THICK ICE 



presaged another south blow filled the 

 sky, so apparently nothing was wanted 

 but the voice at the other end of the line. 

 It was along in the evening that I heard 

 the first call, followed rapidly by a great 

 uproar, so that people heard it in their 

 houses half a mile or more away. Imme- 

 diately I looked up the thermometer. The 

 temperature had not changed a degree 

 for hours. Yet here were the primal 

 forces telephoning back and forth to one 

 another and fairly making the welkin ring 

 with their hubbub. Surely wires were 

 crossed somewhere on the ether waves, 

 or else the tempers of the primal forces 

 themselves were out of sorts. 



I seemed to hear familiar words in 

 their roarings, admonitions to get farther 

 away from the transmitter, requests for 

 strangers to get ofif the line and other 

 little courtesies that pass current in the 

 245 



