f all
nights of the year. You know how sorry I always am for what you have
to go through down there, and I suppose it's worse, as you say, at
this season than any other time of year. It's the terrible
concentration of everything just before Christmas that makes it so
killing. I really don't know which of the places was the worst; the
big department stores or the separate places for jewelry and toys and
books and stationery and antiques; they were all alike, and all
maddening. And the rain outside, and everybody coming in reeking;
though I don't believe that sunshine would have been any better;
there'd have been more of them. I declare, it made my heart ache for
those poor creatures behind the counters, and I don't know whether I
suffered most for them when they kept up a ghastly cheerfulness in
their attention or were simply insulting in their indifference. I know
they must be all dead by this time. 'Going up?' 'Going down?'
'Ca-ish!' 'Here, boy!' I believe it will ring in my ears as long as I
live. And the whiz of those overhead wire things, and having to wait
ages for your change, and then drag your tatters out of the stores
into the streets! If I hadn't had you with me at the last I should
certainly have dropped."

_Fountain_: "Yes, and what had become of your good resolutions about
doing all your Christmas shopping in July?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "_My_ good resolutions? Really, Clarence, sometimes
if it were not cruelty to animals I should like to hit you. _My_ good--
You _know_ that you suggested that plan, and it wasn't even original
with you. The papers have been talking about it for years; but when
you brought it up as such a new idea, I fell in with it to please you--"

_Fountain_: "Now, look out, Lucy!"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, to please you, and to help you forget the
Christmas worry, just as I've been doing to-night. You never spare
_me_."

_Fountain_: "Stick to the record. Why didn't you do your Christmas
shopping in July?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Why didn't I? Did you expect me to do my Christmas
shopping down at Sculpin Beach, where I spent the whole time from the
middle of June till the middle of September? Why didn't _you_ do the
Christmas shopping in July? You had the stores under your nose here
from the beginning till the end of summer, with nothing in the world
to hinder you, and not a chick or a child to look after."

_Fountain_: "Oh, I like that. You think I was leading a life of
complete leisure h