Morning journal and courier., 1882-09-13
The Weather Fiend.

Pretty warm" the man with the thin 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 gruffiy than ever. Why" the man in the thin clothes said looking 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 'it was warmer"
 "How do you know it is ?" asked the man in the corner.
 The other man began to wish that he was
 we'll out of it, and said he supposed it was j;
 he hadn't heard how the
 'Isn't the weather the same everywhere ?"
 savagely demanded the man in the corner.
 ''Why, mo-" the man with the thin clothes
 replied, wishing to goodness he had a news
 paper to hide behind mo, it's warmer in
 some places, and in some places it's colder. l" What makes it warmer in some places
 than it's colder in others ?'' remorselessly
 pursued the man in the corner
 "Why," the man with the thin clothes said
 piteously, ''the gun, with the effects of tho
 suns heat"
 ''Makes it colder in some places than il B
 warmer in others ?" roared the man in the
 corner indignantly. Never heard of such @ thing"
 Mo" the man in thin clothes hastened to explain, II didn't mean that. The sun makes
 it warmer"
 Then what makes it colder ?" pursued the remorseless man in the corner. The man in the thin clothes wiped the
 beaded precipitation 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 of approaching dissolution apparent in his
 tremulous voice; the ice that was-frozen frozen by the frost" 'tDid you ever any ice that wasn't fro
 zen ?'' howled the man in the corner, in a burst of derision.
 The man in thin clothes huskily whispered
 that he wished he was dead. and said "No /; that Is, he believed he didn't" ''Then," thundered the man in the corner, / "what are you talking about ?" The man in thin clothes then made an eff | fort to brace up, and spicily replied that he | was trying to talk about the weather" And what do you know about it ?" tri- l umphantly roared the man in the corner.
 "What do you know about the weather ?'' The man in the thin clothes lost his grip again, and feebly said "he didn't know very much about it, that was a 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
 "No sir. I 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 find you do not know a soli- tary thing about the matter yourself selected for your topic of conversation you don t know one thing about meteorological condi- tions principles or phenomena you can't
 tell me why it is warm in August and cold in
 December you don't know icicles form fas-
 ter in the sunlight than they do in the shade ;
 you don't know why the earth grows colder
 as it comes near the sun; you can't tell why
 & man can be sunstruck in the shade; you
 can't tell me how a cyclone is formed nor how the trade winds blow you couldn't find the calm center of a storm if your life de- pended on it you don't know what a sirocco | is nor where the southwest monsoon blows {; | 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 hot sun; you don't know one solitary | thing about the weather, and you are just l like thousand and one other people who | always begin talking about the weather be- | cause they don't know anything else, when | by the cave of Boreas, sir, they know less l about the weather than they do about anything i else in the world !''
 And the man in the corner glared up and
 down at the passengers in the South hill car,
 but no man durst answer him. And as for
 the man in the thin clothes, he didn't know | for the life of him whether he had sun. | stroke or an ague chill. He only knew it
 seemed about 22 miles to the Jefferson street | crossing.