It’s been a while since we’ve had a submission from Pappa Clip, but this little ditty popped into our inbox this week. Designed to provide a chuckle at the end of a hard week. Ed
Pappa Clip has been going through some family papers and has come across the following.
It purports to be an interview with a Victorian owner of a cotton mill transcribed word for word, as was the custom back then, by an ancestor named Pappa Pin. Perhaps it has a lesson for us in today’s world.
Pappa Pin: Mister – and I believe soon to be Lord – Muchcash, thank you for granting me this interview
Muchcash: You’ve got five minutes. I’m a busy man.
Pappa Pin: Of course. I have just the one question really. And that is why you, the owner of a vastly productive and profitable mill.
Muchcash: Built up from scratch. Started with nothing, like everybody else. Don’t forget that.
Pappa Pin: As we all know. And providing gainful employment to many grateful families of course. But the puzzle, to an ordinary person such as myself, is why abandon the water power with which you have hitherto so successfully driven your machinery, and go to the doubtless enormous expense of installing a steam engine? Magnificent though it is.
Muchcash: Not to mention the new fangled boiler thing wherein to generated the required steam pressure, the coal needed to fire it, the purchase of said coal and the wagons needed to bring it, the dispersal of the subsequent ash, the highly expensive training and employment of one of those engineer fellows and the team of shovellers needed to keep the fire going. Not cheap, any of it.
Pappa Pin: Exactly sir. So why? When you have right outside your door so to speak, a powerful fast flowing river? As well as all that reliable wheel driven machinery which has served so well till now?
Muchcash: In a word, reliability. What happened last summer in that drought? River level dropped for weeks at a time. Result, not enough flow to drive the mill, no product, children going hungry all over the place. Most distressing.
Pappa Pin: Oh dear! Not your family I hope?
Muchcash: Of course not my family! Dolt! But who do you think had to fork out for all those funerals?
Pappa Pin: Yes. Most generous.
Muchcash: Damn right it was. Didn’t have to, you know. Comes from being a considerate employer. Won’t happen again though. Not now I’ve got power I can rely on that’s what we’ve got to have in this modern age, reliability. Look at all those flour milling idiots, perched up on a hill and trying to make a living using the wind. Idiots are standing around idle for days at a time, every year. Can’t get anywhere like that! Reliability of supply, that’s the king. Can’t do without it, take my word. Well, that’s it. Times up. Things to do!
At this point Mr, soon to be Lord Muchcash, departed. He threw back one final word from the doorway however. “Wind! Ha!” he shouted. And disappeared.
Image: Ben Weiner under CC BY 2.0
