“Oh, yes, experience is expensive, but a great teacher,” replied the inventor, thickly, removing a wet cloth from his much lacerated upper lip to permit speech. “When I build the next one——”
“You'll have to get a divorce before you build the next one,” I added, with still deeper satisfaction, as I pictured in imagination the lively little domestic fracas that awaited Hawkins.
If his excellent lady gets wind of the doings in his “workshop,” Hawkins rarely invents the same thing twice.
“Well, then, if I build another,” corrected Hawkins, sobering suddenly, “I shall be careful not to use that rear arrangement at all. I shall place the valve of the balloon where I can get at it more easily. I shall——”
“Mr. Hawkins,” said Brotherton, abruptly, “I thought I asked you to keep that cloth over your mouth until I get you where I can sew up that lip.”
Apart from any medical bearing, it struck me that that remark indicated good, sound sense on Brotherton's part.
CHAPTER IV.
There are some men to whom experience never teaches anything.