This great room will keep the same level and pleasant and comfortable degree of warmth hour after hour without change, and there is no artificial heat in the world that is comparable to it for wholesomeness, healthfulness. It does not inflame the skin, it does not oppress the head or make the temples throb; there isn’t a headache in a hundred years of it. As for economy, it is a good ten times more economical than any other house-heating apparatus known to the world.”

“You use it in America, of course?”

I was pleasantly surprised at that, and said—

“Is it possible that Ihre Majestät is not familiar with America?”

“Well—no. I have not been there lately. I am not needed there.”

At first I was gratified; but next I was suspicious that maybe his remark did not quite mean what I had thought it meant; so it seemed good diplomacy not to stir the matter, but leave it alone and go on about the stove again.

“No,” I said, “we don’t use the German stove in America. We have the name of being the most ingenious of the nations in the matter of inventing and putting to practical use all manner of conveniences, comforts, and labor-saving and money-saving contrivances, and we have fairly earned that name and are proud of it; but we do not know how to heat a house rationally, yet, and it seems likely that we shall never learn. The most of our stoves are extravagant wasters of fuel; the most of them require frequent attention and recharging; none of them furnishes a continuously equable heat, and we have not one that does not scorch the skin and oppress the head. We have spent tons and tons of money upon furnaces with elaborate and costly arrangements for distributing dry heat or steam or hot water throughout a house; but they are all ravenous coal-cannibals, and if there is one among them whose heat-output can be successfully regulated I have not seen it. As far as my knowledge goes, we have none but insane ways of heating houses and railway cars in America.”

“Then why don’t you introduce the German stove?”

“I wish I could. I could save the country money enough annually to pay the silly pension bill. And if we had that admirable stove we should soon find a way to rid it of its grim and ghostly look and make it a pretty and graceful thing to look at, and an ornament to the room; for we are a capable people in those directions. But I suppose we shall never see the day. The Americans who come over here do not study the German stove, they merely make fun of its personal appearance, and go away without finding out what a competent and inexpensive miracle it is. The Berlin stove is the best that I have seen. When we kept house there several winters ago we charged our parlor monument at 7 in the morning with a peck of cheap briquettes made of refuse coal-dust, let the fire burn half an hour, then shut up the stove and never touched it again for twenty-four hours. All day long and up to past midnight that room was perfectly comfortable, not too hot, not too cold, and the heat not varying, but remaining at the same pleasant level all the time. Do you like the German stove, Durchlaucht?”

“Not for my boarders—no.”

“What do you use, Durchlaucht?”

He named sixty-four varieties of stoves and house-furnaces. Dear me, those old familiar names—they were all American! But I didn’t say anything. I was ashamed; and yet at the same time I was conscious of a private little thrill of patriotic pride in the reflection that in a humble way we had been able to add a discomfort to hell.

Of course we were smoking, all this time, for Durchlaucht has had experience of the chief joy of man for many ages. The early American Indians introduced it in Sheol twenty or thirty thousand years ago, and out of gratitude he is never severe on that race. I thought I would venture to indicate in an unobtrusive way that by rights I was an Indian, though changed in the cradle through no fault of mine—and waited timorously for a comment. But I was disappointed. He only looked. It may be that he did not mean anything by the look, but often a look like that is discouraging, anyway, if you are conscious yourself that you have been trying to pull a person’s leg, as the saying is. In such cases you let on that you did not know you had said anything; and it is the best way, and soonest over.

Then you change the subject; and I did. I asked him to try the Navy Cut, and I loaded his pipe with it and gave him a light. He liked it. I was sure he would. He sent up a cloud of fragrant smoke, and said admiringly—

“It is good; very, very good; burns freely and smells like a heretic.”

That made me shudder a little, but that was nothing; we all have our metaphors, symbols, figures of speech, and they vary according to habitat, environment, taste, training, and so on.

“Where do you get this tobacco?”

“In London, Durchlaucht.”

“But where in Vienna?”

“It is a pity to have to say it, but one can’t get it in Vienna at all.”

“You must be mistaken about that. You must remember that this is one of the most superb cities that was ever built; and is very rich, and very fond of good things, and can command the best of everything that the world can furnish; and it also has the disposition to do it.