e, since nothing
suggested itself to him, in spite of his immense good-will to accept any
suggestion which the spirit of coming Christmas might be kind enough to
offer; and if he could do nothing else, he could at least work at his
machine, and try to devise some means of constructing the
tangent-balance, with the materials he had left, and perhaps, by the
time he was thoroughly grimy and the workshop smelt like the Biblical
bottomless pit, something would occur to him for Newton.

He could also write a letter to his wife, a sort of anticipatory
Christmas letter, and send her the book he had bought as a little gift,
wrapping it in nice white paper first, tied with a bit of pale green
ribband which she had left behind her, and which he had cherished nearly
a year, and marking it "to be opened on Christmas morning"; and the
parcel should then be done up securely in good brown grocer's paper and
addressed to her, and even registered, so that it could not possibly be
lost. It was a pretty book, and also a very excellent book, which he
knew she wanted and would read often, so it was as well to take
precautions. He wished that Newton wanted a book, or even two or three,
or magazines with gaily coloured pictures, or anything that older or
younger boys would have liked a little. But Newton was at that age which
comes sooner or later to every healthy boy, and the sight of a book
which he was meant to read and ought to read was infinitely worse than
the ugliest old toad that ever flops out of a hollow tree at dusk,
spitting poison and blinking his devilish little eyes at you when you
come too near him.

Overholt had been brought up by people who lived in peace and good-will
towards men, in a city where the spirit of Christmas still dwells, and
sleeps most of the time, but wakens every year, like a giant of good
courage and good cheer, at the sound of the merry bells across the snow,
and to the sweet carol under the windows in the frosty night. The
Germans say that bad men have no songs; and we and all good fellows may
say that bad people have no Christmas, and though they copy the letter
they know not the spirit; and I say that a copied Christmas is no
Christmas at all, because Christmas is a feast of hearts and not of poor
bits of cut-down trees stuck up in sawdust and covered with lights and
tinsel, even if they are hung with the most expensive gewgaws and
gimcracks that ever are bought for gifts by people who are expected to