in business matters.

It was eight o'clock in the morning and trade was beginning briskly. The telephone orders kept the bell jingling. The clerks and bakers were prepared for a busy day, and had received from Herr Baumgärtner their special instructions in regard to the catering and delivering. Already early customers were beginning to come in.

Herr Baumgärtner stood near a table which was in the rear of the store. On this table were displayed thirteen Christmas puddings, set apart in royal aloofness. These the baker intended as presents to some of his best customers.

"Ach, dose puddings!" he soliloquized. "Goot, rich, schön! But I get my moneys back again." In other words, he anticipated a large return from a small investment.

Baker Baumgärtner knew how to do the handsome thing upon occasion, and was possessed of a generosity which, like Bob Acres' courage, "came and went." Just now it was at full tide. Desirous of presenting his gifts in the best possible manner, he went to his desk, and taking out thirteen gilt-edged cards, he wrote on each: "With the Christmas Greetings of Herr Wilhelm Baumgärtner." He next took from its wrapping a quantity of pink and blue tissue paper with embroidered edges.

At this moment Hans Kleinhardt, his head clerk, entered the store.

"Hans, come you here once!" cried the baker. "Dot fine puddings vat you see dere are for my thirteen best customers. Vat you tink, Hans,"—showing him the tissue papers, "joost de ting to wrap dot puddings in, nicht wahr? Always in Hirschberg dey say to me, 'Ach, Herr Baumgärtner, Sie haben immer so schönes Papier.'"

"'FOR MY THIRTEEN BEST CUSTOMERS'"

"Ja, ja," assented Hans, "it is so fine already."

So anxious was our Hans to ingratiate himself and make a good impression,—for Hans was ambitious,—that had Herr Baumgärtner wished them wrapped in circus posters Hans would have said: "Ja, ja, it is so fine already."

"Dot pink, Hans, ist ausgezeichnet, dot will we haf, and moreover on each tie you a piece of dat Christmas holly mit de red berries. Hans, see. Here is dat list of mein thirteen best customers. Send you dem dose puddings. Each and efery pudding is joost quite alike. Here are dose cardts mit vich I send dem my Christmas Greetings. You see dot dose puddings get sent dis Christmas eve."

Hans put the list and the thirteen cards into his pocket and promised to attend to the order faithfully.

"A 'phone call for you, sir," said one of his clerks.

Herr Baumgärtner went slowly to the telephone. Nothing ever made the good baker hurry, for haste was not in his make-up.

"Hello, vat you vant?"

A large order had not been delivered. That was an unpardonable offence in the Baumgärtner establishment. The baker was slow to be aroused, but when once his anger was awakened he was, indeed, a furious man. The wild, fierce Teuton in him got the upper hand.

"Donner Wetter!" he cried. "Vat for dat big order not delivered, and vone of mein goot customers dat leaves me much moneys? You tink I hire you for noddings, eh? Joost to trow my moneys away on you?"

He stormed and raged at the unlucky clerk through whose carelessness the mistake had occurred.

"Himmel!" he yelled. "How come dat you forget? You are one Dummkopf! I haf not served in die German army for noddings, and ven I say 'You delifer dose tings on Monday' I mean on Monday, and not on Tuesday. You hear dat now?"

The unhappy clerk acknowledged that he heard, and, fortunately for him, the entrance of a wealthy customer saved him from further wrath. The sincere admiration expressed by the customer for the Christmas decorations and the Christmas confections was appreciated by the baker, and the pleasant words, being supplemented by a large order, restored Herr Baumgärtner to his usual good humor. As he returned to his office he could not refrain from pausing a moment beside the table which held the Christmas puddings.

"Ach, dose puddings!" he commented, viewing them with professional pride, "Dey are joost like von picture!"

The Misfit Christmas Puddings

Second Episode

WIDOW M'CARTY'S ABODE MORNING OF THE DAY BEFORE CHRISTMAS

DOWN on the tow-path was a little, weather-beaten shanty that presented a far different setting for the enactments of the coming holiday.

Here, for six sad months, the Widow M'Carty had tried to keep the wolf from the door, but work as she might, her efforts would hardly have frightened an able-bodied weasel.

It was now some eight months since Michael M'Carty, broad-shouldered, courageous, and loving, had rushed home to his snug cottage one noon-time with the news that he had shipped as assistant engineer on the big, new freighter, the Go-Between, which was to leave port that very night.

Bridget, his wife, had smiled bravely at him through tears that the prospect of separation called to her eyes, but went thriftily to work to get his clothes in readiness; "Fer," said she, "there'll be no tellin' whin they'll feel a needle again."

Michael M'Carty had followed the lakes before, and now with better wages than ever it was no time for "complainin'." Indeed, there never had been any time for "complainin'" in Bridget's cheery, helpful life. Even the maternal cares which had multiplied so rapidly had not robbed her of her girlish buoyancy, and the ninth little M'Carty, at that moment enjoying her father's parting fondling, had been just as welcome as the first, now a proud member of the highest "Grammar Grade," though barely thirteen.

Michael M'Carty was ambitious for his children, and even dreamed of sending his cleverest offspring to the New High School which he passed each morning on his way to work. That presumptuous plan never had been whispered to any one save his "darlin' Biddy," and they dreaded the day when it should be made known to Granny M'Carty, whose presence at the family hearthstone supplied all the discipline that could possibly be needed in any fairly moral household. Granny M'Carty's rule was like unto that of the Chinese mother-in-law, and if anything ever had pleased her since her son brought her to his hospitable home, she had betrayed no suspicion of the feeling.

On the occasion described Granny swayed to and fro in her chair,—the most comfortable that the house afforded,—and wailed:

"Ochone, sorra the day! The banshee was singin' onunder the windy last night, an' ye'll be drownded, sure; or failin' or that ye won't know onny more than to go ashore at Chicagy an' there ye'll be murthered to death with one of them hand-bags, worra, worra!"

If the demon of pessimism lurked by the M'Carty fireside in the person of Granny M'Carty, that