The Victim of Apparatus

by Barry Pain

THE VICTIM OF APPARATUS.

By Barry Pain.

Albert Chippel was fairly well off, and unmarried. It is so seldom that facts are just as they should be, that I think it worth while to mention this. If Albert Chippel had not been well off, he would have been unable to procure for himself the vast amount of mechanical apparatus which his soul loved, which to the last he fully believed saved him trouble, and without which he would have pined and died. If he had been married, he would either have driven his wife mad, or she would have obtained a judicial separation. He nearly drove his friends mad.

You went into Chippel's rooms, and he offered you a cigar. You consented, and then Chippel's face brightened, for it gave him a chance to use apparatus.

"I don't keep my cigars in an ordinary box," he'd say, "This box is a patent, and saves you a lot of trouble. You just press the button, and a single cigar rolls out. No confusion or anything."

Then he would press the button, and nothing would happen. He would press it again and again, oil the machinery, stamp, swear, tell you this was the first time the thing had gone wrong, and finally something inside that patent box would seem to snap, and half a machine-smashed cigar would go whizzing across the room like a stone from a catapult. After that, he would explain that the cigars were probably a little too large, and unscrew the back of the box and get them out that way.

But his faith in apparatus was never for a moment shaken. He would be offended because you would not cut your cigar with his patent cigar-cutter, which every now and then worked quite nicely. He would not even let you light that cigar simply. He struck a match and lit a methylated-spirit lamp, when you lit your cigar from the lamp. If you suggested that you might just as well have lit the cigar from the match, he would tell you with a smile that he liked to do things comfortably.

When the ordinary man wants to read a book, he takes the book, sits down, and reads. That was not nearly complicated enough for Chippel. He first of all had to arrange his reading-lamp—a beautiful little silver thing, that threw a disc of bright light the size of a penny, surrounded by a circle of shade. This lamp burned a special wick, and the speciality of the wick was that it would never light the first time you tried. You had to pull it about, and get oil on your fingers, and then it would feel happier and start. After dealing with the reading-lamp, Chippel naturally had to go and wash his hands. That refreshed him for a further struggle with the reading-chair. The reading-chair was in theory the most luxurious thing in the world. You could sit in any position, have your reading-desk in any position, and a little table at the side in any position. By half-an-hour's patient work at sixty-two different screws, Chippel would bring that chair to just the condition he required. Then he would place his ash-tray, match-box, and paper-knife on the side-table, sit down to read, and discover that he had remembered everything except the book.

His dressing-room bristled with apparatus. He shaved himself with a special apparatus, something like a mowing-machine, the blades of which were sharpened by another special apparatus. He put on his boots by one patent, and took them off by another, and neither of the patents worked. He had a looking-glass so arranged that Chippel could see the back of his own head, which he never by any chance wanted to do. His hair-brushes were electric, his comb was magnetic, and his life must have been a misery. At least, I feel sure myself that it must have been a misery, but I confess that Chippel seemed to enjoy it.

He particularly liked travelling. He at first had a travelling-bag, which contained everything that one could possibly want on a railway journey. But this did not satisfy him. He had another travelling-bag made after his own design. It not only contained everything that one could possibly want when travelling, but also almost everything that one could not possibly want. Chippel took that travelling-bag everywhere. If he had had to go from Blackfriars to the Temple I believe he would have taken that travelling-bag with him, and used as much of the apparatus on the way as he had time for. The one reason why he loved travelling was for the chances it gave him of using apparatus. He also tried to foist his apparatus on fellow-travellers, and got himself much disliked.

He will carry his passion with him to the grave. Only the ether day I found him inquiring about wicker-work coffins, and also about the technical business of cremation. He told me that he was divided in his mind between burial and cremation. I am sure that he will choose whichever system involves the use of the most apparatus. I am sometimes tempted to hope that he will have to make the choice soon.