第20章 ON THE WEATHER.(2)

But in the city where the painted stucco blisters under the smoky sun,and the sooty rain brings slush and mud,and the snow lies piled in dirty heaps,and the chill blasts whistle down dingy streets and shriek round flaring gas lit corners,no face of Nature charms us.

Weather in towns is like a skylark in a counting-house--out of place and in the way.Towns ought to be covered in,warmed by hot-water pipes,and lighted by electricity.The weather is a country lass and does not appear to advantage in town.We liked well enough to flirt with her in the hay-field,but she does not seem so fascinating when we meet her in Pall Mall.There is too much of her there.The frank,free laugh and hearty voice that sounded so pleasant in the dairy jars against the artificiality of town-bred life,and her ways become exceedingly trying.

Just lately she has been favoring us with almost incessant rain for about three weeks;and I am a demned damp,moist,unpleasant body,as Mr.Mantalini puts it.

Our next-door neighbor comes out in the back garden every now and then and says it's doing the country a world of good--not his coming out into the back garden,but the weather.He doesn't understand anything about it,but ever since he started a cucumber-frame last summer he has regarded himself in the light of an agriculturist,and talks in this absurd way with the idea of impressing the rest of the terrace with the notion that he is a retired farmer.I can only hope that for this once he is correct,and that the weather really is doing good to something,because it is doing me a considerable amount of damage.It is spoiling both my clothes and my temper.The latter I can afford,as I have a good supply of it,but it wounds me to the quick to see my dear old hats and trousers sinking,prematurely worn and aged,beneath the cold world's blasts and snows.

There is my new spring suit,too.A beautiful suit it was,and now it is hanging up so bespattered with mud I can't bear to look at it.

That was Jim's fault,that was.I should never have gone out in it that night if it had not been for him.I was just trying it on when he came in.He threw up his arms with a wild yell the moment be caught sight of it,and exclaimed that he had "got 'em again!"I said:"Does it fit all right behind?"

"Spiffin,old man,"he replied.And then he wanted to know if I was coming out.

I said "no"at first,but he overruled me.He said that a man with a suit like that bad no right to stop indoors."Every citizen,"said he,"owes a duty to the public.Each one should contribute to the general happiness as far as lies in his power.Come out and give the girls a treat."Jim is slangy.I don't know where he picks it up.It certainly is not from me I said:"Do you think it will really please 'em?"He said it would be like a day in the country to them.

That decided me.It was a lovely evening and I went.

When I got home I undressed and rubbed myself down with whisky,put my feet in hot water and a mustard-plaster on my chest,had a basin of gruel and a glass of hot brandy-and-water,tallowed my nose,and went to bed.

These prompt and vigorous measures,aided by a naturally strong constitution,were the means of preserving my life;but as for the suit!Well,there,it isn't a suit;it's a splash-board.

And I did fancy that suit,too.But that's just the way.I never do get particular{y fond of anything in this world but what something dreadful happens to it.I had a tame rat when I was a boy,and Iloved that animal as only a boy would love an old water-rat;and one day it fell into a large dish of gooseberry-fool that was standing to cool in the kitchen,and nobody knew what had become of the poor creature until the second helping.

I do hate wet weather in town.At least,it is not so much the wet as the mud that I object to.Somehow or other I seem to possess an irresistible alluring power over mud.I have only to show myself in the street on a muddy day to be half-smothered by it.It all comes of being so attractive,as the old lady said when she was struck by lightning.Other people can go out on dirty days and walk about for hours without getting a speck upon themselves;while if I go across the road I come back a perfect disgrace to be seen (as in my boyish days my poor dear mother tried often to tell me).If there were only one dab of mud to be found in the whole of London,I am convinced Ishould carry it off from all competitors.

I wish I could return the affection,but I fear I never shall be able to.I have a horror of what they call the "London particular."Ifeel miserable and muggy all through a dirty day,and it is quite a relief to pull one's clothes off and get into bed,out of the way of it all.Everything goes wrong in wet weather.I don't know how it is,but there always seem to me to be more people,and dogs,and perambulators,and cabs,and carts about in wet weather than at any other time,and they all get in your way more,and everybody is so disagreeable--except myself--and it does make me so wild.And then,too,somehow I always find myself carrying more things in wet weather than in dry;and when you have a bag,and three parcels,and a newspaper,and it suddenly comes on to rain,you can't open your umbrella.

Which reminds me of another phase of the weather that I can't bear,and that is April weather (so called because it always comes in May).