"How," I said, "can you have the heart to dump $52.80 into my cellar without ceremony? You should at least remove your hat." Do you know, I don't believe he appreciated the situation. William made the first fire. I instructed him to lay on the coal as scarcely as possible, and to go slow with the draughts. So he threw on six shovelsful of my $52.80, opened everything and ran it up to 204 degrees F. Any man who sat ten minutes in our house and then dared to expose himself in a Turkish steam room would freeze to death in ten seconds. We had a fire in the furnace two or three days. I got interested in (a) a newly patented ash sifter (b) and a process for mixing ashes with some chemical solution that would restore a ton of coal for twenty-five cents. If you have never sifted ashes, you've missed something. You take a couple of shovelsful of ashes and dump them in the sifter. Then you pick up the sifter and agitate it. If I were employing an ash sifter, I should get one addicted to chills and ague, or St. Vitus' dance, or something. Then I could be sure he wasn't loafing on the job! Well, after you've shivered the sifter, busted a suspender button, twisted your backbone into a pretzel, filled your eyes, ears, nose, and lungs with dust and cussed your patron saint, you've got the net result: One piece of half-burned coal, six clinkers, and the top of a tin can. That chemical process to make coal out of ashes for a quarter a ton is a good thing--for the inventor. With childlike confidence I bought a bottle of it. After ruining a barrel of perfectly good ashes and backsliding from the church of Martin Luther I gave it up. Hereafter we will burn our coal as long as it will burn, and the ashes may go hang! I could have earned $50 at my profession in the time I was trying to beat an honest coal dealer out of $6.60. Well, when we finally got the furnace working I hopped into the shower bath. May good fortune attend the man who thought of putting a shower bath in That House I Bought! The water comes from overhead for one thing, and shoots into the delighted legs of the languorous for another, from the sides. It invigorates, cleanses, and tickles. Ballington Booth says man is regenerated by soup, soap, and salvation. But I would say, at first blush, that no man can get the full effect of regeneration on anything short of a shower bath in his house. I began by reducing my costume to a pleasant frame of mind and doing a few acrobatic stunts, deep breathing, setting-up exercises, and various liver-limberings. A free and easy perspiration set in. That, say all the doctors, is good for the system. Then I stepped blithely into the shower, drew the rubber curtain close and, commending my soul to all the gods I could call to mind, took a long breath and turned her on.