PROVING THE RULE 



How comfortable to be able to fall back 

 upon a barogram, or a hygrometric read- 

 ing, rather than one's native idiocy, when 

 convicted of a tactless remark, or a revoke 

 at Bridge! 



But the human race is able to advance 

 its claim a little further; for there are 

 those among us privileged to carry with 

 them the trustworthy weather-glasses of 

 rheumatic joints, old wounds, corns, heads 

 that ache and nerves that jangle, — all func- 

 tioning very usefully upon occasion. It 

 occurs to one that the possession of such 

 qualifications ought to cut a figure in the 

 selection of our professional weather- 

 prophets. Delicate instruments might be 

 devised for measuring the extent of their 

 inconveniences and the readings would be 

 of the utmost help in local prediction. On 

 the other hand, as it must be admitted, a 

 change of personnel would introduce rather 

 desperate confusion until equations were 

 adjusted, it being improbable that any two 

 sets of corns are tuned to an identical re- 

 sponse. Better, on the whole, to enlist the 

 more delicate sensibilities of the lower 

 orders in nature. A scientifically-stocked 

 zoological garden could not fail to assist 

 the deliberations of a weather bureau 

 123 



