Here at this end we have the founder of the line, dubbed a knight
on the gory field of Hastings; and there at that end we have the
present heir, a knighted dub. We know they cannot put the tubs
in the family picture gallery; there is no room. They need an
armory for that outfit, and no armory is specified in the
advertisement.
So I, for one, must decline to be misled or deceived by specious
generalities. If you are asking me my opinion I shall simply say
that the bathing habit of Merrie England is a venerable myth, and
likewise so is the fresh-air fetish. The error an Englishman makes
is that he mistakes cold air for fresh air.
In cold weather an Englishman arranges a few splintered jackstraws,
kindling fashion, in an open grate somewhat resembling in size and
shape a wallpocket for bedroom slippers. On this substructure he
gently deposits one or more carboniferous nodules the size of a
pigeon egg, and touches a match to the whole. In the more fortunate
instances the result is a small, reddish ember smoking intermittently.
He stands by and feeds the glow with a dessert-spoonful of fuel
administered at half-hour intervals, and imagines he really has a
fire and that he is really being warmed.
Why the English insist on speaking of coal in the plural when they
use it only in the singular is more than I can understand.
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