The Slave of the Stove

by Barry Pain

THE SLAVE OF THE STOVE.

By Mrs. Barry Pain.

Try not to buy a stove. Don't be influenced. I bought mine on severe provocation, and I have been amply punished. Bear with the cold in your hall; never mind the ice in your bathroom; think as little as possible about that smoking fireplace—all these are as Eastern luxuries compared to the recommended stove which must inevitably ensue if you do battle. I speak from experience. I know now that if I had but swallowed my study chimney (metaphorically speaking) I had been spared much anguish. But I did battle. The provocation was great, certainly. There seemed to be no earthly reason why that chimney should start smoking at all. But it did; got humour, presumably, as we may get influenza or measles, and took to the vice of practical joking. It would pretend to draw admirably. I would take a stack of clean foolscap out of my desk, sit down, look at the distance for inspiration, get it, take up my pen, and find that the foolscap was closely studded with small black tadpoles and full-stops. (Like that one.) I would then notice that I was partially asphyxiated, and that a handsome pattern in soot had formed on my hearthrug. When I had grasped the fact that this was happening at ever-decreasing intervals I left that room for another, hoping that the joke would perish for the want of a jokee, so to say. It did not perish or flag in any way, and, unfortunately, I determined to argue with it, to master it, fight it if need be. Not a soul on earth, not a whisper from above, came to stay my hand, to warn me that this was the road to stoves, to say: Leave it. Bear it. You will spend money, time, and ingenuity on this chimney; you will fill your dwelling with the smell of plumber, who will bring furtive satellites and mumble with them for hours over guttering dips; you will believe what he says about patent windmill cowls and revolving tallboys, and Birmingham screw fittings; and you will receive his bill for the same between two smoke-volleys from that chimney, and in the end you will be lost utterly because you will consign the whole fireplace to the father of all fires and will buy a stove. At which point your serious suffering commences.

"Going to buy a stove?" says A., who happens to meet you on your way to the shop. "Well, take my advice and get the 'Clarionet' if you want the ideal thing. Got one in my hall; stood there for the last four years, and warmed the entire house at an average cost of three farthings a day. Only stove that isn't an eyesore, too. Call it expensive? My dear chap, it's given away at the price."

You buy the "Clarionet," even thanking him (poor fool that you are) for his assistance in the difficult matter of selection, and in due course a man comes with a thing which looks three times the size of the one you selected. He knocks a hole or so in your wall, spends the day with you, and tells you that all you now have to do is to light that stove and (by implication) be happy.

You do light it. You say nothing of the stench that fills your house and mounts offending to heaven; nor of the astounding headache that wastes your days, for you are hopeful still, and full of a beautiful faith in A.'s intelligence—a faith which lasts until B. happens to look you up. Good Heavens! one of those old-fashioned stoves? If he had had any notion that you were wanting anything of the sort he could have put you on to a stove of ten times that heating power at half the price. Never noticed his stove, the "Magpie"? Stood in his back drawing-room for the last six years and made his life worth having. Lights itself, rings a bell when exhausted (I've known an ordinary woman to do that), can be converted into a watering-can in the summer, and, above all (with a sniff), absolutely odourless.

You maintain that your own stove is really beginning to do very well; smell diminishing daily—hardly noticeable from the garden—and heating power quite appreciable when the weather isn't too much against it.

Pooh! not a patch on the "Magpie." Come and have a look at it—do.

You go and have a look at it. He dissects it for your delectation to its innermost organs; puts it through all its tricks. Its superiority is painfully forced upon you, and his assurance that this stove would save you two hundred a year extinguishes your smouldering indecision. You finally exchange your "Clarionet" for a "Magpie," and feel satisfied until C. drops in, glances contemptuously at the "Magpie," and remarks that the thing is too ridiculous. Every child knows that the only stove worth having is the "Auto-Amalgamator"; all others have been proved more or less dangerous. Of course, if I had no children to consider—don't I see that the whole thing may blow up at any minute? Do my servants mean to risk it? Good Heavens! never heard of the "Auto-Amalgamator"? He never knew what health and happiness meant until he got one. He loves it. Mrs. C. sees it cleaned every morning with her own eyes (ordinary stove brush evidently not good enough). Artists beg to sketch it. Costs exactly fourteen and fivepence halfpenny in fuel for a whole year. Can be turned into a double perambulator at pleasure. Come and look at it. Stood in his dining-room for eight years, and never, etc., etc.

Once again I go on a journey of heart-sickening inspection, find it all that he says, come away soured and sullen, spend two days in tortured reflection, and then, naturally, exchange my "Magpie" for an "Auto-Amalgamator," and once more dream of peace. Short dreams! But a week or two and Mrs. D. has got at my wife. Why, oh, why, didn't she get the "Fumeless Concentrator"? So cheap at the Stores. A perfectly sweet stove. Make any room cosy. And such a comfort where there are children! Aunt Jane had an "Amalgamator" just like ours, and there was a child of eight staying with her, and—well, she won't go on, but really——! And my wife takes me to the D.'s and we are shown how the top soaks up the smell, and the middle shoots out the heat, and the bottom revolves, and the sides contract, and the whole thing makes money instead of costing any. And I am actually considering the purchase of a "Fumeless Concentrator" with desperation and a catalogue, when the E.'s come to lunch and tell us of their American ten horse-power "Radiator," that heats the sun, and cooks the dinner, and lights the world, and mends the clothes, and sings, "Oh, Listen to the Band!" in five keys, and—I give up.

I control myself at the time. I even listen, only driving my nails into my palms, when the F.'s, the G.'s, the H.'s come in their thousands, exhorting me, one and all, to try their several stoves. But I see my way to salvation at last.

"Take away that stove," I say to the servant who has come at my third ring to see if I want anything. "Take it away—well, then get a man to take it away. Now! And have it broken up into infinitesimal fragments, or sold as a second-hand filter, or given to the poor. I don't care which. I only want never again to see that or any other stove as long as I live."

And, shortly after, the new servant lights the fire in the old fireplace, and I sit in an atmosphere of impenetrable soot, listening to the curious grating squeak of the new cowl—a wiser, a poorer, and a dirtier man.