chalet, Smilash, indifferent to the price of coals, kept up a roaring
fire that glowed through the uncurtained windows, and tantalized the
chilled wayfarer who did not happen to know, as the herdsmen of the
neighborhood did, that he was welcome to enter and warm himself without
risk of rebuff from the tenant. Smilash was in high spirits. He had
become a proficient skater, and frosty weather was now a luxury to him.
It braced him, and drove away his gloomy fits, whilst his sympathies
were kept awake and his indignation maintained at an exhilarating pitch
by the sufferings of the poor, who, unable to afford fires or skating,
warmed themselves in such sweltering heat as overcrowding produces in
all seasons.

It was Smilash's custom to make a hot drink of oatmeal and water for
himself at half-past nine o'clock each evening, and to go to bed at ten.
He opened the door to throw out some water that remained in the saucepan
from its last cleansing. It froze as it fell upon the soil. He looked
at the night, and shook himself to throw off an oppressive sensation of
being clasped in the icy ribs of the air, for the mercury had descended
below the familiar region of crisp and crackly cold and marked a
temperature at which the numb atmosphere seemed on the point of
congealing into black solidity. Nothing was stirring.

"By George!" he said, "this is one of those nights on which a rich man
daren't think!"

He shut the door, hastened back to his fire, and set to work at his
caudle, which he watched and stirred with a solicitude that would have
amused a professed cook. When it was done he poured it into a large mug,
where it steamed invitingly. He took up some in a spoon and blew upon it
to cool it. Tap, tap, tap, tap! hurriedly at the door.