d of clocks is largely true of the weighing-machine. Like
the public clock, it thrusts itself upon us, and like the clock it
betrays the confidence which it invites. I feel convinced that no one
would ever think of using a weighing-machine if it did not constitute
the most characteristically national piece of furniture in our railway
stations. All weighing-machines cheat, but, if cheat they must, give me
the machine that flatly refuses to budge from zero after it has
swallowed your coin. I prefer that kind to the spasmodic machine on
which the indicator moves forward one hundred pounds every two minutes
and leaves a person utterly uncertain as to whether he should
immediately begin dieting or purchase a bottle of codliver oil. Yet even
this mockery of a weighing-machine is preferable to the emotional type
of scales which simultaneously gives you a false weight, tells your
fortune in utter disregard of age and sex, and plays a tune that cannot
be recognised. When such a machine has registered a German matron's
weight at 115 pounds and informed her that she will some day be
President of the United States, it is ludicrous to have it break into a
tinkle of self-appreciation, like a spaniel barking his own approval
after walking across the room on his hind legs.

As for the ordinary street thermometer, there is this to be said for it:
It may deceive, but it gives pleasure in deceiving. When a person is
sagging beneath the heat of an August midday, it is a distinct source of
comfort and pride to have the thermometer register 98 degrees. Even when
we are fully aware that the mercury is too high by three or four
degrees, it is easy enough to make one's self believe for the moment in
the higher figure. If it were not for this spiritual stimulus, I should
be inclined to regard all thermometers as a nuisance. Translating
Fahrenheit into Centigrade and _vice versa_, is one of the most painful
mental processes I can think of. I know that I cannot perform the
operation, and I cannot help trying. I remember how a certain European
monarch once lay seriously ill and my evening newspaper reported that
his temperature was 38.3 degrees C. On my way home I attempted to put
38.3 degrees C. into terms of F., and it speaks well for the
constitution of that European monarch that he should have survived the
violent fluctuations of temperature to which I subjected him. At Grand
Central Station he was literally burning up under a blazing heat of 14