Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 215, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 7 September 1916 — HEAT JOKE ON TWO MEN [ARTICLE]

HEAT JOKE ON TWO MEN

General Fight Threatened When Trick Is Explained by the Town Marshal. Hammond, Mo. —When H. S. Petrie met Fred Schmal, both business men of Lowell, on ’the street Petrie remarked that the weather was the hottest in his memory. Schmal said he thought the day was the coolest in several weeks. Petrie warmed up immediately—said he had just come from his store, whe?e the thermometer registered 118 degrees. Schmal, cool and calm, replied that he had just read his thermometer and it registered 70. degrees, and he would stake a small amount that it was as nearly accurate as any in town. Petrie almost exploded. Friends of each man got into the argument and a general fight was threatened until Marshal Duckworth explained that he held a match under Petrie’s thermometer and had treated the Schmal thermometer to an ice bath.