“No!” I protested. “Oh, no!”
“Good Lord, why not?” cried Hawkins.
“My wife,” I murmured. “She cannot spare me, Hawkins, you know—not yet.”
“Why, there isn't the slightest element of danger,” the inventor argued. “Surely, Griggs, even you must be able to grasp that. Can't you see that that is the chief beauty of the Hydro-Vapor Lift? There are no cables to break! That's the great feature. This car may be loaded with ton after ton; but if she's overloaded, she simply stops. There are no risky wire-ropes to snap and let down the whole affair.”
“I know, but there are no wire-ropes to hold her up, either, and——”
Hawkins snorted angrily. Then he grabbed me bodily and forced me along toward the door of his Hydro-Vapor Lift.
“Actually, you do make me tired,” he said. “You seem to think that everybody is conspiring to take your wretched little life!”
“But what have you against me?” I asked mournfully. “Why not let me out and do your experimenting alone?”
“Because—Lord knows why I'm doing it, you're not important enough to warrant it—I'm bound to convince you that this contrivance is all that I claim!”
Oh, had I but spent the days of my youth in a strenuous gymnasium! Had I but been endowed with muscle beyond the dreams of Eugene Sandow, and been expert in boxing and wrestling and in the breaking of bones, as are the Japanese!