“I apprehend, then, that we are in a so-called arcade?”
“Well, yes; if you mean to apply that name to the greater part of our city. That which in the nineteenth century was only to be found occasionally in the great towns of Europe, has become a regular institution in the twenty-first, owing to the manufacture of our inexpensive
Verre sans Fin,
or ‘Endless Glass,’ as our people generally call it.”
“I have no doubt that this must be a considerable improvement on your town-life throughout winter; but in summer-time I should say this must be intolerably hot.”
“Not at all; the same society which undertakes the supply of warm air in winter also provides for us during the summer months a cooling draught. Nothing can be easier than that. You are doubtless aware of ice having been manufactured in the middle of summer for at least a couple of centuries. During the warm season the air is made to pass over the glass vault above us before it reaches the pavement through the sieve-like plate, and if the warm-air inspectors properly attend to their duties, there is scarcely any difference in our temperature throughout the year.”
“Then probably you warm your houses by a similar process, and you never use any stoves or fireplaces now?”
Neither of my companions could help smiling at these words, betraying again, as they did, my very old-fashioned notions. Bacon, however, gave me a kindly nod of assent as he proceeded to explain: “Just as a cold-water bath may be heated at pleasure by opening the hot-water tap, we can warm the air in our apartments by means of a valve, which when opened, not only affords a supply of warm air, but has the additional advantage of producing a most delightful refreshing of the atmosphere without any idea of draught.”
“I really cannot understand,” Miss Phantasia here remarked, “how the people in those barbarous times managed to live amid the smoke and ashes and dust of their horrible fireplaces.”