We asked.

"Very well," said Mr. Ripley. "I will show you my electric house."

And Mr, Ripley asked us to follow him.

13 Mr. Ripley's Electric House

MR. RIPLEY led us to the entrance of his little house and asked us to press the button of an electric bell.

Instead of the usual bell we heard melodic sounds as if issuing from a music-box'. The door opened by itself, and we found ourselves in the anteroom.

Mr. Ripley walked up to a box hanging on the wall, opened a small door with an accustomed gesture, and showed us an electric machine.

"Five types of electric bells," he said, with a smile. "If a guest rings at the door, you hear the melody that you have just heard. If you press the button in order to call for a servant from the room, you hear an aria from Carmen."

Mr. Ripley pressed a button and the apparatus actually played "Love like a bird, but unearthly ..."

"The bell for breakfast is the Yale University March, and the bell for dinner is an English Christmas carol. There is also an alarm signal. Altogether there are five types of electric bells. It's a pity that our firm has not yet invented a signal which could tell what kind of guest was ringing—pleasant or unpleasant," said the master of the house.

Having made this joke, Mr. Ripley laughed.

"But this is nothing—merely an electrical curiosity. Now I will ask you to come into my office."

Mr. Ripley represented a widely scattered type in America, the pink-cheeked and grey-haired business man. This type is made up of Americans between forty and fifty years old, prospering on good incomes, a good appetite, and a tremendous reserve of optimism. Having at the age of forty become pink-cheeked and grey-haired, the gentleman remains so to the end of his days, and after that it is no longer possible to say how old he is, whether fifty or sixty-eight. Arriving in his office, Mr. Ripley sat down at once in an easy-chair between his writing-table and a shelf of books, and, placing his feet on a chair, lit a cigarette.

"This is how I rest after work," he remarked, exhaling the smoke through his mouth.

He puffed hastily, without inhaling, intent on blowing out as much smoke as possible.

"It is not so harmful to smoke," he informed us, "as it is to breathe in the smoke which has gathered in a room, isn't that so? Most harmful of all is bad air."

Here we noticed that the smoke did not spread through the room and did not gather as usual, but before our eyes it drifted in the direction of the bookshelf and disappeared among the books. Having noted the effect produced by his actions, Mr. Ripley began to smoke harder than ever. In the most miraculous way the smoke crept to the bookshelf, momentarily surrounded the edges of the books, and immediately disappeared. Not even the smell of tobacco remained in the room.

"Behind the books is hidden an electrical ventilation system," Mr. Ripley explained.

He walked to a round glass mechanism containing several arrows and said:

"The electrical instrument for regulating the temperature of the room. You like to have it cool at night—let's say, about fifty-three degrees. And from seven o'clock in the morning you want it to be about sixty-five, or anything else you may desire. You turn the arrow like that, and this arrow like this, and you may calmly go to sleep. The instrument will carry out your desire. It will be warm here when it is cold in the street, and cool here when it is hot in the street. It will be done automatically. Everything else in this office is a trifle. This lamp shade throws a comfortable light at the writing-desk. If you turn it, the lamp will illuminate the ceiling, which will reflect the light and spread it over the entire room. Now the room is softly lighted, while the source of light is hidden and does not cut the eyes."

Then Mr. Ripley went into the dining-room. Here were various electrical instruments which were well made, although they did not astound us with their novelty: a coffee-pot, a toaster, a tea-kettle with a whistle, and a frying-pan for cooking America's national dish, bacon or ham and eggs. All these were the latest models. On the buffet, apparently for contrast, was an old spirit lamp. Americans like to demonstrate graphically the history of technique. Ford, side by side with his modern factory, has a museum where are exhibited old automobiles and engines. In the yard of the factory of General Electric stands one of the first electrical machines as a kind of monument; and in the cable shop, beside a lathe from which uninterruptedly crawls the latest model of cable that is automatically covered with a silvery lead casing, is exhibited Edison's first cable encased in a clumsy cast-iron pipe.

But Mr. Ripley delivered the main blow to his visitors in the kitchen. Here stood an electric stove of amazingly clear creamy whiteness.

"In the lower part of the stove is a drawer for dishes," said Mr. Ripley. "Here the plates are always warm and it is not necessary to heat them specially before dinner. You want to cook dinner, soup, and roast. You prepare the soup meat and the vegetables, put them in the pot, add water, and put it on top of the stove. Then you prepare the meat for the roast and put it in the oven. Then you go up to a special apparatus on the right side of the stove and move one arrow to 'soup' and the other to 'roast.' After that you can calmly go to work. The dinner will not be spoiled, even if you do not return until evening. As soon as it is ready, the heating automatically decreases. Only a low temperature will be kept up, so that the dinner should not be cold by the time of your arrival. There is never any soot in my kitchen, because there is an electric draught right over the stove."

Mr. Ripley quickly took a piece of paper out of his pocket and lit it. The smoke and the soot disappeared immediately.

"But one thing is bad! After all the cooking there are many bones, potato peelings, and other garbage."

Mr. Ripley's face expressed suffering, but a second later it was lighted up with an optimistic smile. He walked up to a square metallic drum placed beside the stove and raised its lid.

"Here you throw all the refuse and garbage and, after closing the lid, turn on the electricity. In a few minutes the drum will be empty and clean. The refuse is ground and carried away through the drains."

Mr. Ripley quickly seized a Sunday newspaper, which weighed five pounds, crumpled it with difficulty, threw it into the drum. We heard a brief clatter, and the pink-cheeked gentleman lifted the lid with triumph. The drum was empty.

In the course of ten minutes Mr. Ripley, as deftly as a juggler, solved with the aid of electricity two more great kitchen problems—the preservation of supplies and the washing of dishes.

He showed us an electric refrigerator, which not only needed no ice but, on the contrary, prepared it in a special little white bath-tub, which looked like a photographer's, in the shape of neat transparent little cubes. In this refrigerator were compartments for meat, milk, fish, eggs, and fruit. Then the lid of another drum was taken off. It had a number of various shelves, shelvelets, and hooks.

"Here you place the soiled dishes, spoons, plates, pots. Then you close the lid and turn on the electric current. From all sides streams of hot water beat against the dishes, and a few minutes later they are clean. Now it is necessary to dry them. Oh, what a job that is and how unpleasant to wipe dishes! Isn't that true? But no! After washing, the supply of water automatically stops and in its place dry air pours out of special jets. A few more minutes—and your dishes, gentlemen, are clean and dry."