making everything go round. When I come in out
of the snow I want to see a fire--something that says to me with a
cheerful crackle, "Hallo, old man, cold outside, isn't it? Come and sit
down. Come quite close and warm your hands. That's right, put your foot
under him and persuade him to move a yard or two. That's all he's been
doing for the last hour, lying there roasting himself, lazy little devil.
He'll get softening of the spine, that's what will happen to him. Put
your toes on the fender. The tea will be here in a minute."

My British Stupidity.

I want something that I can toast my back against, while standing with
coat tails tucked up and my hands in my pockets, explaining things to
people. I don't want a comfortless, staring, white thing, in a corner of
the room, behind the sofa--a thing that looks and smells like a family
tomb. It may be hygienic, and it may be hot, but it does not seem to do
me any good. It has its advantages: it contains a cupboard into which
you can put things to dry. You can also forget them, and leave them
there. Then people complain of a smell of burning, and hope the house is
not on fire, and you ease their mind by explaining to them that it is
probably only your boots. Complicated internal arrangements are worked
by a key. If you put on too much fuel, and do not work this key
properly, the thing explodes. And if you do not put on any coal at all
and the fire goes out suddenly, then likewise it explodes. That is the
only way it knows of calling attention to itself. On the Continent you
know when the fire wants seeing to merely by listening:

"Sounded like the dining-room, that last explosion," somebody remarks.

"I think not," observes another, "I distinctly felt the shock behind
me--my bedroom, I expect."

Bits of ceiling begin to fall, and you notice that the mirror over the
sideboard is slowly coming towards you.

"Why it must be this stove," you say; "curious how difficult it is to
locate sound."

You snatch up the children and hurry out of the room. After a while,
when things have settled down, you venture to look in again. Maybe it
was only a mild explosion. A ten-pound note and a couple of plumbers in
the house for a week will put things right again. They tell me they are
economical, these German stoves, but you have got to understand them. I
think I have learnt the trick of them at last: and I don't suppose, all
told, it has cost me more than fif