Griggs.” “I can't,” I said. “I'm caught tight here. Good-by, Hawkins.” “We're--we're not done for yet,” quavered that individual. “We may hit land. But isn't--isn't it terrible?” “Oh, no,” I groaned. “It's all right. No more climbing down red-hot ladders through belching flames! No more throwing children from----” “Don't joke, Griggs,” wailed Hawkins. “I will say I'm sorry I got you into this.” “Thank you, Hawkins,” I said, nearly strangled by a cord which persisted in twisting itself about my neck. “So am I.” Conversation lagged after that. For my part, I was too dazed and too firmly enmeshed in the cords to say much. I fancy that the same applied to Hawkins, but he happened to be facing ahead, and now and then he called back bulletins of our progress. “Getting nearer the island,” he announced after some ten minutes of the agony. A little later: “Thank Heaven! We're almost over land!” And still later, when I had been choked and twisted almost into insensibility by the eccentric dives of the affair and the consequent tightening of the cords, he revived me with: “By George, Griggs, we're sinking toward land!” I managed to look downward. Hawkins had told the truth. The wind was indeed going down, and with it the remains of the Anti-Fire-Fly. Beneath appeared a big factory, its chimney belching forth black smoke in disregard of the Sabbath, and we seemed likely to land within its precincts.