Amazing Stories, August 1927 — page 98: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

r Rinne HICKS’ INVENTIONS WITH A KICK (By HENRY HUGH SIMMONS) (Continued from page 497) bling with the buttons. “It won’t work,’ the in- ventor wailed. “Something has gone wrong with the system, I remember now,” he added, “I had the hand release taken out—just taken out experi- mentally. Il have to put it in again... .” “You will have it put in again, you confounded peanut-headed dumb-bell,” roared Irvine above the shrieks of the professor and the wails of the female company, ‘when the professor has had his face scalped and has been murdered. Go and cut the juice off, I tell you! Haven't you got enough sense?” The entire company stood assembled around where the professor was haying the shine of his life, everybody suggesting, talking, shouting. Smith tried helpfully to pull the professor out by the legs. Redoubled shrieks of agony made him desist from his Christian endeavor, I drew my watch. Only one minute was over. Would that fool never be able to cut off the juice? “I got it!” yelled Hicks, as we heard the switch of a button. At once I felt that something was wrong, wrong —very much wrong again. I did not know what it was. Yes, I did. It was the water rising on my feet, Did I say just a while ago it was funny how the human mind acts? You knoy, the first thing I thought of was the professor. “Cut it out, Hicks,” I roared, “you will drown him.” “I will,” came back the despairing cry of the inventor. “I will, I will, I will! But I can’t. There is something radically wrong here. Something must be wrong, I am sure,—I know something is wrong!” and he went into a spasm of working with the switchboard. TOO thought that something must be wrong. Meanwhile the water was rising at the rate of about half an inch a second. I took only a short men- tal calculation to see that within less than a minute it must be above the professor’s mouth and there was still a minute and a half to go before the release would act. I pride myself on quick thinking in an emergency. Near the dish washing machine I had seen a piece of large rubber hose. I made a dash for it, splashing through the water, which was now half a foot deep. I got back just in time. “Take this in your mouth, professor, and quit your roaring, or you will drown,” I screamed in his ears. Some in- stinct told him I was right and he did as he was told. In a few seconds the water was up over his face, but he was breathing through the hose, “Get out of here, the rest of you, or there may be the devil to pay!” I ordered. “You can’t do the pro- fessor any good and the water is rising. Get out!” To her honor it must be said that the prim Miss Peak remained. “T’ll stay with you to the end, dear, and hold your hand,” she crooned over the rising waters—for the professor was beyond hearing. Un- der the water the brushes were working with un- diminished speed, raising little gurgling eddies to testify to their action. The rest of the company splashed through the inundation, which was by this time a foot and a half deep, ' With. difficulty, they opened I felt the outward rush of water, while the level fell several inches in the kitchen to start rising again soon after. All of a sudden I heard screams of ter- ror. ‘‘Hold the hose,” I ordered Miss Peak, and rushed,—or rather sloshed, toward the front room. _ There I beheld a sight I will never forget. Thefur- niture had been shifted to one side, blocking the door. The water was two feet high. Irvine was standing on a table—did I tell you before that he always was a coward? Smith and his wife, my aunt and the inventor were in various attitudes of pros- tration in the water, and every time one tried to rise he would suddenly sit down. He would get up, make a step, and kerplunk! sit down in the water. “Some- thing is murdering us, O’Keefe,” roared Smith. “Oh, it is biting me,” screamed Aunt Eulalia. For a moment I was bewildered, dumbfounded, Why didn’t they stay up? Then the truth flashed upon me. That confounded Automatic Carpet Sweeper was there under the water, rushing back and forth, and it was mowing down the people as fast as they could get up. “All get up on the table!’ I shricked, “or you will be killed.” Evidently they were ready for any advice, for they scrambled out over the chairs © and on the table with an alacrity begotten of des- peration. They could all just find room on it. Just at that moment all the furniture made a quick move as if galvanized, moving toward the opposite end of the room, and all five sat down in the lake below. Screams and curses instantly rent the air. There again was that confounded suction sweeper, no longer sucking, but running all the same along the floor, knocking the unfortunate people down as fast as they managed to rise. “Get back on the table,” I bellowed, and at that moment, remembering the pro- fessor’s plight, I rushed back. By this time the water was three feet deep and was getting close to the end of the hose. But thank goodness, there were only twenty seconds left until the release would work. During the stress of excitement, a life seems crowded into seconds. And did you ever notice how during a serious crisis, you will do unimportant things? Perhaps I needed a mental rest, for just then I saw the Automatic Egg Beater in front of me. It flashed through my thoughts that Hicks had said that it ran at a speed of 15000 R.P.M. It would be interesting to see that spindle go. This was my chance. I could do nothing until the release — worked—why not put time to good use? All these thoughts crowded themselves into that brief mo- ment. I bent down close to the beater to observe the way the spindle acted, and pressed the button. — The egg-beater started like a gun. A lock of my hair was sucked in and wrapped around the high- speed spindle. In a hundredth part of the tick of 2 ~ dollar watch my head was pulled up until my fore head rubbed it. There was a brief moment of con centrated agony, a feeling as if my head would plode, and three solid handsful of my hair, pt out by the roots, were distributed over the surro ings. I turned off the switch. My mind was cl and so was my forehead of every vestige of ad ent, while a lit m of blood ae eg ee me