Rupert Hughes

“ Merry Christmas, my childern! This old world sure is some comfortable, after all. The only trouble is that the right people can't seem to get together at the right time often enough. But this here Christmas supper tastes to me terrible much like More. ”

“ Well, my Santy Claus had to make sixteen trips to satisfy the childern.
The Garden was divided into sections, one for every State and Territory, with its own shield in electric lights and colors. There was a native of every State in charge, and every State had its own big Christmas tree, and reception-room and refreshments. [57] Some of the people I noticed seemed to of been born in several States at once, the way they passed from one booth to another fillin' up their pockets and stummicks. ”

“ I've engaged the Garden again for next Christmas and paid a deposit down. It ain't the extravagance it looks, either, for while the expenses was high—twelve thousand-odd dollars—they took in at the door nearly eighteen thousand dollars. I sent the profit to the Salvation Army and the Volunteers, and now I'm being prayed for and hallelooyied for everywhere there's a bass drum. But I'd do it [66] again if it cost me twenty thousand. It's worth that and more to have your heart nearly break wide open with joy and fellowship. ”

“ They call us "transients" here. It's like a common sailor that's lost at sea; he's only a "casualty." So us poor, homeless dogs in New York are only transients. Why, do you know, I was that lonely I could have stood out in the square like a lonely old cow in the rain, and just mooed for somebody to take me in.
[24]
I'd have telegraphed for you and the childern to come to town, but Texas is so far away, and you'd have got here too late, and you couldn't come anyway, being sick, as you wrote me, and one of the kids having malary. How is his blessed self to-day? I hope you're feeling better. ”

“ But most of them come out right, and several of them was so surprised at getting presents in New York that they bust out crying. Major Calhoun's whiskers was soaking wet with tears when he got a bottle of old Bourbon from Judge Payton.
Rich folks who had been poor men met charter-members of the "I'm on to your origin" association. But the Christmas spirit made them forget to be snobs. You'd hear millionaires telling plain people how they used to [61] play Hallowe'en jokes, how they scraped up to buy their mothers little Christmas gifts—what ridiculous things they used to get and give! ”

“ Strangers in New York?—Why, that means everybody! There's been only one man born in New York since the war, and he's kept in alcohol at a dime muzhum. Your idea is really to give old New York a Christmas party, eh? ”

“ What you want is a press agent. You're starting all wrong. People in New York can't understand or believe anything except through the language of the [50] press agent. You take one on your staff, and in three days you'll be so famous that, if a child in a kindergarten is asked who is the Queen of Holland, it will answer: 'Colonel Crockett, of Waco.' ”

“ If I'm ever dragged away from home again on Christmas, I'll take laughing-gas enough for a day and two nights, or I'll take some violent steps to get company, if I have to hire a cayuse and a lariat and rustle Broadway, rounding up a herd of other unbranded stray cattle.
Well, this is a long letter for me, honey, and I will close. Love and [29] kisses to the sweet little kids and to the best wife a fellow ever had. ”

“ For the last few days I've been the most talked-of man in town. Looks like I'd been the Only man in New York.
And now to tell about my little party. For two days a regiment of men was working in the Garden under [53] my direction—and at my expense. It was like paying the war appropriation of Russia. But it was worth it.
At six o'clock Christmas night the crowd began to line up at the Garden doors. At 6:30 a platoon of police arrived. At 6:40 the line reached twice around the Garden. At 6:45 they sent for more police. At 7:15 every street was solid with people. ”

“ I says. "I only want it for a Christmas tree. I am going to invite my friends to a little party."
"Whew, but you must be popular!" he says. "Who the dickens are you? Brother Teddy, or Mother Eddy?"
"I'm Colonel D. Austin Crockett, of Waco," I says as meek as I could.
"Pleased to meet you, Colonel," he says. "What you running for?—District Attorney? Or are you starting a new Mutual Benefit Life Assassination?"
"Neither," I says; "I'm a stranger in New York."
[43]
"But these friends of yours?" ”

“ Texas is a big place, but we'd have been brothers and sisters—or at least cousins once removed—for Christmas' sake. But they were scattered around at the St. Regis or the Mills Hotel, the Martha Washington or somewhere, while I was at the Waldorf-hyphen-Astoria.
[22]
It was like the two men that Dickens—I believe it was Dickens—tells about: Somebody gives A a concertina, but he can't play on it; winter coming on and no overcoat; he can't wear the concertina any more than he can tootle it. A few blocks away is a fellow, Mr. ”

“ Aldrich's pleasing idea of the last man on [26] earth; everybody killed off by a pestilence or something, and him setting there by his lonely little lonesome; and what would he have done if he had heard his door-bell ring? ”

“ Old Miss Samanthy Clay got a box of cigars meant for Judge Randolph
All evening as fast as anybody went out they'd let somebody else in. Along about eleven o'clock a lot of the people began to go home. Then a new crowd come in. People who had taken their childern home and put them to bed would come back for more fun. ”