uaintance," said the signal-service officer.

"Jode, when is it going to rain?" said the Governor, anxiously.

Now Jode is the most extraordinarily solemn man I have ever known. He
has the solemnity of all science, added to the unspeakable weight of
representing five of the oldest families in South Carolina. The Jodes
themselves were not old in South Carolina, but immensely so in--I think
he told me it was Long Island. His name is Poinsett Middleton Manigault
Jode. He used to weigh a hundred and twenty-eight pounds then, but his
health has strengthened in that climate. His clothes were black; his
face was white, with black eyes sharp as a pin; he had the shape of a
spout--the same narrow size all the way down--and his voice was as
dry and light as an egg-shell. In his first days at Cheyenne he had
constantly challenged large cowboys for taking familiarities with
his dignity, and they, after one moment's bewilderment, had concocted
apologies that entirely met his exactions, and gave them much
satisfaction also. Nobody would have hurt Jode for the world. In time he
came to see that Wyoming was a game invented after his book of rules was
published, and he looked on, but could not play the game. He had fallen,
along with other incongruities, into the roaring Western hotch-pot, and
he passed his careful, precise days with barometers and weather-charts.

He answered the Governor with official and South Carolina
impressiveness. "There is no indication of diminution of the prevailing
pressure," he said.

"Well, that's what I thought," said the joyous Governor, "so I'm going
to whoop her up."

"What do you expect to whoop up, sir?"

"Atmosphere, and all that," said the Governor. "Whole business has got
to get a move on. I've sent for a rain-maker."

"Governor, you are certainly a wag, sir," said Jode, who enjoyed Barker
as some people enjoy a symphony, without understanding it. But after we
had reached the club and were lunching, and Jode realized that a letter
had actually been written telling Hilbrun to come and bring his showers
with him, the punctilious signal-service officer stated his position.
"Have your joke, sir," he said, waving a thin, clean hand, "but I
decline to meet him."

"Hilbrun?" said the Governor, staring.

"If that's his name--yes, sir. As a member of the Weather Bureau and the
Meteorological Society I can have nothing to do with the fellow."

"Glory!" said the Governor. "Well, I suppose not. I se