ng to do it again this coming Christmas, an account of
the con-, in-, and re-ception of his scheme may interest some of the
thousands who find themselves every Christmas in the Colonel's plight.
My plan to describe it was frustrated by the receipt, from his wife,
of three letters he wrote her. It seems only fair, then, that the author
of an achievement which is likely to become an institution should be
allowed to be the author of its history. I shall, therefore, content
myself with publishing verbatim two of the Colonel's own letters.

RUPERT HUGHES

LETTER ONE

_New York, N. Y., Dec. 26, 1904._

FRIEND WIFE:

The miserablest night I ever spent in all my born days--the solitariest,
with no seconds--was sure this identical Christmas night in New York
City. And I've been some lonesome, too, in my time.

I've told you how, as a boy, I shipped before the mast--the wrong
mast--and how the old tub bumped a reef and went down with all
hands--and feet--except mine. You remember me telling how I grabbed
aholt of a large wooden box and floated on to a dry spot. It knocked the
wind out of my stummick considerable, but I hung on kind of unconscious
till the tide went out. When I come to, I looked round to see where
in Sam Hill I was at, and found I was on a little pinhead of an island
about the size a freckle would be on the moon. All around was mostly
sky, excepting for what was water. And me with nothing to drink it with!

I set down hard on the box and felt as blue as all the swear words ever
swore. There was nothing in sight to eat, and that made me so hungry
that me and the box fell over backward. As I laid there sprawled out,
with my feet up on the box, I looked between my knees and read them
beautiful words, "Eat Buggins' Biscuit," in plain sight before me on
the end of the box.

[Illustration: AS BLUE AS ALL THE SWEAR WORDS EVER SWORE]

Well, me and friend Buggins inhabited that place--about as big as one
of Man Friday's footprints--for going on four weeks. When tide was in,
I held the box on my head to keep my powder dry. 'Long toward the end of
my visit, just before the ship that saved me hove in sight, I began to
feel a mite tired of that place. I kind o' felt as if I'd saw about all
that was int'resting on that there island. I thought I was unhappy and I
had a sneaking idea I was lonesome. But I see I was mistaken. I hadn't
spent a Christmas night alone in a big city then.

Then once when I was prosp