Museum Of Too Much Information

The museum is on the Quai des Messageries. It contains two million photographs as well as old artifacts including cameras.

Vello and David go in.

Terence has no choice but to follow.

Terence still has the phone David gave him.

Vello and David are perusing the Information.

The Information reads: ......two million photographs, also his Pyrétophore, probably the world's first combustion engine, and his 1818 implementation of the dandy horse, which he called the vélocipède....

There is always so much Information, says David.

Indeed, agrees Vello. And one ought to read it, but on the other hand....where is Terence?

Terence is photographing the photographs.

He ought not to be doing it.

A man in the Romantic clothes of early nineteenth century France comes up behind him.

Boo! says Nicéphore Niépce.

Terence jumps.

You should not be taking photographs, says Nicéphore Niépce.

I'm not, says Terence.

You should not be lying, says Nicéphore Niépce.

I'm not, says Terence.

Give me the phone, says Nicéphore Niépce.

He looks at the photos.

These are all of your face, says Nicéphore Niépce. Except this one.

That's my parrot, says Terence.

It's a building, says Nicéphore Niépce. It looks like the Hospice de Beaune.

Wah! wails Terence. That means I don't have a parrot!

You don't need a parrot, says Nicéphore Niépce. But you seem like a nice little boy. And since you are a nice little boy I will show you something special.

What? says Terence. He remembers other times when men have wanted to show him something special. But Nicéphore is rummaging through a folder.

Here we are, says Nicéphore. This is the world's oldest surviving camera photograph. I took it myself.

Terence looks at the photo.

A photo of a wall.

A wall, says Terence. If I was taking the world's first photo, I wouldn't have taken a wall.

I took the wall, says Nicéphore, because it needed several days of exposure. And walls don't go anywhere.

Terence remembers the walls of his palace. Some of them seemed to go somewhere.

It's apparent that Nicéphore's didn't.

Vello and David appear behind Terence and Nicéphore.

Everything all right? enquires David.

Yes, says Terence. Look, this is the world's first photograph. It's a wall, going nowhere.

My wall, says Nicephore. My photo, my camera.

Vello and David appear interested in the photo.

How did you do it? asks Vello.

It's the View from my Window at Le Gras, says Nicéphore. I focused the camera obscura onto a pewter plate thinly coated with Bitumen of Judea. The bitumen hardened in the brightly lit areas and remained soft in the dark areas, so that it could be washed away with a mixture of lavender oil and white petroleum. This was the resulting picture.

Clever chap, says Vello. And if I'm not mistaken you also invented a bicycle?