nd the fact that I had as yet bought no
presents. Such was the predicament in which I usually found myself on
Christmas eve; and it was not without a certain sense of annoyance at
the task thus abruptly confronting me that I got into my automobile and
directed the chauffeur to the shopping district. The crowds surged along
the wet sidewalks and overflowed into the street, and over the heads of
the people I stared at the blazing shop-windows decked out in Christmas
greens. My chauffeur, a bristly-haired Parisian, blew his horn
insolently, men and women jostled each other to get out of the way,
their holiday mood giving place to resentment as they stared into the
windows of the limousine. With the American inability to sit still I
shifted from one corner of the seat to another, impatient at the slow
progress of the machine: and I felt a certain contempt for human beings,
that they should make all this fuss, burden themselves with all these
senseless purchases, for a tradition. The automobile stopped, and I
fought my way across the sidewalk into the store of that time-honoured
firm, Elgin, Yates and Garner, pausing uncertainly before the very
counter where, some ten years before, I had bought an engagement ring.
Young Mr. Garner himself spied me, and handing over a customer to a
tired clerk, hurried forward to greet me, his manner implying that my
entrance was in some sort an event. I had become used to this aroma of
deference.

"What can I show you, Mr. Paret?" he asked.

"I don't know--I'm looking around," I said, vaguely, bewildered by the
glittering baubles by which I was confronted. What did Maude want? While
I was gazing into the case, Mr. Garner opened a safe behind him, laying
before me a large sapphire set with diamonds in a platinum brooch; a
beautiful stone, in the depths of it gleaming a fire like a star in an
arctic sky. I had not given Maude anything of value of late. Decidedly,
this was of value; Mr. Garner named the price glibly; if Mrs. Paret
didn't care for it, it might be brought back or exchanged. I took it,
with a sigh of relief. Leaving the store, I paused on the edge of the
rushing stream of humanity, with the problem of the children's gifts
still to be solved. I thought of my own childhood, when at Christmastide
I had walked with my mother up and down this very street, so changed
and modernized now; recalling that I had had definite desires, desperate
ones; but my imagination failed me when I tried