that the approach of a storm is something that modern science is able to ascertain long in advance; and he bade us come to his office whenever we pleased, and see for ourselves what science said.  This was, at any rate, something to fill the afternoon with, and we went to him about five.  Lin McLean joined us on the way.  I came upon him lingering alone in the street, and he told me that Mrs. McLean was calling on friends.  I saw that he did not know how to spend the short recess or holiday he was having.  He seemed to cling to the society of others, and with them for the time regain his gayer mind.  He had become converted to Ogden, and the New-Yorker, on his side, found pleasant and refreshing this democracy of Governors and cow-punchers.  Jode received us at the signal-service office, and began to show us his instruments with the careful pride of an orchid-collector.

“A hair hygrometer,” he said to me, waving his wax-like hand over it.  “The indications are obtained from the expansion and contraction of a prepared human hair, transferred to an index needle traversing the divided arc of—­”

“What oil do you put on the human hair Jode?” called out the Governor, who had left our group, and was gamboling about by himself among the tubes and dials.  “What will this one do?” he asked, and poked at a wet paper disc.  But before the courteous Jode could explain that it had to do with evaporation and the dew-point, the Governor’s attention wandered, and he was blowing at a little fan-wheel.  This instantly revolved and set a number of dial hands going different ways.  “Hi!” said the Governor, delighted.  “Seen ’em like that down mines.  Register air velocity in feet.  Put it away, Jode.  You don’t want that to-morrow.  What you’ll need, Hilbrun says, is a big old rain-gauge and rubber shoes.”

“I shall require nothing of the sort, Governor,” Jode retorted at once.  “And you can go to church without your umbrella in safety, sir.  See there.”  He pointed to a storm-glass, which was certainly as clear as crystal.  “An old-fashioned test, you will doubtless say, gentlemen,” Jode continued—­though none of us would have said anything like that—­“but unjustly discredited; and, furthermore, its testimony is well corroborated, as you will find you must admit.”  Jode’s voice was almost threatening, and he fetched one corroborator after another.  I looked passively at wet and dry bulbs, at self-recording, dotted registers; I caught the fleeting sound of words like “meniscus” and “terrestrial minimum thermometer,” and I nodded punctually when Jode went through some calculation.  At last I heard something that I could understand—­a series of telegraphic replies to Jode from brother signal-service officers all over the United States.  He read each one through from date of signature, and they all made any rain to-morrow entirely impossible.  “And I tell you,” Jode concluded, in his high, egg-shell voice, “there’s no chance of precipitation now, sir.  I tell you, sir,”—­he was shrieking jubilantly—­ “there’s not a damn’ thing to precipitate!”