"Have you a new invention, Henry? Tell us about it."
"'Tain't nothin'," said Hank, squirming in his chair. "It didn't work just right. I guess I'll have to go home now. Ma said to get in by ten o'clock."
"We'll have time for your report," Mr. Norton told him.
Hank kept nudging me, trying to get me to go with him, but I wouldn't do it, so after a while he began.
You see his invention, the one he spoke to me about just before we started, was a Life Saver. When we were learning to be Scouts Mr. Norton taught us how to bring drowned people back to life again; that is, if they haven't been in the water too long. What Hank wanted to do was to invent something that would keep them from getting drowned in the first place.
"It's all right to bring them to life," he told me, "but it would be a heap better not to have 'em drown at all."
After doing a lot of thinking, he made a sort of balloon of oiled silk, with the mouth fastened to a hollow reed and a piece of potato to put over the end of the reed, instead of a cork. Hanging from the mouthpiece were two pieces of stout cord.
"What's it for, Hank?" asked Skinny, when he was showing it to us. "It looks like a bagpipe."
"It's a Life Saver," he said. "You carry it in your pocket when the air is out of it and look along the river until you find somebody drowning. Then you throw him the Life Saver, if he hasn't got one in his own pocket. He ties it around his neck, puts the mouthpiece to his lips, and blows the bag full of wind. Then he puts the potato on the end to keep the air from leaking out. He can't sink, can he? The balloon will hold him up."
"Great snakes, Hank!" said Bill. "You've got a great head—like a tack."