_Fountain_: "I had just called you a serpent."

_Mrs. Fountain_, with amus.e.m.e.nt: "No, really?" Feeling the parcel: "If it"s that Spanish lace scarf I can tell her it was machine lace. I saw it at the first glance. But poor Sue has no taste. I suppose I must stand it. But I can"t bear to think what she"s given the girls and children. She means well. Did you really say serpent, Clarence? You never called me just _that_ before."

_Fountain_: "No, but you called me a laughing hyena, and said I scoffed at everything sacred."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "I can"t remember using the word hyena, exactly, though I do think the way you talk about Christmas is dreadful. But I take back the laughing hyena."

_Fountain_: "And I take back the serpent. I meant dove, anyway. But it"s this Christmas-time when a man gets so tired he doesn"t know what he"s saying."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, _you"re_ good, anyway, dearest, whatever you say; and now I"m going to help you arrange the things. I suppose there"ll be lots more to-morrow, but we must get rid of these now.

Don"t you wish n.o.body would do anything for us? Just the children--dear little souls! I don"t believe but what we can make Jim and Susy believe in Santa Claus again; Benny is firm in the faith; he put him into his prayer. I declare, his sweetness almost broke my heart." At a knock: "Who"s that, I wonder? Come in! Oh, it"s you, Maggie. Well?"

IV

THE FOUNTAINS, FOUNTAIN"S SISTERS

_Maggie_: "It"s Mr. Fountain"s sisters just telephoned up."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Have them come up at once, Maggie, of course." As Maggie goes out: "Another interruption! If it"s going to keep on like this! Shouldn"t you have thought they might have _sent_ their presents?"

_Fountain_: "I thought something like it in Frank"s case; but I didn"t say it."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "And I don"t know why _I_ say it, now. It"s because I"m so tired I don"t know what I _am_ saying. Do forgive me! It"s this terrible Christmas spirit that gets into me. But now you"ll see how nice I can be to them." At a tap on the door: "Come in! Come in!

Don"t mind our being in all this mess. So darling of you to come! You can help cheer Clarence up; you know his Christmas Eve dumps." She runs to them and clasps them in her arms with several half-open packages dangling from her hands and contrasting their disarray with the neatness of their silk-ribboned and tissue-papered parcels which their embrace makes meet at her back. "Minnie! Aggie! To lug here, when you ought to be at home in bed dying of fatigue! But it"s just like you, both of you. Did you ever see anything like the stores to-day? Do sit down, or swoon on the floor, or anything. Let me have those wretched bundles which are simply killing you." She looks at the different packages. ""For Benny from Grandpa." "For a good girl, from Susy"s grandmother." "Jim, from Aunt Minnie and Aunt Aggie." "Lucy, with love from Aggie and Minnie." And Clarence! What hearts you _have_ got! Well, I always say there never were such thoughtful girls, and you always show such taste and such originality. I long to get at the things." She keeps fingering the large bundle marked with her husband"s name. "Not--not--a--"

_Minnie_: "Yes, a bath-robe. Unless you give him a cigar-case it"s about the only thing you can give a man."

_Aggie_: "Minnie thought of it and I chose it. Blue, because it"s his color. Try it on, Clarence, and if it"s too long--"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, do, dear! Let"s see you with it on." While the girls are fussily opening the robe, she manages to push her brother"s gift behind the door. Then, without looking round at her husband. "It isn"t a bit too long. Just the very--" Looking: "Well, it can easily be taken up at the hem. I can do it to-morrow." She abandons him to his awkward isolation while she chatters on with his sisters. "Sit down; I insist! Don"t think of going. Did you see that frightful pack of people when the cab horse fell down in front of Shumaker"s?"

_Minnie_: "See it?"

_Aggie_: "We were in the midst of it! I wonder we ever got out alive.

It"s enough to make you wish never to see another Christmas as long as you live."

_Minnie_: "A great many _won"t_ live. There will be more grippe, and more pneumonia, and more appendicitis from those jams of people in the stores!"

_Aggie_: "The germs must have been swarming."

_Fountain_: "Lucy was black with them when we got home."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Don"t pay the slightest attention to him, girls.

He"ll probably be the first to sneeze himself."

_Minnie_: "I don"t know about sneezing. I shall only be too glad if I don"t have nervous prostration from it."

_Aggie_: "I"m glad we got our motor-car just in time. Any one that goes in the trolleys now will take their life in their hand." The girls rise and move toward the door. "Well, we must go on now. We"re making a regular round; you can"t trust the delivery wagons at a time like this. Good-by. Merry Christmas to the children. They"re fast asleep by this time, I suppose."

_Minnie_: "I only wish _I_ was!"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "I believe you, Minnie. Good-by. Good night. Good night, Aggie. Clarence, go to the elevator with them! Or no, he can"t in that ridiculous bath-gown!" Turning to Fountain as the door closes: "Now I"ve done it."

V

MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Fountain_: "It isn"t a thing you could have wished to phrase that way, exactly."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "And you made me do it. Never thanking them, or anything, and standing there like I don"t know what, and leaving the talk all to me. And now, making me lose my temper again, when I wanted to be so nice to you. Well, it is no use trying, and from this on I won"t. _Clarence!_" She has opened the parcel addressed to herself and now stands transfixed with joy and wonder. "_See_ what the girls have given me! The very necklace I"ve been longing for at Planets", and denying myself for the last fortnight! Well, never will I say your sisters are mean again."

_Fountain_: "You ought to have said that to them."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "It quite reconciles one to Christmas. What? Oh, that _was_ rather nasty. You know I didn"t mean it. I was so excited I didn"t know what I was saying. I"m sure n.o.body ever got on better with sisters-in-law, and that shows my tact; if I do make a slip, now and then, I can always get out of it. They will understand. Do you think it was very nice of them to flaunt their new motor in my face? But of course anything _your_ family does is perfect, and always was, though I must say this necklace is sweet of them. I wonder they had the taste." A tap on the door is heard. "Come in, Maggie!" _Sotto voce._ "Take it off." She s.n.a.t.c.hes his bath-robe and tosses it behind the door.

VI

WILBUR HAZARD, THE FOUNTAINS

_Hazard_: "I suppose I can come in, even if I"m not Maggie. Catch, Fountain." He tosses a large bundle to Fountain. "It"s huge, but it isn"t hefty." He turns to go out again.

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Oh, oh, oh! Don"t go! Come in and help us. What have you brought Clarence! May I feel?"

_Hazard_: "You can look, if you like. I"m rather proud of it. There"s only one other thing you can give a man, and I said, "No, not a cigar-case. Fountain smokes enough already, but if a bath-robe can induce him to wash--"" He goes out.

_Mrs. Fountain_, screaming after him through the open door: "Oh, how good! Come back and see it on him." She throws the bath-robe over Fountain"s shoulders.

_Hazard_, looking in again: "Perfect fit, just as the Jew said, and the very color for Fountain." He vanishes, shutting the door behind him.

VII

MRS. FOUNTAIN, FOUNTAIN

_Mrs. Fountain_: "How coa.r.s.e! Well, my dear, I don"t know where you picked up your bachelor friends. I hope this is the last of them."

_Fountain_: "Hazard"s the only one who has survived your rigorous treatment. But he always had a pa.s.sion for cold shoulder, poor fellow.

As bath-robes go, this isn"t bad." He gets his arms into it, and walks up and down. "Heigh?"

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Yes, it is pretty good. But the worst of Christmas is that it rouses up all your old friends."

_Fountain_: "They feel so abnormally good, confound them. I suppose poor old Hazard half killed himself looking this thing up and building the joke to go with it."

_Mrs. Fountain_: "Well, take it off, now, and come help me with the children"s presents. You"re quite forgetting about them, and it"ll be morning and you"ll have the little wretches swarming in before you can turn round. Dear little souls! I can sympathize with their impatience, of course. But what are you going to do with these bath-robes? You can"t wear _four_ bath-robes."

_Fountain_: "I can change them every day. But there ought to be seven.