now. I have been reading up some European Scientific reports--friend of

mine, Count Fugier, sent them to me--sends me all sorts of things from

Paris--he thinks the world of me, Fugier does. Well, I saw that the

Academy of France had been testing the properties of heat, and they came

to the conclusion that it was a nonconductor or something like that,

and of course its influence must necessarily be deadly in nervous

organizations with excitable temperaments, especially where there is any

tendency toward rheumatic affections. Bless you I saw in a moment what

was the matter with us, and says I, out goes your fires!--no more slow

torture and certain death for me, sir. What you want is the appearance

of heat, not the heat itself--that's the idea. Well how to do it was the

next thing. I just put my head, to work, pegged away, a couple of days,

and here you are! Rheumatism? Why a man can't any more start a case of

rheumatism in this house than he can shake an opinion out of a mummy!

Stove with a candle in it and a transparent door--that's it--it has been

the salvation of this family. Don't you fail to write your father about

it, Washington. And tell him the idea is mine--I'm no more conceited

than most people, I reckon, but you know it is human nature for a man to

want credit for a thing like that."

Washington said with his blue lips that he would, but he said in his

secret heart that he would promote no such iniquity. He tried to believe

in the healthfulness of the invention, and succeeded tolerably well;

but after all he could not feel that good health in a frozen, body was

any real improvement on the rheumatism.

The Gilded Age