Why the Water Tank Ran Over.
We had been having a great deal of trouble with the water tank in our bathroom. It ran properly, but it didn't stop properly. Drip, drip, drip at first, and then a steady stream day and night, and all the while the city of Newton piling up the water tax on us.
I looked into the tank. Things seemed all right, but they didn't sound all right. S-s-z-z, a tiny thread of sound was hissing there all the time. That meant a leak somewhere; but where?
My Greek didn't help me a particle in that emergency. There are lots of things not taught in college. So I had to call in the plumber.
That gentleman lighted his tallow candle, climbed the step-ladder, gave a professional grunt or two, and said, "Ballcock out of whack. Both ball-cocks out of whack."
"Is that so?" I replied, hoping to find out what a ballcock is; but no more communications from the region of the tallow candle, so I had to ask for an explanation. My theory is, "If you don't sometimes astonish people with your ignorance, you will never astonish them with your knowledge."
I learned, therefore, and by personal examination I made my knowledge vivid to myself, that the ballcock is a valve attached to the water pipe, and provided with a long arm, at the end of which is a large hollow metallic globe.
As the water is drawn out of the tank, this globe sinks, and in sinking pulls down the arm, opens the valve, and lets in fresh water to fill the tank. As this new water fills the tank, the level rises and the hollow globe rises with it, thus, when the water reaches a certain height, pushing up the arm so as to close the valve and shut off the water.
But the globe in my water tank was worn out, and was half full of water. It was too heavy to rise as far as it should. Therefore it never quite closed the valve, and the water kept trickling in, raising the level till it ran out through the waste pipe in a small but steady stream—useless except to the City of Newton that gets the taxes.
A new globe, properly empty, at once straightened things out; the plumber blew out his candle, and went to his office to make out his bill.
But I had learned a lesson worth several bills, and that was the old truth-the value of a sense of the ridiculous. An empty-headed sense, you say. Precisely. It is just because that metallic globe is empty-headed that it shuts the valve, and keeps back the impetuous rush of water that would swamp my bathroom and purse. There are men whose sense of the ridiculous is worn out; there has come an inrush of business cares, of frets and troubles, and their hearts are as heavy as the sea of care in which they float. Therefore it rises higher and higher; there is no way to shut it out.
Don't you see why men use that adjective in speaking of this part of our minds-why they call it a saving sense of the ridiculous?