I matched it, though, with a thermometer I saw in the early spring of 1913 at a coast resort in southern California.  An Eastern tourist would venture out on the windswept and drippy veranda, of a morning after breakfast.  He would think he was cold.  He would have many of the outward indications of being cold.  His teeth would be chattering like a Morse sounder, and inside his white-duck pants his knees would be knocking together with a low, muffled sound.  He would be so prickled with gooseflesh that he felt like Saint Sebastian; but he would take a look at the thermometer —­sixty-one in the shade!  And such was the power of mercury and mind combined over matter that he would immediately chirk up and feel warm.

Not a hundred yards away, at a drug store, was one of those fickle-minded, variable thermometers, showing a temperature that ranged from fifty-five on downward to forty; but the hotel thermometer stood firm at sixty-one, no matter what happened.  In a season of trying climatic conditions it was a great comfort—­a boon really —­not only to its owner but to his guests.  Speaking personally, however, I have no need to consult the barometer’s face to see what the weather is going to do, or the thermometer’s tube to see what it has done.  No person needs to do so who is favored naturally as I am.  I have one of the most dependable soft corns in the business.

Rome is full of baths—­vast ruined ones erected by various emperors and still bearing their names—­such as Caracalla’s Baths and Titus’ Baths, and so on.  Evidently the ancient Romans were very fond of taking baths.

Other striking dissimilarities between the ancient Romans and the modern Romans are perceptible at a glance.

Chapter V

When the Seven A.M.  Tut-tut leaves for Anywhere

Being desirous of tendering sundry hints and observations to such of my fellow countrymen as may contemplate trips abroad I shall, with their kindly permission, devote this chapter to setting forth briefly the following principles, which apply generally to railroad travel in the Old World.

First—­On the Continent all trains leave at or about seven A.M. and reach their destination at or about eleven P.M.  You may be going a long distance or a short one—­it makes no difference; you leave at seven and you arrive at eleven.  The few exceptions to this rule are of no consequence and do not count.

Second—­A trunk is the most costly luxury known to European travel.  If I could sell my small, shrinking and flat-chested steamer trunk —­original value in New York eighteen dollars and seventy-five cents—­for what it cost me over on the other side in registration fees, excess charges, mental wear and tear, freightage, forwarding and warehousing bills, tips, bribes, indulgences, and acts of barratry and piracy, I should be able to laugh in the income tax’s face.  In this connection I would suggest to the tourist who is traveling with a trunk that he begin his land itinerary in Southern Italy and work northward; thereby, through the gradual shrinkage in weight, he will save much money on his trunk, owing to the pleasing custom among the Italian trainhands of prying it open and making a judicious selection from its contents for personal use and for gifts to friends and relatives.