For a few moments they seemed quite incapable of speech. Mrs. Hawkins was the first to regain the use of her tongue. “Herbert,” she said in an ominously calm tone, “what was it this time?” Hawkins smiled foolishly. “It was the Hawkins Anti-Fire-Fly,” I said spitefully. “Fly away from fire with the Anti-Fire-Fly, you know. Tell your wife about it, Hawkins.” Then Mrs. Hawkins addressed her husband and said--but let that pass. We have all the essential facts of the case as it is. Moreover, a successful author told me last week that unhappy endings are in the worst possible taste just now. CHAPTER VIII. Hawkins and his wife had been just one month in their new house. My memory on that point is particularly clear, for the Executive Committee of the Ladies' Missionary Society met at Hawkins' home the very day they moved in officially; and it had been hanging over me, more or less, that the next assembly of that body was to be held at my own residence. Not that I am in any way unsympathetic as to church work and benighted savages and such matters; but when half a dozen women get together and discuss a few heathen and a great many hats and similar things, the solitary man in the house is apt to feel---- At any rate, when I saw Mrs. Hawkins enter my door that evening, the first of the Executive Committee to arrive, I experienced a sinking sensation for the moment. Then I secured my hat, mumbled a few excuses, and disappeared, to see how Hawkins was spending the evening. The inventor himself answered my ring. “Ah, Griggs,” he remarked. “Committee talk you out of the house?” “Something of the sort,” I admitted. “Glad you came in. There's something I want to--but hang up your hat.” “Hawkins,” I said, closing the door, “why do you pay a large overfed English gentleman to stand around the premises if it's necessary for you to answer the bell? I'm not much on style, you know, but----” “William? Oh, it's his night out,” laughed Hawkins. “I believe the cook and the girls have gone, too, for that matter.” “Then we're altogether alone?” “Yes,” said the inventor comfortably, pushing forward one of the big library chairs for my accommodation, “all alone in the house.” “And it's a mighty nice house,” I mused, gazing into the next apartment, the dining-room. “That's a splendid room, Hawkins.” “Isn't it?” smiled Hawkins, drawing back the heavy curtains rather proudly. “Most of the little wrinkles are my own ideas, too.” “That sideboard?” I asked, indicating a frail-looking but artistic bit of furniture built into the wall. “That, too--combination of sideboard and silver-safe.” “Safe!” I laughed. “You don't keep the silver in there?” “Why not?” “My dear man, any one could pry that door off with a pen-knife.” “Admitted. But supposing your 'any one' to be a burglar, he'd have to get to the door before he could pry it off, would he not, Griggs?” “Burglars do not, as a rule, find great difficulty in entering the average house,” I suggested.