cloud, or haze and the number of dust particles in the air. Whether the vapor shall condense as fine Scotch mist or coarse black London fog is largely determined by the dust. If we can remove the dust from the air, we have removed the nuclei of condensation. Dr. Lodge has pointed out five different methods of accomplishing this, viz., filtration, settling, recondensing, calcining, and electrification. There may be other ways, but of those mentioned the last is the one which seems to contain the greatest possibilities when applied to the problem of fog-dissipation. There can be no doubt that air is speedily cleansed of solid matter in suspension by continued electrification. One of Dr. Lodge's experiments may be quoted here: "A bell-jar of illuminated magnesium smoke is connected with the pole of a Vose machine. A potential able to give quarter-inch or even tenth-inch sparks is ample. The smoke particles very quickly aggregate into long filaments, which drop by their own weight when the electrification is removed. A higher potential tears them asunder and drives them against the sides of the jar.... If the jar be filled with steam, electrification rapidly aggregates the particles or globules into Scotch mist and fine rain." Lodge further shows how a small cellar may be cleared of thick turpentine smoke by a point discharge; also that there are many other applications of the principle, such as purifying the air of smokingrooms, theatre galleries, disinfecting hospital wards, etc. To dissipate the fog we would either, by a gentle electrification, increase the size of the dust nuclei until they settled, or, under strong electrical discharges, scatter and precipitate them. Ten years have barely passed since Lodge made the suggestion of thus dissipating fog. Great changes have been made in electrical apparatus since then, and insulating materials then hardly known are now in common use. Potentials of fifty thousand volts are less rare to day than potentials of five thousand volts were five years ago. Within a reasonable distance fog can probably be dissipated and the air clarified. Of course the supply of fog may be such that there would be little appreciable diminution, but as a rule fog has well-marked limits and is localized. Fog-dispellers might be placed upon warships, ferry - boats, and at all terminal depots and crowded thoroughfares. cart away from our busiest streets the snow or solidified vapor of the air. Is it not better economy to attempt the conquest of the water vapor in another form? We IT IN THE WATCHES OF THE NIGHT. BY BRANDER MATTHEWS. T was still snowing solidly as the carriage swung out of the side street and went heavily on its way up the Avenue; the large flakes soon thickened again upon the huge fur collars of the two men who sat on the box bolt-upright; the flat crystals frosted the windows of the landau so that the trained nurse could see out only on one side. She sat back in the luxurious vehicle. She had on the seat beside her the bag containing her change of raiment; and she wondered, as she always did when she was called unexpectedly to take charge of an unknown case, what manner of house it might be that she was going to enter, and what kind of people she would be forced to associate with in the swift intimacy of the sick-room and for an unknown period. That the patient was wealthy and willing to spend his wealth was obvious the carriage, the horses, the liveried servants, were evidence enough of this. That his name was Swank she also knew; and she thought that perhaps she had heard about the marriage of a rich old man named Swank to a pretty young wife a year or two ago. That he had been taken sick suddenly, and that the case might be serious, she had gathered from the note which the doctor had sent to summon her, and which had been brought by the carriage that was now returning with her. She had ample time for speculation as they drove up the Avenue in the early darkness of the last day of the year. The Christmas wreaths still decked the windows of the hotels, although through the steady snow she could see little more than a blur of reddish-yellow light as she sped past. There were few people in the Avenue, except as they crossed the broader side streets, now beginning to be filled with the throng of workers returning home after the day's labor. They passed St. Patrick's Cathedral, already encrusted with snow whiter than its stone. They came to Central Park, and they kept on, with its broad meadows on their left, gray in the descending darkness. At last the carriage drew up before a house on a corner— a very large house it seemed to the trained nurse; and its marble front struck her as cold, not to call it gloomy. Workmen were hastily erecting the frame of an awning down the marble steps, and a path had been made across the snowy sidewalk. The footman carried her bag up the stoop and rang the bell for her. The door was opened promptly by a very British butler. "This is the nurse for Mr. Swank," said the footman. "Is he any better?" "'E's about the same, I'm thinkin'," the butler responded. This way, please," he said to the owner of the bag, which the footman deposited just inside the door. "I'll take you up to Mr. Swank's room, and I'll send your bag up to you afterwards." The trained nurse followed the butler up the massive wooden stairs, heavy with dark carving. She noticed that the house was now dimly lighted, and that there was a going and a coming of servants, as though in preparation for an entertainment of some sort. "We 'ave a dinner on this evening," the butler explained; "only twenty-four; but it's 'ard Mr. Swank ain't goin' to be able to come down. We're keepin' the 'ouse dark now, so it won't get too 'ot at dinner-time." Whatever the reason for the absence of adequate illumination, it made the upper hall even more dismal than the one below-so the trained nurse thought. 66 That's Mr. Swank's room there; and 'ere's 'is dressin'-room, that you're to 'ave -so the doctor said," the butler declared, leading the stranger into a small room with a lofty ceiling, and with one window overlooking Central Park. The shades had not been drawn; the single gas-jet was burning dimly; there was no fireplace; and a sofa on one side had had sheets and blankets put on it to serve as her bed. She almost shivered, the place seemed to her so cheerless. But her training taught her not to think of her own comfort. draw. ner later?" "Yes," she answered, "I would like something to eat later whenever it is convenient." "Would you be wantin' any din- Perhaps, if I happen to be up this way The butler left the room, only to reappear almost immediately. "'Ere's the doctor now," he announced, if he is awake." holding the door open. A tall handsome man, with a masterful mouth, walked in with a soft, firm tread. "So this is the nurse, " he began. "Miss Clement, isn't it? I'm glad you were able to follow my note so quickly. If you will come into the next room, where the patient is, as soon as you have changed your dress, I'll tell you what I wish you to do.” With that he left her; and in less than ten minutes she followed him into the large bedroom on the corner of the house. It was an unusually spacious room, with a high ceiling and four tall windows. There was a dull red fire, which seemed insufficient to warm even the elaborate marble mantel. Almost in one corner stood a large bed, with thick curtains draped back from a canopy. The doctor was sitting by the side of the bed as the nurse came into the room. "This is Miss Clement, Mr. Swank," he said in a cheerful voice to the old man, who lay in the bed motionless. "She will look after you during the night." Mr. Swank made no answer, but he opened his eyes and looked at the woman who had come to nurse him. She used to say afterward that she had never felt before so penetrating a gaze. The doctor turned to her, and in the same professionally cheery tones he said, "I sent for you, nurse, because Mrs. Swank has an important dinner to-night, and it might therefore be difficult for her to give Mr. Swank the attention he may require." The physician was addressing the nurse, but it seemed to her that his words were really intended for the patient, whose eyes were still fixed on her. All at once the sick man sat up in bed and began to cough violently. When the paroxysm had passed, he sank back again to the pillow and closed his eyes wearily. "I think that was not as severe as the last one," the doctor remarked; "I can leave you in Miss Clement's hands now. VOL. XCIV.-No. 560.-29 And He said good-night to Mr. Swank in the same cheering tone, and then he went to the door. The nurse knew that she was to follow him. When they stood alone in the hall, the doctor said to her: "If there is any change in the pulse or the temperature, send for me at once. Ring for the butler, and tell him I am to be sent for; he will know what to do. Mr. Swank has influenza only, but his heart is weak, and he needs careful attention. I shall be here again the last thing to-night." When the nurse returned to the corner room the patient had fallen into a heavy doze, and she took advantage of this to prepare for the long vigil. She arranged her own belongings ready to her hand in the dressing-room set aside for her use. In that room she did not lower the shade, and she even stood at the window for a minute, trying to look out over Central Park, hidden from her by a swaying veil of swirling snow. The workmen had completed the canvas tunnel down the stoop to the edge of the sidewalk, and the lanterns hung inside the frame-work revealed grotesquely its striped contortions. As the nurse gazed down on it an old man without any overcoat sought a temporary shelter from the storm in the mouth of the awning, only to be ordered away almost immediately by the servant in charge. The nurse went back into the larger room. She looked at her patient asleep in the warm bed. She wondered why life was so unequal; why the one man should spend the night in the snowy street, while the other had all that money could buy-shelter, warmth, food, attendance. She recalled how her father used to declare that the inequalities we see all around us are superficial only, and that there are compensations, did we but know them, for all deprivations, and that all apparent advantages are to be paid for, somehow, sooner or later. More than ever to-night she doubted the wisdom of her father's saying. How could there be anything but inequality between the old man in the street there below and the old man here in the bed? The thing seemed to her impossible. As she became accustomed to the dim light of the room she was able to note that the furniture was heavy and black, that the carpet was unusually thick, that the walls had large paintings hanging on them, that the ceiling was frescoed in sombre tints. On all sides of her she saw the evidences of wealth and of the willingness to spend it; and yet the room and the house seemed to her strangely uninviting and almost repellent. She asked herself why the sick man lying there asleep in the huge bed had not used his money to better advantage, and had not at least made cheerful his own sick-room. Then she smiled at her own foolishness. Of course the owner of the room had not expected to be stricken down; of course he had no thought of illness when he had furnished. She moved gently about the room and tried to look at the pictures, but the illumination was insufficient. All that she could make out clearly were the names of the artists carved on tiny tablets attached to the broad frames; and although she knew little about painting, she had read the newspapers enough to be aware that pictures by these artists must have cost a great deal of money-thousands of dollars each, very likely. If she had thousands to spend, she believed that she could lay them out to better advantage than the owner of the house had done here. It struck her again as though the sick man had more than his share of the good things of life. She had not yet heard him speak, and she had not really had a good look at him; but she could not help thinking that a man who had so much, who had the means of doing so much, who was absolutely his own master, and who could spend a large fortune just as he pleased she could not help thinking that he ought to be happy. It was true that he was ill now, but the influenza wears itself out at last; and when he was well, he had so much money that he must be happier than other men-far happier than poor men, certainly. When she came to this conclusion she was standing near the foot of the bed, looking at the man lying there asleep. It was on the stroke of half past seven, and she had come to let him have his medicine again. Then she noticed that his eyelids were parted, and that he was looking at her. "It is time to take one of these capsules now," she said, gently moving to his side and offering it to him. He took it without a word, and gulped it down with a swallow of water. Then he sank back on the pillow, only to raise himself at once, as he was again shaken by a severe fit of coughing. At last he lay back on the bed once more, still breathing heavily. A fresh young voice was heard at the door leading to the hall, saying, "May I come in, John ?" and then a graceful young figure floated into the room with a birdlike motion. The sick man opened his eyes wide as his wife came near him, and a smile illumined his face. 66 How beautiful you are!" he said, faintly, but proudly. "Am I?" she answered, laughing a little. "I tried to be to-night, because there will be the smartest women in New York at Mrs. Jimmy Suydam's dance, and I wanted to be as good as any of them." The nurse had withdrawn toward the window as the wife came forward, and she did not believe that any woman at Mrs. Jimmy Suydam's, wherever that might be, could well look more beautiful than the one who now stood smiling by the side of the sick husband. She was a blonde, this young wife of an old man, a mere girl, and the vaporous blue dress was cut low on a slender neck, girt about by a single strand of large pearls, while a diamond tiara high on her shapely head flashed light into every corner of the darkened sick-room. "I thought I'd just run in and see how you were before any body came," she said, lightly. "Dinner is at quarter to eight, you know. I do wish you could be down. We shall miss you dreadfully. Of course I sent out at the last minute and got a man to fill your place, so we shall sit down with twenty-four all right; but then-" Here she broke off, having caught sight of the third person in the room. 'So this is the nurse Dr. Cheever sent for?" she went on. "I'm sure she'll take good care of you, John-the doctor is always so careful. And if you hadn't had somebody with you I shouldn't have liked to leave you all alone - really I shouldn't!" |