Wint stopped in at the Journal office one hot day in July. B. B. was in his shirt sleeves, and collarless. He wore, habitually, stiff-bosomed shirts of the kind usually associated with evening dress. On this particular day, he had been working over the press—his foreman was ill—and there were inky smears on the white bosom. Nevertheless, B. B.’s pink countenance above the shirt was as clean as a baby’s. There was always this refreshing atmosphere of cleanliness about the editor. Wint came into the office and sat down in one of the chairs and took off his hat and fanned himself. The afternoon sun was beginning to strike in through the open door and the big window; but there was a pleasantly cool breath from the dark regions behind the office where the press and the apparatus that goes to make a small-town printing shop were housed. Wint said:
“This is one hot day.”
“Hottest day of the summer,” B. B. agreed.
“How hot is it? Happen to know?”
“Ninety-four in the shade at one o’clock,” said B. B. “Mr. Waters telephoned to me, half an hour ago.”
“J. B. Waters? He keeps a weather record, doesn’t he?”
“Yes. Has, for a good many years. We print his record every week. Perhaps you haven’t noticed it.”
Wint nodded. “Yes. I suppose every one likes to read about the weather. Even on a hot day.”
B. B. smiled. “That’s because every one likes to read about things they have experienced. You won’t find a big daily in the country without its paragraph or its temperature tables devoted to the weather, every day in the year. And a day like this is worth a front-page story any time.”
“You know what a day like this always makes me think of?” Wint asked; and B. B. looked interested. “A glass of beer,” said Wint. “Cool and brown, with beads on the outside of the glass.”