he ice-cream was served with the tissue paper
still wrapped about the cake--to prove that no hands had been in contact
with the dessert before serving it. But the highly colored stripes of the
soapy cream that refused to melt, even when he dropped a spoonful into
his oily coffee, cured him of further martyrdom to the cause of love.

He hastily got up from the table, paid his ticket and ran out. By this
time, he felt so sick and chilled that he gloated in the assurance that
soon he would be in a raging fever. He pictured Polly's regrets when she
should return home at midnight and hear that he had been taken to a
hospital, with a fatal case of double pneumonia. He had decided on having
it double, after he left the restaurant, as that would kill him sooner.
In this state of mind he had to dodge a taxi and slipped to fall into a
mud puddle.

But Tom could not resist the desire to see his mother once more, before
he died; and after fighting off this inclination for another hour or two,
he was feeling so perfectly awful, that he knew his last call had come
for him.

He had been sneezing every few minutes for the past hour, and his eyes
were running like twin rivers. His nose was so stuffy that he could
hardly enunciate the words, when he told a cabby to "Ta-ge me to sig
siggy-sig West End Avenoo."

During the short time he was in the cab, he could not breathe, and he had
to keep his mouth open to be able to inhale any air at all. He paid off
the taxi, and went to his mother's apartment. Before he could change his
mind about calling, he had pushed the bell-button.

He heard someone coming down the hall, and at the same time a door in
front opened and the laughter and noise of many merry voices reached him
as he stood waiting on the doormat.

"Good evening, Mr. Tom--a merry Christmas," said the maid, smilingly.

"Goo' ebeneeg, Kadrina," mumbled Tom, scowling as he looked towards the
front room whence came the merry-making.

"Don' dell anyone I'm here, but dell Modder I'm sig and wand do see her
ride away," explained Tom, snuffingly.

"You got a bad cold in your nose, ain't chew?" said Katrina,
sympathetically.

"No!" shouted Tom, furiously. "I god'da case ob double pneumonia!"

Katrina jumped at the unexpected shout, and hurried to the front room to
call her mistress. Instead of remembering to keep Tom's presence a
secret, she whispered loud enough for Polly to hear:

"Mr. Tom jus' come in an' his nose is red as a