“Oh!” said the ladies, “if that’s all, we are not afraid; are we, Mr.——?” each turning to her particular companion with a look that induced the latter to engage unanimously to answer for their safety.
“But there is no ice,” again said Weeville, with a manner of most deplorable abasement.
“Now, how can that be?” demanded our precise man again; “water freezes at thirty-two.”
“Why,” burst forth the female chorus, “the Central Park has been frozen these two days.”
“Well, Mr. Weeville,” I then commenced, growing incensed at his stupidity, “if there was no ice, why did you tell me last evening that it was six inches thick?”
“So it was,” he replied, still more drearily.
“Then, in Heaven’s name, what has become of it?”
“Willis cut it all yesterday, and put it in his ice-houses,” was the final reply. If he had fired a pistol among the party, my friend could not have surprised them more. “He says he wanted it to freeze smoother; but the pond is ruined for the season, as the little pieces and lumps that have broken off will remain, and destroy the surface.”
“What a shame!” cried the ladies. “The scoundrel!” growled the men. “Well, what can we do?” asked the former. “Let us go home,” replied the latter. Vain were my imploring requests that they would at least visit my country seat—in company I speak of it as my country “place” or “seat”—that they might warm themselves after their journey, and satisfy the cravings of hunger and thirst. “All aboard!” yelled the conductor, for the Flushing trains make immediate return trips, like ferry-boats. My companions clambered up the steps and into the seats, and, in a moment more, were being whirled back to the city. I did not accompany them, but remained with Weeville, who, though far from lively, was probably a more pleasant associate for me just then.
In fact, on the question of skating the city seems to possess certain advantages. In the country snow keeps falling at odd and inconvenient times, and there are no enthusiastic individuals to shovel it off. Hardly does the thermometer go down into the twenties, and succeed in congealing the surface and raising the expectations of the devotees of the “ringing steel,” ere the clouds cover the sky, snow-flakes make their appearance, and settle down with some inches of soft impassability, winding up, probably, with a rain or “freeze,” that leaves the entire surface of every pond an uninviting expanse of “humps and bumps,” that bid defiance equally to high art and unskilled blundering. The ice-shaving machines, the snow-sweepers and the like, are confined to the metropolitan limits; and, although there is plenty of ice in the country, it is often hard to get at, even if there is not an “ice-man” to carry it away for other uses than skating.