The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1882-08-31
The Weather Fiend.

pretty warm" the man with the thir
clothes said to the man in the corner seat as
the South Hill car was coming down the Di
vision street steps.
what's pretty warm?" growled the man in
the corner
why, the weather"
"What weather." more gruff than ever.
"Why" the man with the thin clothes said
looking as though he wished he hadn't begun
it, this weather"
well, said the man in the corner, "how's
this weather any different from any other ?"
| The man in the thin clothes looked ner-
| vously at the dumb mule and said, at was
, warmer" t
How do you know it is?" asked the man in
the corner.
The other man begun to wish he was well
| out OF it, and said he supposed it was; he
hadn't heard how the
is not the weather the same eyerywhere?"
savagely demanded the man in the corner.
why, no." the man in the thin clothes re-
pied, wishing to goodness he had q newspa-
per to hide behind. mo; it is warmer in some
places and some places it is colder"
What makes it warmer some places than
Its colder in others?" remorselessly pursued
the man in the corner.
why" the man with thin clothes said pte-
ously, 1.-THE sun, with the effect of the SUMS
heat"
makes it colder in some places than it is
warmer in others ?" roared the man in the
corner Indignantly. Never heard OF such a
thing"
mo" the man in thin clothes fastened to
explain, II didn't mean that. The sun makes
it warmer"
"Thcn what makes it colder?" pursued the
remorselcss man in the corner.
The man in the thin clothes wiped the bead
ed persplration from his pallid brow, and said
slowly he guessed it was the ice.
What ice ?" demanded the inquisitor.
"Why," the victim said. with all symptoms
ofapproaching dissolution apparent in his trem-
ulous voice, 1.-THE ice that as-frozen-frozen
by the FROST"
"Did you ever see any ice that wasn't fro
zen y howled the man III the corner i'll burst
of derision.
The man IN thin clothes huskily whispered
that he wished that he was dead, and said,
mo, that he believed he didn't"
"Then," Numbered the man in the corner,
"what are you talking about :"
The man in thin clothes made an effort to
brace up, and spicily replied that he was try
ing to talk about the weather"
And what do you know about it ?" trium-
phantly roared the man in the corner. "What
do you know about the weather."
uC ulbu Ill tuC ClUtlCb iOSt LIS II ~
again, and feebly said, "he don't know very
much about it, that was fact" And then
he tried to be cheerful and work in little
joke about nobody being able to know much
about the weather, but the man in the cor
ner sat down on him with tremendous out
burst.
mo, sir, should say you didn't You
come into this car and force yourself on the
attention of a stranger, and begin to talk to
me about the weather, just as though you
owned it, and l find you don't know u solitary
thing about the matter you yourself selected
to talk about; you don't know one thing about
meteorological conditions, principles, or phe-
nomena you can't tell me why it is warm IN
August and cold in December; you don't know
why icicles form faster in sunlight than they
do in the shade; you don't know why the
earth grows colder as it comes nearer the sun
you can't tell why man can be sun struck in
the shade; you can't tell me how cyclone is
formed, nor how the trade winds blow; you
couldn't find the calm centre of a storm if your
life depended on it; you don't know what a
sirocco is, nor where the south monsoon blows;
you don't know the average rainfall in the
United States for the past and current year
you don't understand the formation OF fog, and
you can't explain why the dew falls at night
and dries up IN the day you don't know why
wind dries the ground more quickly than
the. hot sun; you don't know one solitary thing
about the weather, and you are just like
thousand and one other people who always
begin talking about the weather because they
don't know anything else, when, by the cave
of Boreas, sir, they know less about the wea-
ther than they do about anything else in the
world"
And the man in the corner gared up and
down at the timid passengers III the South
Hill car, but 70 man burst answer him. And
as for the man in thin clothes he didn't know
Tor the life of him whether he had sunstroke
ed about twenty-seyen miles to Jefferson street
CruSSluY.