“Not if I have anything to say about it,” replied the lady rather tartly. “We escaped with our lives when the house was wrecked, but next time——”
“Madam,” flared Hawkins, “if you knew what that house——”
Just here my wife broke in with a spasmodic remark anent the doings of the Russians in Manchuria, and a discussion of the merits of Hawkins' inventions was happily averted.
But the spunky light didn't die out of Hawkins' eye. He appeared to be nursing something beside wrath, and when we arose from the table he remarked shortly:
“Come up to the house, Griggs, and smoke a cigar while we look it over.”
“And note the charm of the inventionless home,” supplemented his wife.
“Inventionless fiddlestick!” snapped Hawkins as he slammed the door behind us. “It's a wonder to me that women weren't created either with sense or without tongues.”
I made no comment and we walked in silence to the Hawkins house.
It had been done over in a style which must have made Hawkins' bank account look like an Arabian grain field after a particularly bad locust year; but beyond noting the general beauty of the decorations, I found nothing remarkable until we reached the second floor.
There, as we gazed from the back windows, it struck me that something familiar had departed, and I asked: