Evening Star Newspaper, December 23, 1923, Page 66

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. ©, DECEMBER 23, 1923—PART 5. e If Alberta Had Not Been Convinced That the Collies’ Owner Was Unfit to Keep Them There Would Have Been No Christmas Romance. ARTHUR STRINGER. 4E wore a chinchilla turban that tilted slightly over one eye, an engulfing chinchilla coat, an® an unmistakable alr of disap- pointment. For a minute or two she stood, irresolute, beside the incredi- ble number of parcels which her por- ter had deposited on the snowy plat- form, watching the crowded taxis and the closed cars as they blithely circled the station-yard and scattered hillward toward the avenues of Wim- blehurst. Then, deserting her gaily ribboned parcels, she walked toward the waiting-room door. It was not often that Stevens, that most dependable of chauffeurs, was late in coming for her. She was tired, after Tier day of Christmas shopping in the city. The holiday spirit ebbed from her heart, like alr from a punctured tire. She felt alone and overlooked in a cold and wintry world. And as though expressive of her own momen- tary desolation of spirit, a sudden dolorous and prolonged duet of dog- howling smote on her ears. She stopped short as she heard that sound, for Alberta Orgaine loved do And she knew that prolonged Yowling, which echoed through the wintry air, was unhappiness and neg- lect and heart-break making itself vocal. So, instead of turning in at the waiting room to telephone, she kept on along the station platform until she came to a slatted crate standing just beyond the cormer of the express room. Imprisoned within this crate she saw two Scotch collles, %0 allke in line and markings that one seemed but the shadow of the other. They stood with their thin shoulders together and their pointed noses directed heavenward, baying out their misery to an unheeding world. They yodeled and chorused in unison, prolonged their thinning * howls into a plaintive double wall of protest that echoed across the wintery hills. £ Alberta Orgalne dropped on her knees beside the crate and uttered soothing little endearments to the dogs. She continued to talk to them, in a soft and friendly tome, until they gave up their mournful caroling, and even permitted the unknown white glove to caress their unaverted necks. When they had completely quieted down again, the girl rose to her feet and proceeded with an ominously de- termined stride to the Inner door of the express room, where she encoun- tered a hostile and extremely busy youth with terra-cotto-tinted hair, sorting packages. “Where's Tredway?’ she demanded with a crisp note of authority which the youth promptly and openly re- mented. “Slck wit' the flu” he retorted, turning back to his packages. “And what are you doing here, lit- tle boy?" she naively inquired. The youth managed to survive the “little boy.” But he proclalmed his personal and inalfenable independence by lighting a clgarette and inhaling ite fumes. “I't tryin’ to run this office,” coolly announced “And do you think you're running 1t properly?” just as coolly inquired the girl In chinchilla. “I haven't heard any complaints,’ Tetorted the red-headed youth. “Then you probably haven't heard thowe dogs that are being so atro- ciously neglected out on the plat- form,” she sald with sugary quiet- ness. “Say, let me tell you somethin’,” he cried as he threw down his cigarette and ground it under a quickly rotate ing heel. “I'm doin’ two men's work here, and I ain't got time for holdin’ debates or sloothin’ out the owners of animals who ain't interested enough to come and get their shipments when they're landed here.” * ¥ X ¥ ‘ALBERTA ORGAINE considered the red-haired one, considered him with a quiet and contemplating eye. ‘When did those dogs come here?" she finally inquired. ‘On the seven-eighteen this morn- ing,” was the curt reply. “Have they been fed and watered?” 1t was the harried youth's turn to awing about and inspect her with a ateely stare. “Yes, ma'am,” he sald, with purely irénic intent. “That's all I'm here for—just that—to wet nurse the live-stock that comes down the line!” “I don't think you'll be here long,” asserted the girl with the slightly flushed cheeks. “I don't intend to be,” retorted the undisturbed youth as he flung a par- cel to the far end of the truck. Alberta turned away, but her heart, which one short hour before had rocked with the blithest of Christmas good-will, now beat hard against her slender young ribs. She went in- dignantly . back to the dog-crate, where the lonely collies sniffed less timorously at her her coat as she bent over the slats in search of the shipping tag. She found it, at last: “MR. PARAN CAYLEY,” “Gray Gables, “Wimblehurst Station.” She had no idea who Paran Cayley might be, but she knew what her opinion of him was. So {nflammatory remained her estimate of that gen- tleman, in fact, that when she looked up and saw Stevens standing at at- tention with 2 rug over his arm, she regarded him with fire in her eye: “How dare you keep me waiting like this,” she demanded. “It was & blow-out, miss,” explain- ed the meek-eyed chauffeur. % “Wait here for me,” she said short- 1y as she started across the station- vard. She went to the, Star Restau- rant, on the street corner beyond, and purchased four chicken sandwiches and a bottle of milk. With these she returned to the dog-crate. The col- lies much to her disappointment would not partake of the sandwitches. Neither would they partake of the milk. So she ‘left the food on the crate floor where they could find it when their mood changed. “Give me that robe” she sald to Stevens, who still stood at attention. The robe was one of plucked beaver lined with dove-gray wool. She drap- ed it over the top and back of the dog-crate, through which the ‘wind wwas blowing. Then she bade the dogs a reluctant goodbye. “Stevens,” she sald on pyramid of he the way home in ‘Who is Paran Cayley “That's the man, miss. who's just bought Gray Gables,” explained Ste- vens. “I thought he'd be that type,” an- nounced Alberta Orgaine, with unex- | pected spirit. “He is, lsn't he Ste- vens?" “What type, miss?” queried Stevens “Nouveau riche and everything that is abomnible,” promptly explained his mistress, remembering the “No Tres- passing” signs which had been put up about the skating pond In the rear of Gray Gables. “He appeared a very likable-look- ing person, if I may say so,” ven- tured the man at the wheel. “And your father remarked only yester- day how he was glad Gray Gables had fallen into the hands of that kind of a neighbo; “I hate him!" promptly announced the girl in chinchilla. * % x * DURING dinner that night, Alberta Orgaine sat unusually preoccu- pled and ‘sllent. Instead of taking coffee before the open fireplace in the library, she ordered out the landaulet and quietly headed for Wimblehurst Station. In her limpld violet eves smoldered a light which was not cus- tomarily there. The intensity of this light did not | the car, dinimish when she traversed the lone- ly platform and found the dog-crate and the two collies still standing just beyond the windy corner of the ex- press room. But the robe of plucked beaver which she had so carefully draped about the crate was gone. And that added fuel to the flame of her indignation. She found small consolation in the fact that the sandwiches had been eaten. So she prmoptly went back to her landaulet and this time headed for Gray Gables. It was a mannerly enough footman who answered her ring, but she di liked the man, just as she disliked everything about the place. When she asked for Mr. Paran Cayley she was told politely that Mr, Cayley was not at home. This seemed to leave her more indignant than ever. She turned peremptorily away, climbed back into her landaulet, and directed her way once more toward the sta- tion. There, having extracted the hub- wrench from her tool-box, she crossed to the dog-crate, where she proceeded to pound loose the slats. She was thinly disheartened, when she had the crate open, to discover that the two prisoners betrayed no outward signs of gladness at the prospect of release. But she grasped them firm- ly by their collars, spoke to them soothingly, and was finally able to lure them tremblingly over to the open door of her car. While so en- gaged, she saw a terra-cotta-tinted head appear at a lighted window be- hind her. It was the express room youth, but he was beyond the pale of her interests. She was in no mood for further parley with that offensive stripling. So she bundled the collies unceremoniously into the car, stepped after them and slammed shut the door. Once home with them, she snapped leashes on the collar-rings, tied them up in the warmth of the basement furnace room, and once more prof- fered them food and water. She even sought to bed them down on her hastily commandeered last-year's coon-skin coat. But the two collles were not at home, and they knew it. They trembled and sniffed and re- garded their surroundin with mournful eyes. When she returned to them later in the evening, how- ever, and stroked their noses and pat- ted their shoulders and poured en- dearing diminutives into their bewil- dered ears, they melted sufficiently to essay an infinitesimal tail-movement of appreciation. *x ¥ % A LBERTA ORGAINE did not permit her resentment against her new neighbor to interfere with her slum- bers. She slept soundly that night, as was her wont, consclous of having performed an act of kindness where the end quite adequately justified the means. She slept 50 soundly, in fact, that she heard none of the mournful yowling which awakened her some- Wwhat mystified and somewhat indig- nant male parent a full hour before dawn. Hiram Argaine, having rung his bell and commanded an equally mystified butler to investigate the cause of that early-morning chorus, promptly ordered the dogs to be re- moved to the garage. There, three hours later, Alberta found them, and there she had the satisfaction of see- ing them fall unhesitatingly on the breakfast which she carrfed out to them. One of the dogs even licked her hand. And it seemeqd a friendlier world to the misunderstood lady of mercy. She was engaged in her customary task of feeding cracker-crumbs and chopped suet to a colony of plump sparrows along the terrace balus- trade, two hours later, when her ministrations were cut short by the approach of two figures which in no way appealed to Alberta’s scrutinis- ing eye. One was a rubicund-faced and slightly ‘obese man ‘and the other was an even less prepossessing person in a shabby Norfolk jacket with a powder-hole in one shoulder, tweed knickerbockers stalned with motof ofl, and a'knitted woolen muf- fler that ‘had séen better days. Al- berta could ‘see that' he' was a more intelligent’ looking person than the fat rhan beside him, for although' h eyes were solethn, he wore unmi takable lines ‘of humor about his mouth and carried himself’ with a vague air of negligence which lert him impervic = to the challenge in her eye as his long legs bore him in her direction. “You Miss Alberta Orgaine? in- quired the fat man, stepping di: agreeably close. “Y am,” she acknowledged. sbout it2” The fat man squared his shoulders as he produced a document from the pocket. of his overcoat. “Then here's a summons for you!” he announced he displayed the document in question. . “What does that mean?’ she de- manded, without giving much atten- tion to the paper paraded -before her. “It means, lady, that I'm a state “What S IT WAS QUITE USELESS, AFTER ALL, TO TRY ANY MORE WITH THAT LEADEN WEIGHT AT HER FEET. constable and that you've got to come with me.” “And why should I have to go with you?’ she asked. The state constable duly considered his document. “You're: charged, lady. with steal- ing two blue ribbon collies from a shipping-crate down at the town sta- tlon. And if you've got any explain- in’ to do, T gues that'd better be done when we get down to the justice of the peace.” “But who said T stole two collles?” demanded the violet-eyed lady, now pallid with indignation. “The warrant was sworn out by Mr. Paran Cayley,” announced the of- ficer of the law. The girl's head nodded comprehendingly. “Yes, that's just the sort of thing a blighter 1ike that would do,” she re- marked. The rather tall man spoke for the first time. “He may have been es- pecially fond of those dogs.” he sus- gested, with a quietness which ex- asperated the girl. “Don’t’ you think he has rather a remarkable manner of ghowing his love for his %animals, leaving them night and day in a shipping crate without food or water?” “Perhaps he didn’t know they were there” suggested the man Wwith the solemn eves. “It was his business to know,” r torted the girl with the flashing eyes. The salmon-eyed one was about to reply to this, but his obese companion Interrupted him. “I guess we'd better save some o this until we get down to the magistrate’s office. And the sooner we get there the better.” “I'm sorry,” retorted the girl, “but T've rather a busy morning ahead of me.” The small eyes in the obese red face winked hard at that speech. “So've 1” announced the aftronted minion of the law as he drew nearer his prison- er; “and I guess we'll be on our way.” second in- * ¥ ¥ ¥ IT was then that the truder spoke. “Perhaps Miss Or- gaine would prefer going down quiet- ly in her own car,” he meekly sug- gested. Yet he seemed to be having trouble in keeping the corners of his mouth straight. “I'm sorry, but this thing really has to be faced. And the situation is salready disagreeable enough without making it worse.” “Thanks to that man Cayley!" as- serted the indignant-eyéd Alberta. “Perhaps he didn't entirely under- stand the situation,” observed the legged stranger. 'm glad there's somebody to apolo- gize for him, erted the girl with the peach-blow cheeks as she atarted toward the garage. Then she stopped short, suddenly remembering the two incriminating collies behind its closed doors. So she veered discreetly about and headed back for the house, where she ushered her visitors into the re- ception hall and telephoned Stevens to bring out her landaulet. She noticed the two men whispering together as the car slithered up to porte-cochere. She observed it with only half an eye, however. for faint and muffled she could hear the baying of two unhappy dogs. She made the engine race, unnecessarily, as she waited for her two persecutors to Aimb into the car after her. But only the fat man made an effort A follow her. “You can manage very nicely, Per- kine, without me the other ex- plained, as he swung the car door shut. “Who is that man?”" she demanded as they swung out through the ma- norial iron gates. “Oh, he's kind o' actin' for Mr. Cayley.” retorted the indifferent-eyed constable. . “One of the servants?’ was the acid inquiry. “Kin of a man-of-all-work round the place.” he vaguely asserted as he watched with a reproving eye while the hand on Alberta's speedometer novered between the “40” and ‘50" ciphers on the enameled dial. But he sald nothing more. Alberta Orgaine emerged from Magistrate Hicks' office with a sense of triumph that was distinctly quall- fied. She had neither been locked up nor fined nor humiliated by an oficial harangue from the bench. Instead, she had walted until the benignant Elias Hicks had concluded a some- what prolonged colloquy over the telephone, whereupon he had ad- dressed her in a kindly and fatherly and altogether inoffensive way, pointing out that the best thing for every one concerned, especially at this season of charity and good will to- ward all, would be for Miss Orgaine to restore the appropriated property to its owner, proffer a reasonable ex- planation for her misdemeanor, and have the warrant withdrawn and the case dismissed. “Does that mean I'd have to apolo- gize to Paran Cayley,” promptly in- quired the pale-cheeked Alberta. “I think a dignified explanation, under the circumstances, would not be out of order,” asserted the dis- penser of justice. “I don't think I could keep it dig- nified,” ventured the girl with a ghost of a laugh. i) Alebtra went out to her car, pink to the’ ear-tips. She was mot used”to being dismissed. Nor was she used to making apologies. She was quite decided in fact, that nothing could persuade her to go to Paran Cayléy like a repentent schoolgirl and meek- Iy restore his collies to him. Even- tually, of course, they would have to go back. But she could send them by one of the servants, with a note, a frigld and satiric note of explana- tion. Then an_idea came to her, as she saw a group of boys skating on a roadside sheet of ice. She would “WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?” SHE DEMANDED. “IT MEANS, LADY, THAT I'M A STATE CONSTAB LE, AND THAT.YOU'VE GOT T tgnore Paran Cayley’s churlish signs as to no trespassing and go skating on his lake, accompanied by the col- lies. That would be an announcement | of her indifference, of her disdain of | his authority, of her fixed knowledge that she had done nothing wrong. If he happened along she could say: “By the way, these are your dogs, I be- lieve. I'm sorry I tried to treat them kindly when you were treating them cruelly!” Or if she met the lean- legged man-of-all-work she could casually hand them over to that worthy. * * ¥ % HE had some difficulty, two hours later, in getting into her high- laced skating-shoes. The dogs were Testless on their straining leashes and had to be tled to a sapling until that change was effected. They be- trayed a tendency to yodel, with the excitement of being once more In the open, and she was forced to speak to them sharply. Then she untled them, and took the leashes, and Iat| them race off across the smooth pond | of ice, dragging her skimmingly after them. She kept them as close to shore as possible, disturbed by the re- peated featuring of fine cracks which showed In the rubble-ice as her skate- blades glided over it. She rested, when the dogs were tired, and as she rested she saw a man working his way over the hill. He carried a lopping-ax and a tape- driving square pegs Into the snow- covered ground. The dogs velped and line and was solemnly engaged in tugged, at the sight of him, but he ignored them. just as he ignored the girl holding them back. She saw that he was the man-of-all-work. So she half-circled the lake, to his side, and called out to him. He came slowly down the bank, with his ax over his shoulder. “Do you think that ice is safe?" he none too graciously inquired. “It hasn't proved otherwise,” re- torted the girl, when the yelping of the dogs could be sflenced. “Do you belong to Gray Gables?” He considered this question. “In a kind of way,” he finally admitted. “What sort of way?" she demanded. ““Oh, I do odd jobs around. I'm just measuring off these back hills. We're going to landscape ‘em “And spoil 'em!"” amended the girl. “I rather imagined that's the sort he'd be, “Who'd be?” asked the man with the ax. “Paran Cayley!” Then, observing his abstracted gaze on the tuggirsg collies, she added: “As you see, I've brought his precious dogs back to him.” “He's missed them.” was all the lean-legged man on the bank de- signed to remark. “I think he'll miss a great many other things,” observed the silvery- volced girl on the fce. “Why?" asked the shabby-looking man on the bank. “A blighter always does,” she coolly | announced. And the man on the bank seemed to give this much thought, “Isn’t there a chance you've mis- Judged him, just as he's probably mis- Sudged you?” “I could forgive him being cruel to a woman,” asserted Alberta, “——but not to animals” “Perhaps his cruelty was as un- conaclous as your own,” he said as he stepped closer to her. But Alberta did not respond to that thrust. For the two collles, breaking her hold on the twisted leshes, flung themselves against the lean-legged man and| muzzled about him with staccato velps of joy. “They seem to know you,” observed | the girl, vaguely oppressed with a feeling of desertion. He looked up at her, laughing, but he did not speak, for a small boy dragging a red sleigh appeared over the crest of the hill. “Uncle Paran,” he called out as he caught sight of the man at the pond edge. “Uncle Paran, you sald wi could get the Yule-log ready today. Alberta Orgaine turned slowly about on her skates. Her gaze met and locked with that of the man on the shore. “So you're Paran Cayley?” she said with infinite scorn. “And you added this to the rest!" He started to speak, but she did not wait to hear him. She swung about, striking straight out across the la * % % % THE man at the pond's edge called out to her, in alarm, as he saw the course she was taking. But she neither waited nor wavered. She skated on until the point of one skate-blade cut through the thinning ice, throwing her suddenly forward. She was conscious, the next moment, of a quick pank of cold through all her body, of icy waters closing over her and shutting off her breath, of emerging from numbing depths and clinging to thin lips of ice which broke under her weigth. She heard | Paran Cayley call to her as he ran out on the pond. She saw him go down, even as she had done. She turned and tried to swim toward him, but the skates held her down and the lcy water deadened both her body and her will. She saw a double flurry of tan and white circle the lake. It was the dogs, Paran Cay- lay's dogs, she mistily realized as they tugged out neck and neck across the | ice. She could hear their whimper- ing, short yelps and tielr ownar's cry of “Quick, Bob! Quick, Bob!" as he fought his way toward her. But he was a long way off. And without breathing she could not live. And it was useless. It was quite usale after all, to try any more, with that loaden welgh on her feet She d1d not cry out, but she let ner arms go up and then drop at her side, waiting for the sky to be shut out from her, shut out from her for all time. Then she was disturbed by a tightening about her throat. She realized the next moment that a pointed nose was breathing hard at the back of her neck and that four pointed incisors had taken possession of the collar of her coat. She could hear Paran Cayley's voice calling out: “No, Bob, not me! I'm all right! Go to her! Bring her in, good dog! Bring her in” And 2 moment later a second pointed nose was buoying her up until Paran Caley could get to her. Th was another sharp struggle along the edge of the ever-breaking lce until he could reach shallow water. She felt his long arms around her. She felt him carrying her up the bank lke 2 child, and she knew she was {safe. He carried her all the way back to {Gray Gables, where the housekeepcr wrapped her in hot blankets and gave her so much hot toddy that she feel asleep with her ears ringing and falled to waken until the mid- night chimes of Wimblehurst wers blithely announcing the advent of Christmas. When she opened her eyes she saw the solemn-eyed house- keeper sitting at one side of her bed and the solemn-eyed owner of Gray Gables sitting on the other. i vAre you feeling better?” he asked with his wistful, October-evening smile. She lay studying his face for a long time. Then she moved her head from side to side, slowly, as he repeated his question. “What's wrong?’ he asked. He meant, apparently, to take her pulse. But instead he merely took her hand. “You hate me!" she sald, choking on a sob. It was his turn to shake | his head. “I've given you the wretchedest Christmas of all your life,” she told him, doing her best to get control of her voice. He bent over her, still holding her jhand. “You could make it the hap- plest in all my life,” he sald as his | solemn eyes searched her face. She |did not speak, as she met his gaze But into hge eyes crept a light that was not to be mistaken. “Hutchinson,” said Papan Cayler very quietly to his housekeeper, Ywill you please have the two collles brought up to their new mistress.” He waited until the door closed Then he added: “For that's what you're going to be, my beloved, and I don't give a hang if Hutchinson and the whole wide world knows it: (Copyright, 1923.) “MY IDEAL CHRISTMAS PROGRAM” Stephen Leacock on “*Wanting What I Want.” O begin with, for my ideal Christ- mas 1 want plenty of snow. I know that this is a daringly original idea, but I state it just thesame. And I want the snow to glitter in the winter sunlight like golden coins; or it golden coins are out of the ques- tion just now, I want to see the snow falling slowly in great soft flakes like five-dollar notes. I should like to put out my hand and catch these flakes, and I'm not sure thgt it's necessary for them to fall slowly either. No, on second thoughts, they may fall as fast as they ltke. I can catch them in my hat. Then, in the next place, T want my tdeal Christmas to be in a house where there are children, and to have it begin early, early in the morning; in fact, way back in the night with the sound of the blowing of trumpets and the playing of mouth organs, when the children are taking the presents out of thelr stockings. Let my ear awaken to the roar of the toy train rushing across the floor and colliding with the chest of drawers and let me hear the rapid fire of the popgun. These early sounds of the awakening nursery are, I say, the best prelude for an ideal Christmas. Then as they be- gin to wax a little fainter and to be replaced by the sound of children being washed and dressed, I should wish to sit up in bed in a dressing gown and sip chocolate and examine my own presents. To discuss these in open print before the eyes of my eager friends is a rather delicate matter. Noting exactly what 1 want I fear they will at once run out and buy it for me, or perhaps store up the information in their minds for use years and years later. I can only beg them that they will not so store it up. At least T may with perfect taste indicate = few of the things that I do not want and am reluctantly compelled to refuse. But I regret to say that my desire to have a new copy of Omar Khayyam, Tennyson's Maid and Longfellow's Evangeline has long been sated. In fact The Speaking Lamp. AN incandescent lamp can be made to act as a telephone receiver, and to accomplish this there is need ed a metallic filament such ‘as an Osram lamp of 100 candlepower. It is connected on a 120-volt direct-cur- rent circuit with the use of & self-, induction coil. In shunt on the lamp is a‘condenser and also the secondary winding of & telephone transformer. On the primary end of the trans- former is a five-cell storage battery and a milcrophone transmitter. Words spoken into the transmitter are re- produced by the lamp, thus giving & most novel effect. To explain this we may suppose that the telephone cur- rents are added upon the direct cur- rent so as to give waves which cause the 1amp to burn more or less brightly, according to the strength of the waves. This causes small changes of heat in the lamp that act on the glass and the afr, so that a sound is heard. Thick glass stops the action, and it fs best to use a 500 to 1,000 candl power lamp with thin glass as this is most, sensitive, and gives the best “I'D LIKE TO CAST PRE ASIDE AND HAVE THE TOYS FOR MYSELF—WITH THREE OR FOUR MEN FROM THE CLUB TO RUN THEM.” 1 should like to say in a general way that if any of my friends are thinking of sending me 2 book (and such a thought, though I should never have suggested it myself, is excellent), I should be much gratified it they will simply send me the money and I will go and pick out the book myself. * k% % BUT I pass on from the question of books to the more important matter of articles of prime utllity. Under this head I classify all muf- flers, suspenders or braces (whether hand embroldered or machine stitch- ed), all socks, slippers, collar boxes and any other similar articles what- soever. I hated these when I was six years old and had to tolerate them—but now I am moving on to- ward sixty and I want what I want wheh I want it. Let me here make a very open confession. What I would really like far Christmas would be a few of those Interesting mechanical toys that the children get. I'd like a toy steam engine and a toy windmill and one of those toy cranes with the pulleys. In fact, all that sort of thing. 8o do all men. On ‘pretense of showing the chil- dren haw to work them we really sit and play with them for hou just as our wives under pretense of showing the children how to do it dress up dolls and play with them all the afternoon, But for my ideal Christmas I'd like to cast all pretense aside and have the toys for myself. spread out on the floor one of those new elaborate toy rallways with the signal boxes and the station houses and then get three or four men over from my club to help me run it. T could get a couple of taxifuls of them in & min ra like to| have very pronounced views. T'd like to be left alone with it. The more deeply I reflect on Christmas dinner (and I have done so for fifty- four years) the more I feel that I'd ltke to get at it all by myself. There are things there that I want to eat with & completeness of concentration which I cannot get in general so- clety. That Christmas turkey, with the stuffing tasting as it never does at any other place or time—I'd like to take it away by myself to a side room and eat the whole of it. After- ward I would come back and join, gladly enough, in conversation with the others at the table about the morning sermon or prohibition or the German mark or any other of the bright topics of the hour. If, therefore, any of my friends are thinking of asking me to Christ- mas dinner (and why should they not?” ‘I repeat, why should they not?) they wiil'let me do the mere ‘eating part in a ‘room by myself. ‘I-can send ‘out for new dishes as I'want them, § * ok E HE afternoon of Christmas should be employed in the good old- fashioned: way with & brisk walk in the country. ' This is such a time- honored old custom that I for one never propose to depart from it. There is something in the nip of the keen, frosty air that sends the blood coursing through the veins and exhilarates .the whole being. Let it be a walk by all. means. But just one slight word of caution—the wise man in: middle life will find it well fo take just a short nap, a mere foity winks, before starting out. Let him remember that he has a long tramp befors him and like & soldler- on the' march he ‘must hus- band his strength. And I knéw no I shall be greatly obliged if |- better way to husband it than to lie down—just for a few brief minutes —on a sofa with the cushions well arranged under the wise man's head and a pipe of tobacco in his mouth s0 smoked as to hold the exhilaration of the walk in suspense. And here let the wise man take a further caution. This nap—or these winks, let us call them—may extend themselves, contrary to expectations, till half-past five in the afternoon. To his great surprise on awakening he finds that the time for his walk has passed. Let him not fall into peevishness over this. He has missed his Christmas walk in the country— but what of it? Are there not a whole long string of Christmases still to come? Why, there are those of us who have been waiting for that Christmas walk for twenty years. (Copyright, 1928.) —_— Machine-Made Breath. VWE are told that the human wind power is capable of a continued sound emission over not more than three or four bars of music. Yet many operas have sustained passages of many more bars. In order to aid players of wind Instruments in the orchestras or bands to overcome the difficulties incident to playing such passages an inventor has devised what {s known as the “aerphor.”” The device consists of a foot bellows, con- taining a water chamber and electrio 1ight bulb, from which the air, moist- ened and warmed to the degree of the human breath, is forced through a length of rubber tubing equipped with a stop valve to a mouthplece fitted Into the corner of the mouth. As the soft palate of the player is | automatically closed while he plays, he recelves the artificial current ot alr, which circles around in the mouth and out through the lips to the mouthpiece of the instrument. Not only may he sustain the tone of the instrument, but he may perform the most ornate cadenza, while he breathes through his nostrils inde- pendently. Greenland Journalism. ACCORDING “to the captain of a British bafk, journalism in Green- land is in rather a.primitive stage The captain makes frequent voyages to'Greenland and 15 held to be an au- thority on conditions: In that ‘caun- try. - The one editor in ‘Greenland 1s a Dane of the name of Moeller, who conducts the only newspaper and en- . Joys the singular distinction of printing the paper for the natives and teaching them to read It. Mr. Moeller is not only the editor ana proprietor, but he 1= the reporter, printer, distributor and business manager, and every two weeks he performs a long journey on skates to dispose of his journal. Originally it contained only a few crude illus- trations, but gradually other matter was introduced, until now it contains articles on affairs of the day. This man actually taught his subscribers to read his paper, first introducing .words, then senteyces,: MO Tles 0n the topics of the sime. B 3