“When all things were made none was made better than this; to be a lone man’s companion, a bachelor’s friend, a hungry man’s food, a sad man’s cordial, a wakeful man’s sleep, and a chilly man’s fire, sir; while for stanching of wounds, purging of rheum, and settling of the stomach, there’s no herb like unto it under the canopy of heaven.”

And by this time the bowl is naught but ash.  Even my dear General Catalogue begins to blur before me.  Slip it under the pillow; gently and kindly lay the pipe in the candlestick, and blow out the flame.  The window is open wide:  the night rushes in.  I see a glimpse of stars ... a distant chime ... and fall asleep with the faint pungence of the Indian herb about me.

TIME TO LIGHT THE FURNACE

The twenty-eighth of October.  Coal nine dollars a ton.  Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell had made a resolution not to start the furnace until Thanksgiving.  And in the biting winds of Long Island that requires courage.

Commuters the world over are a hardy, valorous race.  The Arab commutes by dromedary, the Malay by raft, the Indian rajah by elephant, the African chief gets a team of his mothers-in-law to tow him to the office.  But wherever you find him, the commuter is a tough and tempered soul, inured to privation and calamity.  At seven-thirty in the morning he leaves his bungalow, tent, hut, palace, or kraal, and tells his wife he is going to work.

How the winds whistle and moan over those Long Island flats!  Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell had laid in fifteen tons of black diamonds.  And hoping that would be enough, they were zealous not to start the furnace until the last touchdown had been made.

But every problem has more than one aspect.  Belinda, the new cook, had begun to work for them on the fifth of October.  Belinda came from the West Indies, a brown maiden still unspoiled by the sophistries of the employment agencies.  She could boil an egg without cracking it, she could open a tin can without maiming herself.  She was neat, guileless, and cheerful.  But, she was accustomed to a warm climate.

The twenty-eighth of October.  As Mr. and Mrs. Blackwell sat at dinner, Mr. Blackwell buttoned his coat, and began a remark about how chilly the evenings were growing.  But across the table came one of those glances familiar to indiscreet husbands.  Passion distorted, vibrant with rebuke, charged with the lightning of instant dissolution, Mrs. Blackwell’s gaze struck him dumb with alarm.  Husbands, husbands, you know that gaze!

Mr. Blackwell kept silence.  He ate heartily, choosing foods rich in calories.  He talked of other matters, and accepted thankfully what Belinda brought to him.  But he was chilly, and a vision of coal bills danced in his mind.

* * * * *

After dinner he lit the open fire in the living room, and he and Mrs. Blackwell talked in discreet tones.  Belinda was merrily engaged in washing the dishes.