At
that moment streams of chilly rain-water were coursing down across
the dial of the barometer, but it registered fair even then. He
said--the American did--that it was the most stationary barometer
he had ever seen, and the most reliable--not vacillating and given
to moods, like most barometers, but fixed and unchangeable in its
habits.
I matched it, though, with a thermometer I saw in the early spring
of 1913 at a coast resort in southern California. An Eastern
tourist would venture out on the windswept and drippy veranda, of
a morning after breakfast. He would think he was cold. He would
have many of the outward indications of being cold. His teeth
would be chattering like a Morse sounder, and inside his white-duck
pants his knees would be knocking together with a low, muffled
sound. He would be so prickled with gooseflesh that he felt like
Saint Sebastian; but he would take a look at the thermometer
--sixty-one in the shade! And such was the power of mercury and
mind combined over matter that he would immediately chirk up and
feel warm.
Not a hundred yards away, at a drug store, was one of those
fickle-minded, variable thermometers, showing a temperature that
ranged from fifty-five on downward to forty; but the hotel thermometer
stood firm at sixty-one, no matter what happened. In a season of
trying climatic conditions it was a great comfort--a boon really
--not only to its owner but to his guests.
Pages:
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81