aomp
HERE are no more Christ. | Would have quickly suggested, by in-
mas stories to write.
tion Is
newspaper items, the next
best, are manufactured by
clever young journalists
wko have married early and have an
engagingly pessimistic view of life.
Therefore, for seasonable diversion,
we are reduced to two very question
able sources—facts and philosophy.
We will begin with—whichever you |
choose to call it.
Children are pestilential little ani
mals with which we have to cope un-
der a bewildering variety of condi
tions. Especially when childish sor-
rows overwhelm them are we put to |
our wit's end. We exhaust our paltry |
store of consolation; and then beat
them, sobbing, to sleep. Then we
grovel in the dust of a million years,
and ask God why. Thus we call out
of the rat-trap. As for the children,
00 one understands them except old
maids, hunchbacks, and shepherd
dogs.
Now come the facts in the case of
the Rag-Doll, the Tatterdemalion, and
the Twenty-fifth of December.
; On the tenth of that month the
Child of the Millionaire lost her rag-
doll, There were many servants in
the Millionaire's palace on the Hud:
son, and these ransacked the house
and grounds, but without finding the
lost treasure.
of five, and one of those perverse lit-
tle beasts that often wound the sensi
bilities of wealthy parents by fixing !
‘their affections upon some vulgar, in-
expensive toy instead of upon dia
mond-studded automobiles and pony
phaetons.
The Child grieved sorely and truly,
a thing inexplicable to the Million
aire, to whom the rag-doll market was
about as interesting as Bay State Gas; |
and to the Lady, the Child's mother,
who was all for form—that is, nearly
&ll, as you shall sea
The Child cried incomsolably, and
grew hollow-eyed, knock-kneed, spin-
dling, and corykilverty in many other
respects. The Millionaire smiled and
tapped his coffers confidently. The
pick of the output of the French and
German toymakers was rushed by spe-
glal delivery to the mansion, but Ra-
che! refused to be comforted. She |
'was weeping for her rag child, and |
was for a high protective tariff
against all foreign foolishness. Then
doctors with the finest bedside man-
ners and stop-watches were called in.
One by one they chattered futilely |
about peptomanganate of iron and
sea voyages and hypophosphites until |
their stop-watches showed that Bill
Rendered was under the wire for show
or place. Then, as men, they advised
that the rag-doll be found as soon as |
possible and restored to its mourning |
parent. The Child sniffed at thera-
peutics, chewed a thumb, and waited
The Child Grieved Sorely and Truly.
for her Betsy. And all this time ca.
blegrams were coming from Santa
Claus saying that he would soon be
here and enjoining us to show a true
Christian spirit and let up on the
poolrooms and tontine policies and
platoon systems long enough to give
him a welcome. Everywhere tho api
it of Christmas was diffusing itself
The banks were refusing loans, the
pawnbrokers had doubled their gang
of helpers, people bumped your shins |
on the streets with red sleds, Thomas
and Jeremiah bubbled before you on
the bars while you waited on one foot,
nolly-wreaths of hospitality were hung
in windows of the stores, they who
had ‘em were getting out their furs.
You hardly knew which was the best
bel in balls—three, high, moth, or
snow. It was no time at which to lose |
the rag-doll of your heart.
If Doctor Watson's Investigating
friend had been called in to solve this
mysterious disappearance he might
have observed on the Millionaire's
wall & copy of “The Vampire.” That
Fic i duction,
exhausted; and | hank of hair.”
The Child was a girl :
“A rag and a bone and a
“Flip,” a Scotch ter
rier, next to therag-dollin the child's
heart, frisked through the halls. The
! hank of hair! Aha! X, the unfound
quantity, represented the rag-doll
| But, the bone? Well, when dogs find
| bones they Done! It were an
easy and a fruitful task to examine
| Flip's fore feet. Look, Watson! Earth
{ —dried earth between the toes. Of
| course the dog—but Sherlock was not
| there. Therefore it devolves. But
| topography and architecture must in-
i tervene.
The Millionaire's palace occupied a
lordly space. In front of it was a
| stove and approached Fuzzy
| lawn close-mowed as a South Ireland |
! man's face two days after a shave.
i At one side of it and fronting on anp-
3
| He Sat Betsy on the Bar and Ad-
dressed Her Loudly and Humor
ously.
| other street was a pleasaunce trim-
| med to a leaf, and the garage and
stables. The Scotch pup had ravished
| the rag-doll from the nursery, drag
‘god it to a corner of the lawn, dug 8
hole, and buried it after the manner
of careless undertakers. There vou
have the mystery solved, and no
‘
{ checks to write for the hypodermical:
| wizayd or fi-pun noies to toss to the
sergeant. Then let's get down to the
! heart of the thing, tiresome readers--
the Christmas heart of the thing.
Puzzy was drunk. Not riotously or
nelplessly or loquaciously, as you or
I might get. but decently, appropriate:
ly, and inoffensively, as becomes &
gentleman down on his luck.
Fuzzy was a soldier of misfortune.
The road, the haystack, the park
bench, the kitchen door, the bitter
round of eleemosynary beds-with-
shower-bath-attachment, the petty
pickings and ignobly garnered larg
esse of great citites—these formed
the chapters of his history.
Fozzy walked toward the river,
down the street that bounded one
side ©f the Millionaire's louse and
grounds. 11e saw a leg of Betsy, the
lost vag-goll, protruding, like the clue
to a Liliputian murder mystery, from
its untimely grave in a corner of the
fence. Ie dragged forth the maltreat
ed infant, tucked it under his arm, and
went on his way crooning a song of
hig brethren that no doll that has
been hronght up to the sheltered life
should hear. Well for Betsy that she
had no ears. And weil that she had
no eyes save unseeing circles of
Scotch terrier were those of brothers,
and the heart of no rag-doll could
withstand twice te bscome the prey
of such fearsome monsters,
the foot of
Fazzy traveled.
near
which
cied that as a munmer at the feast of
Saturn he might carn a few drops
from the wassail cup,
He set Betsy on the bar and ad:
dressed her loudly and humorously,
seasoning his speech with exaggerat.
ed compliments and endearments, as
one entertaining his lady friend. The
loafers and bibbers around caught the
‘farce of it, and roared. The barten.
der gave I'uzzy a drink. Oh, many
of us carry rag-dolls.
“One for the lady?’ suggested Fuz-
zy impudently, and tucked another
contribution to Art beneath his walist-
coat.
He hegan to see possibilities in
Betsy. lis first-night had been a suc-
cess. Visions of a vaudeville cirenit
about town dawned upon him,
In a group near the stove sat
eon” MeCarthy, Black Riley,
“Pig:
and
| “One-car” Mike, well and unfavorably
known in the tough shoestring district
that blackened the left bank of ths
viver. They pasted a newspaper back
and forth nmong themselves. The
item that each solid and blunt for
black: for the faces of Fuzzy and the
eigner pointed out was an advertise |
ment headed “One Hundred Dollars
Rewerd.” To earn it, one must re
turn the rag-doll lost, strayed, or |
stolen from the Millionaire's man- |
sion. It seemed that grief still rav- |
aged, unchecked, in the bosom of the
too faithful Child. Flip, the terrier, !
capered and shook his absurd whis !
kers before her, powerless to distract.
She wailed for her Betsy in the faces !
of walking, talking, ma-ma-ing, and
eye-closing French Mabelles and Vio
lettes. The advertisement was a last
resort.
Black Riley came from behind the
in his
one-gided, parabolic way.
The Christmas mummer, flushed
' with success, had tucked Betsy under
. Riley.
Though you may not know it, Gro- |
gan’s saloon stands near the river and |
the street down | |
in Grogan's, |
Christinas cheer was already rampant. | |
Fuzzy entered with his doll. He fan. |
his arm, and was about to depart to
the filling of impromptu dates else
where.
“Say, 'Ho,” said Black Riley to him, |
“where did you cop out dat doll?”
“This doli?” asked Fuzzy, ‘ouching
Betsy with his forefinger to be sure
that she was the one referred to.
“Why, this doll was presented to me
by the Emperor of Beloochistan. |
have seven hundred others in my
country home in Newport. This
doll—"
“Cheese the funuy business,” said
“You swiped it or picked it up
at de house on de hill where—but
never mind dat. You want to take
fifty cents for de rags. and take it
quick. Me brother's kid at home '
might be wantin’ to play wid it. Hey
—what?”
He produced the coin.
Fuzzy laughed a gurgling, insolent,
alcoholic laugh in his face. Go to the
office of Sarah Bernhardt's manager
and propose to him that she be re
leased from a night's performance to
entertain the Tackytown Lyceum and
Literary Coterie. You will hear the
duplicate of Fuzzy's laugh.
Black Riley gauged Fuzzy quickly
with hig blueberry eye as a wrestler
does. His hand was itching to play
the Roman and wrest the rag Sabine |
from the extemporaneous merry-an-
drew who was entertaining an angel |
unaware. But he refrained. Fuzzy
was fat and solid and big. Three
inches of well-nourished corporeity,
defended from the winter winds by
dingy linen, mtervened between his
vest and trousers. Countless small,
circular wrinkles running around his
coat-sleeves and knees guaranteed
the quality of his bone and muscle
His small, blue eves. bathed in the
moisture of altrnism and wooziness,
looked upon you kindly yet without .
abashment. He was whiskerly, whis-
kyly, fleshily formidable. So, Black
Riley temporized.
“Wot'll you take for it, den?’ he
asked.
“Money,” said Fuzzy, with husky
firmnesg, “cannot buy her.”
He was intoxicated with the artist's
first sweet cup of attainment,
To set
| “Money,” Said Fuzzy With Husky
Firmness, “Cannot Buy Her.”
a faded-blue, earth-stained rag-doll on
a bar, to hold mimic converse with it,
and to find his heart leaping with the
sense of plaudits earned and his
throat scorching with free Iibations
poured in his honor—could base coin
buy him from such achievements,
You will perceive that Fuzzy had the
temperament,
Muzzy walked out with the gait of a
trained sealion in search of other
cafes to conguer.
Though the dusk of twilight was
hardly yet apparent, lights were begin- |
ning to spangle the city like pop-corn
bursting in a deep skillet. Christmas
eve, impatiently expected, was peep-
ing over the brink of the hour. Mil
lions had prepared for its celebration.
Towns would be painted red. You,
yourself, have heard the horns and
dodged the capers of the Saturnalians,
“Pigeon” McCarthy, Black Riley
: pitched battle, could have
| the newspaper under his nose.
, could read-—and more,
and “One-ear” Mike held a hasty con-
verse outside Grogun's. They were
narrow-chested, pallid striplings, not
fighters in the open, but more danger:
| ous in their ways of warfare than the
most terrible of Turks. Fuzzy, in a
eaten the
three of them. In a go-as-you-please
encounter he was already doomed.
They overtook him just as he and
Betss were entering Costigan's Ca.
sino. They deflected him, and shoved
Fuzzy
“Boys,” said he,
damn true friends.
to think it over.”
The soul of a real artist is quenched
with difficulty.
The boys carefully pointed out to
him that advertisements were soul
“you are certainly
Give me a week
Fuzzy Entered the Millionaire's Gate
and Zigzagged Toward the Softly
Glowing Evidence of the Mansion.
less and the deficiencies of the day
might not be supplied by the morrow.
“A cool hundred,” said Fuzsy
thoughtfully and mushily.
“Boys,” said he, “you are true
friends. I'll go up and claim the re
ward. The show business is not what
it used to be.”
Night was falling more surely. The
three tagged at his sides to the foot
of the rise on which stood the Mil
{ionaire’'s house. There Fuzzy turned
upon them acrimonicusly.
“You are a pack of puity-faced
peagle-hounds,” he roared. “Go away.”
They went away—a little way.
In Pigeon McCarthy's pocket was
| a section of two-inch gas-pipe eight
inches long. In one end of it and in
the middle of it was a lead plug. One-
half of it was packed tight with solder.
Black Riley carried a slung-shot, being |
“One-ear” Mike
a conventional thug.
relied upon a pair of brass knucks—
ap heirloom in the family.
“Why fetch and carry,” raid Black
Riley, “when some one will do it for
va? Let him bring it out to us. Hey
—what.”
“We can chuck him in the river,” .
said “Pigeon” McCarthy,
stone tied to his feet.”
“Youse guys make me tired,” said
“One-ear’ Mike sadly. “Ain't prog-
ress ever appealed to none of yez?
Sprinkle a little gasoline on ‘im, and
“with a
drop 'im on the Drive—well?”
Fuzzy entered the Millionaire's
gate and zigzagged toward the softly
glowing entrance of the mansion. The
three gobling came up to the gate and
lingered-—one on each side of it, one
beyond the roadway. They fingered
their cold metal snd leather, confl
dent.
Fuzzy rang the doorbell, smiling
foolishly and dreawmily. An atavistic
instinet prompted him to reach for the
button of his right glove. But he
wore no gloves; so his left hand drop-
ped, embarrassed.
The particular menial whose duty
it was to open doors to silks and laces
shied at first sight of Fuzzy. But a
second glance took in his passport,
his card of admission, his surety of
welcome—the lost rag-doll of the
daughter of the house dangling under
Lis arm
Fuzzy was admitted into a great
hall, dim with the glow from unseen
fights.
returned with 2 maid and the Child.
The doll was restored to the mourn-
ing one. She clasped her lost darling
to her breast: and then, with the in-
ordinate selfishness and candor of
childhood, stamped her foot and
whined hatred and fear of the odious
| being who had rescued her from the
depths of sorrow and despair. Fuszy
wriggled himseif into an ingratiatory
attitude and essayed the idiotic smile
! and blattering small talk that is sup-
posed to charm the budding intellect
The hireling went away and |
liments of the Hreagon
A Christmas
2 £. HENRY
Story
of the young. The Child bawled, and
wns dragged away, hugging her Betsy
close,
There came the Secretary, pale,
poised, polished, giiding in pumps,
and worshipping pomp and ceremony.
He counted out into Fuzzy's hand ten
ten-dollar bills: then dropped his eye
upon the door, transferred it to James,
its custodian, indicated the obnoxious
varner of the reward with the other,
and gzllowed his pumps to waft him
away to secretarial regions.
When the money touched Fuzzy's
dingy palm his fret instinct was to
take to his heels; but a second
thought restrained him [from that
blunder of etiquette. It was his; it
had been given him. [t—and, oh,
what an elysium it opened to the gaze
of hic mind's eye! He had tumbled to
the foot of the ladder; he was hun
gry, homeless, friendless, ragged, cold,
drifting; and he held in his hand the
key to a paradise of the mud-honey
that he craved. The fairy doll had
waved a wand with her rag-stuffed
hand;
foot-rests and magic
gleaming glassware would he open to
him.
He followed James to the door.
He paused there as the flunky drew
open the great mahogany portal for
him to pass into the vestibule.
Bevond the wrought-iron gutes in
the dark highway Black Riley and his
two pals casually strolled, fingering
under their coats the inevitably fatal
weapons that were to make the re.
ward of the rag-doll theirs.
fuzzy stopped at the Millionaire's
door and betlought himself. Like lit
tle sprigs of mistletoe on a dead tree,
certain living green thoughts and
memories began to decorate his con-
He was quite drunk,
fused mind.
mind you, and the present was begin
ning to fade. Those wreaths and fes-
toons of holly with their scarlet bei
ries making the great hall gay—'
where had he seen such things be-
fore? Somewhere he had known pol-
ished floors and odors of fresh flowers
in winter, and—and some one was
singing a song in the house that he
thought he had heard before. Some
one singing and playing a harp, Of
course it was Christmas—Fuzzy
thought he must have heen pretty
drunk to have overlooked that.
And then he went out of the pres-
ent, and there came back to him out
. of some impossible, vanished and Ir-
revocable past a little, pure white,
transient, forgotten ghost—the spirit
of noblesse oblige. Upon a gentleman
certain things devolve,
James opened the outer door. A
stream of light went down the grav-
oled walk to the iron gate. Black
Riley, McCarthy und One-ear Mike
saw, and carelessly drew thelr sinister
cordon closer about the gate,
With a more imperious gesture than
James’ master had ever used or could
| ever use, Fuzzy compelled the menial '
“It Is Cust—customary When a Gen.
tleman Calls on Christmas Eve to
Pass the Compliments of the Sea-
son With the Lady of the House.”
to close the door. Upon a gentleman
certain things devolve. Especially at
the Christmas season.
“It is cust—customary,” he said to
James, the flustered, “when a gentle-
man calls on Christmas cve to pass
the compliments of the scason with
| the lady of the kouse. You und’stand?
I shall not move shtep till 1 pass com-
pl'ments season with lady the house.
Und'stand ?”
There was an argument. James
lost. Fuzzy raised his voice und sent
it through the house unpleasantly. I.
He
did not sey he was a gentleman.
was simply « tramp being visited by a
ghost,
A sterling silver bell rang. James
went back to apswer it, leaving Fuzzy
and now wherever he might go |
the enchanted palaces with shining | 0)
red fluids inl | §
Wy
TR
mas Re
CoryRiGHT Ly Fl Necsow
a
in the hall. James explained scme-
where to some one.
Then ne came and conducted Fuzzy
into the library.
The lady entered a moment later,
She was more beautiful and holy than
any picture that Fuzzy had seen. She
smiled, and said something about a
doll. Fuzzy didn't understand that;
he remembered nothing at all about
a doll.
A footman brought in
glasses o sparkling
stamped stervling-silver
lady took one.
to Fuzzy.
As his fingers closed on the slender
glass stem his disabilities dropped
from him for one brief moment. He
straightened himself; and Time, so
disobliging to most of us, turned back-
ward for a moment to accommodate
Fuzzy.
Forgotten Christmas ghosts whiter
than the false beards of the most epu-
lent Kriss Kringle were rising in the
fumes of Grogan's whisky. What had
two small
wine on a
waiter. The
The other was handed
“Comp'ments Sheason With Lady Th'
House.”
the millionaire’s mansion to do with &
long, wainscoted Virginia ball, where
the riders were grouped around a sil
ver punch-bowl, drinking the ancient
toast of the house? And why should
the patter of the cab horses’ hoofs om
the frozen street be in any wise re-
lated to the sound of the saddled hunt.
. ers stamping under the shelter of the
| west veranda? And what bad Fuzzy
to do wit: any of it?
The lady, looking at him over her
| glass, let her condescending smile
A | fade away like a fdlse dawn. Her
' eyes turned serious. She saw some
- thing beneath the rags and Scotch ter-
rier whiskers that she did not under-
stand. But it did not matter,
Fuzzy lifted his glass and smiled
vacantly.
“P-pardon, lady,” he said, “but
couldn't leave without exchangin’
. comp'ments sheason with lady th’
house. ’'Gainst princ’ples gen'leman
do sho.”
And then he began the ancient salu
tation that wae a tradition in the
house when men wore lace ruffles and
powder.
“The—the blessings of
yvear—"
~ Fuzzy's memory failed him. The
lady prompted:
“Be upon this hearth.”
“—The guest—" stammered Fuzzy,
“And upon ber who—" continued
* the lady, with a leading smile.
“Oh, eut it cut,” said Fuzzy, ill
wanneredly. “I can't remember. Drink
hearty.”
Fuzzy had shot his arrow. They
drank. The lady smiled again the
smile of her caste. James enveloped
Fuzzy and re-conducted him toward
the front door. The harp music still
softly drifted through the house.
Outside, Black Riley br-athed on
his cold hands and hugged the gate,
Cold though he was, he did not think
of deserting his post while Fuzzy re-
mained inside.
“I wonder,” said the lady to herself,
musing, “who—but there were 80
many who came. | wonder whether
niemory is a curse or a blessing to
them after they have fallen so low.”
Fuzzy and his escort were nearly
at the door when the lady called:
“James!”
James stalked back ocbsequiously,
leaving Fuzzy waiting unsteadily, with
his brief spark of the divine fire en
tirely gone.
Outside, Black Riley stamped his
cold feet and got a firmer grip on his
section of gas-pipe.
“You will conduct this gentleman,”
said the lady, “down-gtairs. Then tell
louis to get out the Mercedes and
take him to whatever place he wishes
to go.”
another