“Fill them up again,” ordered Kearns of the bartender.
At this moment there was a commotion at the other end of the bar-room which attracted general attention. Ranged against the wall were three strange looking machines, remotely suggestive of barber chairs. There was a man seated in each of two of the machines, which, with a gentle whirr of wheels, were in operation. They were automatic shaving machines, operated by depositing a coin in the slot.
The commotion which had been caused grew out of the fact that one of the machines had apparently become disordered, which resulted in the occupant of its chair receiving a slight gash upon one side of his chin. The person thus mutilated was furious. He sprang from the chair and, seizing his walking stick, began furiously belaboring the machine.
“The Chinese pest seize (whack! whack!) this confounded, infernal machine (whack! whack!) it’s gone and cut me nearly clean through to the teeth (whack! whack! whack!) I’ll——”
“Hi! Hold on there!” yelled the man in the adjoining machine. “You’re shaking this automat of mine, sir, so that it’s trembling all over; just at the moment, too, when the knife’s over my gullet.”
“I don’t care!” howled back the man with the stick. “I’ve been cut and I’ll never stop until I’ve smashed this infernal thing into bits.” And he banged away at the machine.
“Stop, I say!” yelled the other man, with bulging eyes, “I can feel the knife entering my skin. If I’m cut, I’m liable to get the erysipelas. By heaven, sir, if you make this automat cut me, I’ll have your blood!”
The bartender, scenting a tragedy, ran from behind the bar and succeeded finally in pacifying the man with the stick.
“It isn’t often those machines get out of order,” said the bartender as he returned to his post, “but when they do, it’s apt to make customers mad.”
“They are automatic shaving machines, I see,” remarked Kearns.