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 to summon up the emotions
connected wi