"Right here in this hotel--right under our feet," said Hawkins, proudly.

"That noise comes from the Hawkins Gasowashine!"

I think I stared open-mouthed at Hawkins for a moment or two; I know that I leaned back and shook with as violent mirth as might be permitted in so solemnly proper a resort.

"Well, does that impress you as particularly humorous?" demanded Hawkins, angrily.

"Hawkins," I said, "why don't you start in and write nonsense verse?

There's a fortune waiting for you."

"I must say, Griggs," rejoined the inventor, sourly, "that you have very little comprehension of the advertising value of a good name. Who under the sun would ever remember the 'Hawkins Gasolene Washing Machine,' if they saw it in a magazine? But--'The Gasowashine'!"

"So it's a washing machine?"

"Of course. It's the one perfect contrivance for washing and drying dishes; and let me tell you the basic principle of that machine breathes genius, if I do say it. Why, Griggs, just think! You can pile in three or four hundred dishes, simply start the motor, and then sit down while the clean, dry dishes are piled neatly on the table."

"And they're really using it here? It--it works?" I asked, wonderingly.

"Well, they're going to use it," said Hawkins, rising. "I have consented to allow them to try my model. It arrived here just before we did."

"Hawkins, have we been sitting right over that thing all this time?"

"Don't try to be comic, Griggs," said the inventor, bruskly. "I'm going down to see who's fooling with that motor. It should not have been touched, although I must say it's a satisfaction to sit in a first-cla.s.s place like this and hear my own machinery running. Are you coming?"

I will admit that I was curious about the contrivance. I followed Hawkins through the crowded dining-room to a door in the back.

Then, dodging a dozen hurrying waiters, we made our way down an incline into the kitchen and through that apartment, past steam tables and ranges and pots and kettles and other paraphernalia of the cuisine.

At the farther end of the room stood a ma.s.sive affair of oak. It looked, as nearly as it resembled any other thing on earth, like a piano box; but on each side, near the top, was a huge fly-wheel, the two being apparently fastened to the ends of an axle.

For the rest of the mechanism, it was all concealed. I rightly surmised the monstrosity to be the Gasowashine.

The fly-wheels were revolving slowly, and this seemed to irritate Hawkins.

"Good-evening, Mr. Macdougal," he said to a puzzled looking gentleman, who stood eying the affair. "Mr. Griggs, Mr. Macdougal, the manager. So some one started it, did he?"

"One of the 'buses happened to touch it, and it started itself," replied the manager, gazing on the contrivance. "It's quite safe to have about, is it not, Mr. Hawkins?"

"Safe? Certainly it is safe."

"I mean to say, it won't injure the dishes?" the gentleman continued, with a doubtful smile. "You see, we have filled the main compartment with hot water, as you directed, and put in three hundred pieces of our best crockery."

"Mr. Macdougal," said Hawkins icily, "if one dish is broken, I'll pay for it and make you a present of the machine, if you say so. If you do not wish to make the test, doubtless there are other hotel men in New York who will appreciate its advantages."

"Not at all, not at all," cried the manager. "I appreciate fully----"

"All right," said Hawkins shortly. "Now, the dishes are all in, are they? Very well. I'll explain the thing to Mr. Griggs and then start it.

You see, Griggs, the dishes are in here."

He tapped the side of the big box.

"When I turn on the power, they are thoroughly rubbed and soused by my Automatic Scrubber--a separate patent, by the way--and then they reach this spot."

He rapped upon the box near the end.

"Here they are forced against a continuous dish-towel, which runs across rollers all the time. Just think of it! Sixty yards of dish-towel, rolling over and over and over! After that--but you shall see how they look after that. I'll start her."

He twisted a valve of some sort. The chugg-chugging became more p.r.o.nounced, and the fly-wheels revolved with very perceptibly increased rapidity.

From somewhere inside the thing emanated a gentle rattle and swish of crockery and suds. Hawkins stood back and regarded it proudly.

"There's another great point about the Gasowashine, too," he said. "As you see, it's too heavy to shove from place to place. What do we do?"

"Leave it where it is," I hazarded.

"Not at all. We simply invert it! The whole business is water-tight.

Every door fits so closely that it's impossible for a drop to escape.

Now, if I wished to move it to the other end of this room, I should simply turn the Gasowashine upside down, allow it to rest upon the fly-wheels, which keep on revolving of course, and steer it wherever I desired."

"And so you might go a little better and put on a saddle and a steering-wheel and take a ride around the Park while you were washing dishes?" I suggested, somewhat to the manager's amus.e.m.e.nt.

"Possibly you think it's impracticable?" Hawkins rapped out. "Perhaps you don't realize that there's a five horsepower motor running that?"

"There, there, Hawkins," I said soothingly, "if you say that Washy-washine is good for a trans-kitchen on a transcontinental tour, I'll take your word for it."

"You don't have to!" cried the inventor wrathfully. "I'll demonstrate it. See here, you!"

This to a corpulent French gentleman in white, who had just flipped an omelette to a platter and sent it upon its way. "Come and give me a hand here. Just help turn this thing over."

"_Comme cela?_" inquired the astonished cook, making pantomime with his hands.

"Exactly. That's right. Catch hold of the other side and don't let go until I tell you."

The cook complied. Really, the Gasowashine seemed to turn more easily than might have been expected from its huge bulk.

A strain or two, a puffed command from Hawkins, an ominous sliding about of hidden dishes, and the machine lurched forward, poised a moment on its edge and turned quite gently, so that the wheels approached the floor.

"Now, easy! Easy!" cried Hawkins. "Don't let the wheels down until I tell you, and don't let go till I give the word. Now down! Down!

Gently."

The cook seemed to be feeling for a new grip.

"Here! What are you doing?" cried the inventor. "Don't touch any of those handles."

"It is that I seek a place for ze hand," murmured the cook apologetically.

"Well, find it and let her down. Got your grip?"

"Aha! I have eet!" announced the Frenchman, clutching one of the bra.s.s k.n.o.bs.