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here for you and me to make a fortune. Dr. Capsuleā€™s Shopnasium, opened every September for the training and development of expert shoppers in all branches of shopnastics, under the medical direction of yourself and my business management would be a winner.[203] Moreover, it would furnish a business opening for all those football players our colleges are turning out, for, as our institution grew and we established branches of it all over the country, we should, of course, have to have managers in every city, and who better to teach all these things than the expert footballist of the hour?ā€

ā€œOh, well,ā€ said the Doctor, ā€œperhaps it isnā€™t such a bad thing, after all; but I donā€™t think I care to go into it. I donā€™t want to be rich.ā€

ā€œVery well,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œThat being the case, I will modify my suggestion somewhat and send the idea to President Taylor of Vassar and other heads of womenā€™s colleges. As things are now they all ought to have a course of shopping for the benefit of the young women who will soon graduate into the larger institution of matrimony. That is the only way I can see for us to build up a woman of the future who will be able to cope with the strenuous life that is involved to-day in the purchase of a cake of soap to send to oneā€™s grandmother at Christmas.[204] I know, for I have been through it; and rather than do it again I would let the All-American eleven for 1908 land on me after a running broad jump of sixteen feet in length and four in the air.ā€

[205] XVIII

FOR A HAPPY CHRISTMAS

I HAVE a request to make of you gentlemen,ā€ observed the Idiot, as the last buckwheat-cake of his daily allotment disappeared within. ā€œAnd I sincerely hope you will all grant it. It wonā€™t cost you anything, and will save you a lot of trouble.ā€

ā€œI promise beforehand under such conditions,ā€ said the Doctor. ā€œThe promise that doesnā€™t cost anything and saves a lot of trouble is the kind I like to make.ā€

ā€œSame here,ā€ said Mr. Brief.

ā€œNone for me,ā€ said the Bibliomaniac. ā€œMy confidence in the Idiotā€™s prophecies is about as great as a defeated statesmanā€™s popular plurality. My experience with him teaches me that when he signals no trouble[206] ahead then is the time to look out for squalls. Therefore, you can count me out on this promise he wants us to make.ā€

ā€œAll right,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œTo tell the truth, I didnā€™t think youā€™d come in because I didnā€™t believe you could qualify. You see, the promise I was going to ask you to make presupposes a certain condition which you donā€™t fulfil. I was going to ask you, gentlemen, when Christmas comes to give me not the rich and beautiful gifts you contemplate putting into my stocking, but their equivalent in cash. Now you, Mr. Bib, never gave me anything at Christmas but advice, and your advice has no cash equivalent that I could ever find out, and even if it had Iā€™m long on it now. That piece of advice you gave me last March about getting my head shaved so as to give my brain a little air Iā€™ve never been able to use, and your kind suggestion of last August, that I ought to have my head cut off as a sure cure of chronic appendicitis, which you were certain I had, doctors tell me would be conducive to heart failure, which is far more fatal than the original[207] disease. The only use to which I can put it, on my word of honor, is to give it back to you this Christmas with my best wishes.ā€

ā€œBosh!ā€ sneered the Bibliomaniac.

ā€œIt was, indeed,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œAnd there isnā€™t any market for it. But the rest of you gentlemen will really delight my soul if you will do as I ask. You, Mr. Briefā€”what is the use of your paying out large sums of money, devoting hour after hour of your time, and practically risking your neck in choosing it, for a motor-car for me, when, as a matter of fact, Iā€™d rather have the money? Whatā€™s the use of giving thirty-six hundred dollars for an automobile to put in my stocking when Iā€™d be happier if youā€™d give me a certified check for twenty-five hundred dollars? You couldnā€™t get any such discount from the manufacturers, and Iā€™d be more greatly pleased into the bargain. And you, Doctorā€”generous heart, that you areā€”why in thunder should you wear yourself out between now and Christmas-day looking for an eighteen-hundred-dollar[208] fur-lined overcoat for me, when, as a matter of actual truth, Iā€™d prefer a twenty-two-dollar ulster with ten crisp one-hundred-dollar bills in the change-pocket?ā€

ā€œIā€™m sure I donā€™t see why I should,ā€ said the Doctor. ā€œAnd I promise you I wonā€™t. Whatā€™s more, Iā€™ll give you the ulster and the ten crisp one hundred dollars without fail if youā€™ll cash my check for eighteen hundred dollars and give me the change.ā€

ā€œCertainly,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œHow will you have it, in dimes or nickels?ā€

ā€œAny way you please,ā€ said the Doctor, with a wink at Mr. Brief.

ā€œAll right,ā€ returned the Idiot. ā€œSend up the ulster and the ten crisps and Iā€™ll give you my check for the balance. Then Iā€™ll do the same by you, Mr. Poet. My policy involves a square deal for everybody whatever his previous condition of servitude. Last year, you may remember, you sent me a cigar and a lovely little poem of your own composition:[209]

ā€œWhen I am blue as indigo, you wrote,
And cold as is the Arctic snow,
Give me no megrims rotting.
I choose the friend
The Heavens send
Who takes me Idiyachting.

Remember that? Well, it was a mighty nice present, and I wouldnā€™t sell it for a million abandoned farms up in New Hampshire, but this year Iā€™d rather have the moneyā€”say one thousand dollars and five centsā€”a thousand dollars instead of the poem and five cents in place of the cigar.ā€

ā€œI am afraid you value my verse too high,ā€ smiled the Poet.

ā€œNot that one,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œThe mere words donā€™t amount to much. I could probably buy twice as many just as good for four dollars, but the way in which you arranged them, and the sentiment they conveyed, made them practically priceless to me. I set their value at a thousand dollars because that is the minimum sum at which I can be tempted to part with things that on principle I should always like to[210] keepā€”like my word of honor, my conscience, my political views, and other things a fellow shouldnā€™t let go of for minor considerations. The value of the cigar I may have placed too high, but the poemā€”never.ā€

ā€œAnd yet you donā€™t want another?ā€ asked the Poet, reproachfully.

ā€œIndeed I do,ā€ returned the Idiot, ā€œbut I canā€™t afford to own so much literary property any more than I can afford to possess Mr. Briefā€™s automobileā€”and this is precisely what I am driving at. So many people nowadays present us at Christmas with objects we canā€™t afford to own, that we cannot possibly repay, and overwhelm us with luxuries when we are starving for our necessities, so that Christmas, instead of bringing happiness with it, brings trial and tribulation. I know of a case last year where a very generous-hearted individual sent a set of Ruskin, superbly bound in full calf that would have set the Bibliomaniac here crazy with joy, to a widow who had just pawned her wedding-ring to buy a Christmas turkey for her children. A bundle[211] of kindling-wood would have been far more welcome than a Carnegie library at that moment, and yet here was a generous soul who was ready to spend a good hundred dollars to make the recipient happy. Do you suppose the lady looked upon that sumptuous Ruskin with anything but misery in her heart?ā€

ā€œOh, well, she could have pawned that instead of her wedding-ring,ā€ sniffed the Bibliomaniac.

ā€œShe couldnā€™t for two reasons,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œIn the first place, her sensibilities were such that she could not have pawned a present just received, and, in the second place, she lived in the town of Hohokus on the Nepperhan, and there isnā€™t a pawnshop within a radius of fifty miles of her home. Besides, itā€™s easier to sneak into a pawnshop with a wedding-ring for your collateral than to drive up with a van big enough to hold a complete set of Ruskin bound in full calf. It takes nerve and experience to do that with a cool and careless mien, and, whatever you may have in that respect, Mr. Bib, there are[212] few refined widows in reduced circumstances who are similarly gifted. Then take the case of my friend Billupsā€”some sharp of a tailor got out a judgment against Billups for ninety-eight dollars for a bill he couldnā€™t pay on the fifteenth of December. Billups got his name in the papers, and received enough notoriety to fill him with ambition to go on the stage, and it nearly killed him, and what do you suppose his friends did when Christmas came around? Did they pay off that judgment and relieve him of the odium of having his name chalked up on the public slate? Not they. They sent him forty dollarsā€™ worth of golf-clubs, sixteen dollarsā€™ worth of cuff-buttons, eight ten-dollar umbrellas, a half-dozen silver match-boxes, a cigar-cutter, and about two hundred dollarsā€™ worth of other trash that heā€™s got to pay storage-room for. And on top of that, in order to keep up his end, Billups has had to hang up a lot of tradesmen for the match-cases and cigar-cutters and umbrellas and trash heā€™s sent to his generous friends in return for their generosity.ā€

[213] ā€œOh, rot,ā€ interrupted the Bibliomaniac. ā€œWhat an idiot your friend Billups must be. Why didnā€™t he send the presents he received to others, and so saved his money to pay his debts with?ā€

ā€œWell, I guess he didnā€™t think of that,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œWe havenā€™t all got the science of Christmas-giving down as fine as you have, Mr. Bib. But that is a valuable suggestion of yours and Iā€™ll put it down among the things that can be done in the plan I am formulating for the painless Christmas.ā€

ā€œWe canā€™t relieve one anotherā€™s necessities unless we know what they are, can we?ā€ asked Mr. Whitechoker.

ā€œWe can if we adopt my cash system,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œFor instance, I know that I need a dozen pairs of new socks. Modesty would prevent my announcing this fact to the world, and as long as I wear shoes youā€™d never find it out, but if, when Christmas came, you gave me twenty-five dollars instead of Foxeā€™s Book of Martyrs in words of one syllable, you would relieve my necessities[214] and so earn my everlasting gratitude. Dr. Capsule here wouldnā€™t acknowledge to you or to me that his suspenders are held together in three places with safety-pins, and will so continue to be until these prosperous times moderate; but if we were to present him with nine dollars and sixty-eight cents on Christmas morning, we should discern a look of gratitude in his eye on that suspender account that would be missing if we were to hand him out a seven-dollar gold-mounted shaving-mug instead. We should have shown our generous spirit on his behalf, which is all a Christmas present ever does, whether it is a diamond tiara or a chain of sausages, and at the same time have relieved his anxieties about his braces. His gratitude would be double-barrelled, and his happiness a surer shot. Give us the money, say I, and let us relieve our necessities first, and then if there is anything left over we can buy some memorial of the day with the balance.ā€

ā€œWell, I think itā€™s a pretty good plan,ā€ said Mrs. Pedagog. ā€œIt would save a lot of waste, anyhow. But it isnā€™t possible for[215] all of us to do it, Mr. Idiot. I, for instance, havenā€™t any money to give you.ā€

ā€œYou could give me something better,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œI wouldnā€™t accept any money from you for a Christmas present.ā€

ā€œThen what shall it be?ā€ asked the Landlady.

ā€œWellā€”a receipt in full for my bill to date,ā€ said the Idiot.

ā€œMercy!ā€ cried the Landlady. ā€œI couldnā€™t afford thatā€”ā€

ā€œOh, yes you could,ā€ said the Idiot. ā€œBecause for your Christmas Iā€™d give you a check in full for the amount.ā€

ā€œOhā€”I see,ā€ smiled

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