the other night) is
not one of your common mercury ones; it is filled with a pink
fluid which I am told is alcohol, though I have never tried. It
hangs in the kitchen garden. This gives you an excuse in summer
for going into the kitchen garden and leaning against the fruit
trees. "Let's go and look at the thermometer" you say to your
guest from London, and just for the moment he thinks that the
amusements of the country are not very dramatic. But after a day
or two he learns that what you really mean is, "Let's go and see
if any fruit has blown down in the night." And he takes care to
lean against the right tree. An elaborate subterfuge, but
necessary if your gardener is at all strict.
But whether your thermometer hangs in the kitchen garden or at
the back of the shrubbery, you must recognize one thing about it,
namely, that it is an open-air plant. There are people who keep
thermometers shut up indoors, which is both cruel and
unnecessary. When you complain that the library is a little
chilly--as surely you are entitled to--they look at the
thermometer nailed to the Henry Fielding shelf and say, "Oh no; I
don't think so. It's sixty-five." As if anybody wanted a
thermometer to know if a room were cold or not. These people
insult thermometers and their guests further by placing one of
the former in the bathroom soap-dish, in order that the latter
may discover whether it is a hot or cold bath which they are
having.
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