The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-12-02
pY cHAnLEs BArrxLL LooAns.

BY BATTELL LOoAns.
am one OF those abnormally normal
persons who keep their houses at just the
right temperature through fall and winter.
BY Just the right temperature I mean from
90 TO 70 degrees Fahrenheit.
or course. there are occasions when 1
forget the furnace and then the mercury
drops TO 80 degrees, and sometimes my
children stoke 1t playfully and then il
mounts to 30 degrees, but as a general thing
my house is 80 comfortable Ito mel that my
American friends SILVER when they come
to see me. and my English friends ask me
if won't please open q window or two.
Running my house with such sweet
rea~sonableness It will readily be realized
that I am in Tophet whenever l call on
any Of my ~neighbors, all Of whom own
blast furnaces run at rush order heat.
And when I 20 to New York city it IL like
going to -.
want to stop right here TO say that
New York Offices ought to have tropical
plants growing In them just to show the
rrete equator what plant life can do II it is
properly heated.
On trains and in Offices and in the homes
Of my friends and Acquaintance and enc
mics here in this country that gave me
birth. / wander around with my beak open
and my wings extended like a hen in July.
My blood PUSHES excitedly through my head
like a law defying motor car. and l daily
wonder that death by heat prostration does
not decimate the winter jewellers in Ameri-
can buildings.
II il were not for the look Of the thing l
would strip TO my undershirtt like a IN in
acssting shop. But the proprieties are ever
before me and I pant-in coat n vest
No wonder men die Of pneumonia each
year who never died before. How anyone
escapes / don't know.
They tell of a business man in a New York
fur mean Office, who had not led the
sort of life that leads one to the pearly gates.
and when he died he went to the place that
usedSo he spelled with a dash when was a
bow. but which in this degenerate age even
children call bell.
He had been gone scarcely a d ay when
his wife received a postal from him dated:
C~HAuDvnLE. GEHENNA.
July the hOtth.
DEAR MARIA: Send me my winter clothes.
It's chilly. BILLY.
Things being az they are in New York
and the rest of America, that il, the Amerl-
can people being under pledge to the coal
barons to burn three times as much coal
a. they need and pretend that they like
the consequent heat, it struck Inc that
when. ! went TO England I would find the
trmperaturs OF their houses In the early
autumn Just the thing that would appeal
TO me-.
these English are sensible in their
~sys, " said 1. They not only have raised
comfortable travelling to the dignity OF a
science, but they know how to make abb
normally normal people comfortable In the
chill days OF early October.
II will spend the winter in, England
said I enthusiastically. and not only be
comfortable in private houses, but In Lon
don Offices as we'll, for the Englishman is
one of whom coal Is not q master, but Goals
are his servant
SO after the unusual heat Of last sum-
mer in England / stayed on into the fall
and visited several persons who made mo
welcome in the hearty English fashion and
hade me do as I pleased, when I pleased
with what l pleased :
One day in October; having gono up
into Warwickshire to spend . little time
with congenial ones, the mercury began to
fail and the glass, like Jill, came tumbling
after. '
In England the glass is always doing
.omething. We in America seldom bother
with a barometer, and il we have n ten
10 one we don't know how to read it, but
your Englishman is lonesome II he hasn't
glass somewhere near at hand which
he can consult, and when you meet him
in the morning he gives you the inevitable
and vigorous handshake he says:
arRl e.. -saSn~ WALL hA RhyA fn
play tennis without umbrellas to-day
Or the glass is falling. l suppose you'll
b. getting our your g~aloshee.'
Englishmen scorn overshoes, They wear
shoes so thick that even an English rain
gives up trying to penetrate the soles, so
where's the need OF ubbers
The glass fell and so did the mercury
until the sky was full Of great windy, cold
clouds and the air bit ~shrewdly.
An said !. thinking for the nonce that
Twas at home. Il must start the furnace
going tonight
When I returned from the walk I took
zach morning i said to my host:
Getting cold. Going to light your
furnace?'
He lowered his head and looked at me
sort Of horizontally
in the first place, salo ne, us TOO early
in the season on October s to start a
furnace, and in the second place furnaces
don't. grow in this part OF the country.
Idoubt II even the Earl OF Warwick has one.
You're not cold, are your"
J., fresh from my invigorating walk. was
not cold. but I wanted 70 be beforehand;
it's a heaven born attribute OF mine.
"To-morrow's likely 70 be very chilly"
said I.
And the next day was indeed chilly.
damp and chilly. penetratingly damp
and chilly. gooseieshly chilly and dankly
damp. ~
The house il a stone one Of course
and when I woke up the next morning and
looked AZ the glass I saw that it had fallen
so low as TO be positively disgraceful.
Gusts Of rain spattersd on the pane and
the mercury registered 20 degrees. The
wind blew autumn leaves all over the place
as much as to say: Aren't the trees foolishf
IN the summer when it's hot they're fully
clothed, but In winter they're naked
II vns n thought that had often occurred