man's name who preached an admirable
Christmas sermon, in a beautiful church there is, will remember the
platoon of four men and four women, who made perhaps a fifth of his
congregation in that storm,--a storm which shut off most church-going.
Home again; a jolly fire in the parlor, dry stockings, and dry slippers.
Turkeys, and all things fitting for the dinner; and then a general
assembly, not in a caravanserai, not in a coffee-room, but in the
regular guests' parlor of a New-England second-class hotel, where, as it
was ordered, there were no "transients" but ourselves that day; and
whence all the "boarders" had gone either to their own rooms, or to
other homes.

For people who have their wives with them, it is not difficult to
provide entertainment on such an occasion.

"Bertha," said Wolfgang, "could you not entertain us with one of your
native dances?"

"Ho! slave," said Dick to Hosanna, "play upon the virginals." And
Hosanna played a lively Arab air on the tavern piano, while the fair
Bertha danced with a spirit unusual. Was it indeed in memory of the
Christmas of her own dear home in Circassia?

All that, from "Bertha" to "Circassia," is not so. We did not do this at
all. That was all a slip of the pen. What we did was this. John
Blatchford pulled the bell-cord till it broke (they always break in
novels, and sometimes they do in taverns). This bell-cord broke. The
sleepy boy came; and John said, "Caitiff, is there never a barber in the
house?" The frightened boy said there was; and John bade him send him.
In a minute the barber appeared,--black, as was expected,--with a
shining face, and white teeth, and in shirt sleeves, and broad grins.
"Do you tell me, Caesar," said John, "that in your country they do not
wear their coats on Christmas day?"--"Sartin, they do, sir, when they go
out doors."

"Do you tell me, Caesar," said Dick, "that they have doors in your
country?"--"Sartin, they do," said poor Caesar, flurried.

"Boy," said I, "the gentlemen are making fun of you. They want to know
if you ever keep Christmas in your country without a dance."

"Never, sar," said poor Caesar.

"Do they dance without music?"

"No, sar; never."

"Go, then," I said in my sternest accents,--"go fetch a zittern, or a
banjo, or a kit, or a hurdy-gurdy, or a fiddle."

The black boy went, and returned with his violin. And as the light grew
gray, and crept into the darkness, and as the darkness gathered more
thick and more