However, if you have a wood fire, you must have a
pair of bellows. I know a man who always calls
them “bellus,” which is, I believe, the
professional pronunciation. He also talks about
a “hussif” and a “cold chisel.”
A cold chisel is apparently the ordinary sort of chisel
which you chisel with; what a hot chisel is I never
discovered. But whether one calls them “bellows”
or “bellus,” in these days one cannot
do without them. They are as necessary to a wood
fire as a poker is to a coal fire, and they serve
much the same purpose. There is something very
soothing about poking a fire, even if one’s
companions point out that one is doing it all wrong,
and offer an exhibition of the correct method.
To play upon a wood fire with a bellows gives one
the same satisfaction, and is just as pleasantly annoying
to the onlookers. They alone know how to rouse
the dying spark and fan it gently to a flame, until
the whole log is a triumphant blaze again; you, they
tell you, are merely blowing the whole thing out.
It is necessary, then, that the bellows-making industry
should revive. My impression is that a pair of
bellows is usually catalogued under the heading, “antique
furniture,” and I doubt if it is possible to
buy a pair anywhere but in an old furniture shop.
There must be a limit to the number of these available,
a limit which has very nearly been reached. Here
is a chance for our ironmongers (or carpenters, or
upholsterers, or whoever have the secret of it).
Let them get to work before we are swamped with German
bellows. It is no use to offer us pokers with
which to keep our log fires burning; we must have wind.
There is one respect in which I must confess that the
coal fire has the advantage of the wood fire.
If your favourite position is on the hearth-rug with
your back to whatever is burning, your right hand
gesticulating as you tell your hearers what is wrong
with the confounded Government, then it does not greatly
matter what brings you that pleasant dorsal warmth
which inspires you to such eloquence. But if
your favourite position is in an armchair facing the
fire, and your customary habit one of passive thought
rather than of active speech, then you will not get
those visions from the burning wood which the pictures
in a coal fire bring you. There are no deep, glowing
caverns in the logs from which friendly faces wink
back at you as your head begins gently to nod to them.
Perhaps it is as well. These are not the days
for quiet reflection, but for action. At least,
people tell me so, and I am very glad to hand on the
information.
Not Guilty
As I descended the stairs to breakfast, the maid was
coming up.
“A policeman to see you, sir,” she said,
in a hushed voice. “I’ve shown him
into the library.”
“Thank you,” I answered calmly, just as
if I had expected him.
