A LOVE TRAGEDY.
He was a smart new clinical thermometer. She was a pretty nurse in an influenza ward. His figurings were clear and his quicksilver glittered. Her eyes were blue and a little curl peeped from under her cap. He fell madly in love with her; and when her dainty fingers toyed with him his little heart swelled to bursting and he registered all he could.
So when she took her morning temperatures her patients were desperately high, and when the other nurse took them in the evening they were three degrees lower; and the doctors were much perplexed.
They put the love-struck thermometer in a tumbler of warm water with two others to test him; and, freed from her influence, he recorded correctly. Learned authorities on medical research meditated pamphlets, on the new variation of the universal plague.
Then came a morning when the pretty nurse, after too many cigarettes the night before, took her own temperature. For the adoring thermometer the supreme moment had arrived. In rapturous ecstasy at the touch of her dear lips he rose to heights of exaltation that left his other efforts far behind. "Drat the thing," exclaimed the pretty nurse, putting him down nastily, "I've got it myself now," and went off to bed. He, broken-hearted, rolled off the table and died.