they live on it. And it is good living,
too--especially for the real-estate people and the hotel-keepers.

Southern Californians brag of their climate just as New York brags of
its wickedness and its skyscrapers, and as Richmond brags of its cooking
and its war memories. I don't blame them either; the California climate
is worth all the brags it gets. Back East in the wintertime we have
weather; out in Southern California they never have weather--nothing but
climate. For hours on hours a native will stand outdoors, with his hat
off and his head thrown back, inhaling climate until you can hear his
nostrils smack. And after you've been on the spot a day or two you're
doing the same thing yourself, for, in addition to being salubrious, the
California climate is catching.

[Illustration: THE BOY WHO SELLS YOU A PAPER AND THE YOUTH WHO BLACKENS
YOUR SHOES BOTH SHOW SOLICITUDE]

Just as soon as you cross the Arizona line you discover that you have
entered the climate belt. As your train whizzes past the monument that
marks the boundary an earnest-minded passenger leans over, taps you on
the breastbone and informs you that you are now in California, and
wishes to know, as man to man, whether you don't regard the climate as
about the niftiest article in that line you ever experienced! At the
hotel the young lady of the telephone switchboard, who calls you in the
morning, plugs in the number of your room; and when you drowsily answer
the bell she informs you that it is now eight-thirty and--What do you
think of the climate? The boy who sells you a paper and the youth who
blackens your shoes both show solicitude to elicit your views upon this
paramount subject.

At breakfast the waiter finds out--if he can--how you like the climate
before finding out how you like your eggs. When you pay your bill on
going away the clerk somehow manages to convey the impression that the
charges have been remarkably moderate considering what you have enjoyed
in the matter of climate. Punching your round-trip ticket on the train
starting East, the conductor has a few well-merited words to speak on
behalf of the climate of the Glorious Southland, the same being the
favorite pet name of the resident classes for the entire lower end of
the state of California.

Everybody is doing it, including press, pulpit and general public. The
weather story--beg pardon, the climate story--is the most important
thing in the daily paper, especially if a blizzar