at. Even for New Mexico in
August, this is a phenomenally hot day."

[Illustration: "'IT'S HOTTER THAN SAHARA!' SAID THE ENGLISHMAN"]

"Incommoded is no name for it!" says the little man, taking off his
shiny hat and mopping away at himself with his pocket-handkerchief.
"I've never encountered such heat anywhere. It's hotter than Sahara!
In England we have nothing like it at all." Then he mopped himself
some more, and went ahead again--seeming glad to have somebody to let
out to: "My whole life long I've been finding fault with our August
weather in London. I'll never find fault with it again. I'd give fifty
pounds to be back there now, even in my office in the City--and I'd
give a hundred willingly if I could walk out of this frying-pan into
my own home in the Avenue Road! If you know London, sir, you know that
St. John's Wood is the coolest part of it, and that the coolest part
of St. John's Wood--up by the side of Primrose Hill--is the Avenue
Road; and so you can understand why thinking about coming out from the
Underground and walking homeward in the cool of the evening almost
gives me a pain!"

Santa Fe allowed he wasn't acquainted with that locality; but he said
he hadn't no doubt--since you couldn't get a worse one--it was a
better place in summer than Palomitas. And then he kind of chucked it
in casual that as the little man didn't seem to take much stock in
Palomitas maybe he'd a-done as well if he'd stuck at home.

Charley's talking that way brought out he wasn't there because he
wanted to be, but because he was sent: coming to look things over for
the English stockholders--who was about sick, he said, of dropping
assessments in the slot and nothing coming out when they pushed the
button--before they chipped in the fresh stake they was asked for to
help along with the building of the road. He said he about allowed,
though, the call was a square one, what he'd seen being in the road's
favor and as much as was claimed for it; but when it come to the
country and the people, he said, there was no denying they both was as
beastly as they could be. Then he turned round sudden on Santa Fe and
says: "I infer from your dress, sir, that you are in Orders; and I
therefore assume that you represent what little respectability this
town has. Will you kindly tell me if it is possible in this filthy
place to procure a brandy-and-soda, and a bath, and any sort of decent
food?"

It always sort of tickled Santa Fe, same as