th his fist, "is an eyesore to me patience. There was good
luck promised out of the crook of your nose, but ye bear fruit like the
bang of a drum. Ye resemble, with your noise of books, the wind blowing
through a crack. Sure, now, I would be thinking the palm of me hand lied
but for the coming true of the nigger man and the blonde lady and--"

"Whist!" says the long man; "would ye be led astray by physiognomy? Me
nose will do what it can within bounds. Let us have these glasses filled
again, for 'tis good to keep idiosyncrasies well moistened, they being
subject to deterioration in a dry moral atmosphere."

So, the man of literature makes good, to my notion, for he pays,
cheerful, for everything, the capital of me and Tobin being exhausted by
prediction. But Tobin is sore, and drinks quiet, with the red showing in
his eye.

By and by we moved out, for 'twas eleven o'clock, and stands a bit upon
the sidewalk. And then the man says he must be going home, and invites
me and Tobin to walk that way. We arrives on a side street two blocks
away where there is a stretch of brick houses with high stoops and iron
fences. The man stops at one of them and looks up at the top windows
which he finds dark.

"'Tis me humble dwelling," says he, "and I begin to perceive by the
signs that me wife has retired to slumber. Therefore I will venture a
bit in the way of hospitality. 'Tis me wish that ye enter the basement
room, where we dine, and partake of a reasonable refreshment. There will
be some fine cold fowl and cheese and a bottle or two of ale. Ye will be
welcome to enter and eat, for I am indebted to ye for diversions."

The appetite and conscience of me and Tobin was congenial to the
proposition, though 'twas sticking hard in Danny's superstitions to
think that a few drinks and a cold lunch should represent the good
fortune promised by the palm of his hand.

"Step down the steps," says the man with the crooked nose, "and I will
enter by the door above and let ye in. I will ask the new girl we have
in the kitchen," says he, "to make ye a pot of coffee to drink before ye
go. 'Tis fine coffee Katie Mahorner makes for a green girl just landed
three months. Step in," says the man, "and I'll send her down to ye."

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it
was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the
grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher un