e weather really is doing good to something,
because it is doing me a considerable amount of damage. It is spoiling
both my clothes and my temper. The latter I can afford, as I have a good
supply of it, but it wounds me to the quick to see my dear old hats and
trousers sinking, prematurely worn and aged, beneath the cold world's
blasts and snows.

There is my new spring suit, too. A beautiful suit it was, and now it is
hanging up so bespattered with mud I can't bear to look at it.

That was Jim's fault, that was. I should never have gone out in it that
night if it had not been for him. I was just trying it on when he came
in. He threw up his arms with a wild yell the moment he caught sight of
it, and exclaimed that he had "got 'em again!"

I said: "Does it fit all right behind?"

"Spiffin, old man," he replied. And then he wanted to know if I was
coming out.

I said "no" at first, but he overruled me. He said that a man with a
suit like that had no right to stop indoors. "Every citizen," said he,
"owes a duty to the public. Each one should contribute to the general
happiness as far as lies in his power. Come out and give the girls a
treat."

Jim is slangy. I don't know where he picks it up. It certainly is not
from me.

I said: "Do you think it will really please 'em?" He said it would be
like a day in the country to them.

That decided me. It was a lovely evening and I went.

When I got home I undressed and rubbed myself down with whisky, put
my feet in hot water and a mustard-plaster on my chest, had a basin of
gruel and a glass of hot brandy-and-water, tallowed my nose, and went to
bed.

These prompt and vigorous measures, aided by a naturally strong
constitution, were the means of preserving my life; but as for the suit!
Well, there, it isn't a suit; it's a splash-board.

And I did fancy that suit, too. But that's just the way. I never do get
particularly fond of anything in this world but what something dreadful
happens to it. I had a tame rat when I was a boy, and I loved that
animal as only a boy would love an old water-rat; and one day it fell
into a large dish of gooseberry-fool that was standing to cool in the
kitchen, and nobody knew what had become of the poor creature until the
second helping.

I do hate wet weather in town. At least, it is not so much the wet
as the mud that I object to. Somehow or other I seem to possess an
irresistible alluring power over mud. I have only to show myself i