large room--one of two built exactly alike,
and in communication with each other by means of folding doors. These
rooms formed part of one of the best hotels in London--let us call it
the "Magnificent." Of course, it was lighted by electric glow lamps, in
accordance with the latest fashion in that department of artificial
lighting, viz., suspension lamps, in which the glow lamps grew out of
leaves and scrolls, twisted and twirled in and out, very much after the
pattern of our most aesthetic gas lamps, which, of course, are in the
style of the most artistic (late eighteenth century) oil lamps, which
were in imitation of the most classic Roman lamps, which followed the
Persian, and so on back to the time of Tubal Cain, the great
arch-artificer in metals, who most likely copied in metal some lamps he
had seen in shells or flints. Both rooms were heated by means of the
good old blazing coal fire so dear to a Briton's heart; and they were
ventilated with all due regard to the latest state of knowledge on the
subject among architects and builders. In fact, no pains had been spared
to make these rooms comfortable in the highest acceptation of the word.

There were, some of our members remarked, no gas burners to heat and
deteriorate the atmosphere, or to blacken the ceilings; and therefore,
under the brilliant sparkle of glow lamps, the summit of such human
felicity as is expected by a body of eighteen or twenty business men,
intent on dispatching business and restoring the lost tissue by means of
a nice little dinner afterward, ought, according to the calculations of
the architect of the building, to have been reached. I instance this
case because it is a typical one, which, under most aspects, does not
materially differ from the conditions of home life in such residences as
those whose occupiers are likely to use electric lighting. The rooms
were spacious (about 20 feet by 35 feet, and about 15 feet high); and
they were lighted during the day by means of large lantern
ceiling-lights, with double glass windows. The evening in question was
chilly, not to say cold.

Upon commencing our business, we all admired the comfort of the room;
but as time went on, most of the company began to complain of a little
draught on the head and back of the neck. The draught, which at first
was only a suspicion, became a certainty, and in another hour or so, by
the time our business was over, notwithstanding a screen placed before
the door, and