"How did you find the weather in London?" asked the friend of the returned traveler.
"You don't have to find the weather in London," replied the traveler. "It bumps into you at every corner."
An American and a Scotsman were discussing the cold experienced in winter in the North of Scotland.
"Why, it's nothing at all compared to the cold we have in the States," said the American. "I can recollect one winter when a sheep, jumping from a hillock into a field, became suddenly frozen on the way, and stuck in the air like a mass of ice."
"But, man," exclaimed the Scotsman, "the law of gravity wouldn't allow that."
"I know that," replied the tale-pitcher. "But the law of gravity was frozen, too!"
Two commercial travelers, one from London and one from New York, were discussing the weather in their respective countries.
The Englishman said that English weather had one great fault—its sudden changes.
"A person may take a walk one day," he said, "attired in a light summer suit, and still feel quite warm. Next day he needs an overcoat."
"That's nothing," said the American. "My two friends, Johnson and Jones, were once having an argument. There were eight or nine inches of snow on the ground. The argument got heated, and Johnson picked up a snowball and threw it at Jones from a distance of not more than five yards. During the transit of that snowball, believe me or not, as you like, the weather changed and became hot and summer like, and Jones, instead of being hit with a snowball, was—er—scalded with hot water!"
Ex-President Taft on one of his trips was playing golf on a western links when he noticed that he had a particularly good caddie, an old man of some sixty years, as they have on the Scottish links.
"And what do you do in winter?" asked the President.
"Such odd jobs as I can pick up, sir," replied the man.
"Not much chance for caddying then, I suppose?" asked the President.
"No, sir, there is not," replied the man with a great deal of warmth. "When there's no frost there's sure to be snow, and when there's no snow there's frost, and when there's neither there's sure to be rain. And the few days when it's fine they're always Sundays."
On the way to the office of his publishers one crisp fall morning, James Whitcomb Riley met an unusually large number of acquaintances who commented conventionally upon the fine weather. This unremitting applause amused him. When greeted at the office with "Nice day, Mr. Riley," he smiled broadly.
"Yes," he agreed. "Yes, I've heard it very highly spoken of."
The darky in question had simmered in the heat of St. Augustine all his life, and was decoyed by the report that colored men could make as much as $4 a day in Duluth.
He headed North in a seersucker suit and into a hard winter. At Chicago, while waiting for a train, he shivered in an engine room, and on the way to Duluth sped by miles of snow fields.
On arriving he found the mercury at 18 below and promptly lost the use of his hands. Then his feet stiffened and he lost all sensation.
They picked him up and took him to a crematory for unknown dead. After he had been in the oven for awhile somebody opened the door for inspection. Rastus came to and shouted:
"Shut dat do' and close dat draff!"
