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. Speaking personally, however, I have no
need to consult the barometer's face to see what the weather is going to
do, or the thermometer's tube to see what it has done. No person needs
to do so who is favored naturally as I am. I have one of the most
dependable soft corns in the business.
Rome is full of baths--vast ruined ones erected by various emperors and
still bearing their names--such as Caracalla's Baths and Titus' Baths,
and so on. Evidently the ancient Romans were very fond of taking baths.
Other striking dissimilarities between the ancient Romans and the modern
Romans are perceptible at a glance.
Chapter V
When the Seven A.M. Tut-tut leaves for Anywhere
Being desirous of tendering sundry hints and observations to such of my
fellow countrymen as may contemplate trips abroad I shall, with their
kindly permission, devote this chapter to setting forth briefly the
following principles, which apply generally to railroad travel in the
Old World.
First--On the Continent all trains leave at or about seven A.M. and
reach their destination at or about eleven P.M. You may be going a long
distance or a short one--it makes no difference; you leave at seven
and you arrive at eleven. The few exceptions to this rule are of no
consequence and do not count.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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