ose to go.

"Then you won't join that symposium?" said B-----. "It would be an easy
enough thing to knock off--'Why Christmas should be abolished.'"

"It sounds simple," I answered. "But how do you propose to abolish
it?" The lady editor of an "advanced" American magazine once set the
discussion--"Should sex be abolished?" and eleven ladies and gentlemen
seriously argued the question.

"Leave it to die of inanition," said B-----; "the first step is to
arouse public opinion. Convince the public that it should be abolished."

"But why should it be abolished?" I asked.

"Great Scott! man," he exclaimed; "don't you want it abolished?"

"I'm not sure that I do," I replied.

"Not sure," he retorted; "you call yourself a journalist, and admit
there is a subject under Heaven of which you are not sure!"

"It has come over me of late years," I replied. "It used not to be my
failing, as you know."

He glanced round to make sure we were out of earshot, then sunk his
voice to a whisper.

"Between ourselves," he said, "I'm not so sure of everything myself as I
used to be. Why is it?"

"Perhaps we are getting older," I suggested.

He said--"I started golf last year, and the first time I took the club
in my hand I sent the ball a furlong. 'It seems an easy game,' I said
to the man who was teaching me. 'Yes, most people find it easy at the
beginning,' he replied dryly. He was an old golfer himself; I thought he
was jealous. I stuck well to the game, and for about three weeks I was
immensely pleased with myself. Then, gradually, I began to find out the
difficulties. I feel I shall never make a good player. Have you ever
gone through that experience?"

"Yes," I replied; "I suppose that is the explanation. The game seems so
easy at the beginning."

I left him to his lunch, and strolled westward, musing on the time when
I should have answered that question of his about Christmas, or any
other question, off-hand. That good youth time when I knew everything,
when life presented no problems, dangled no doubts before me!

In those days, wishful to give the world the benefit of my wisdom, and
seeking for a candle-stick wherefrom my brilliancy might be visible and
helpful unto men, I arrived before a dingy portal in Chequers Street,
St. Luke's, behind which a conclave of young men, together with a
few old enough to have known better, met every Friday evening for
the purpose of discussing and arranging the affairs of the universe