Kindly
floorwalker, sees she is overtaxed, suggests she leave early. Dark
girl refuses; says she must be faithful to the Christmas spirit;
moreover, she daren't face the evening battle on the subway.
Handsome man comes to the counter to buy. Suddenly a scream, a thud,
horrified outcries. Hold back the crowd! Call a physician! No good;
handsome man, dead, murdered. Dark-haired girl, still holding the
fatal hat-pin, taken in custody, crying hysterically 'When he gave
me his name, I couldn't help it. He's the one who has caused all the
trouble!' Floorwalker reverently covers the body with a cloth, then
looks at the name on the sales slip. 'Gosh,' he cries, aghast, 'it's
Coles Phillips!'"
* * * * *
The gathering broke up, and the five men strolled out into the
blazing August sunshine. The sultry glow of midsummer beat down upon
them, but their thoughts were far away. They were five popular
authors comparing notes on the stories they were writing for the
Christmas magazines.
[Illustration]
IN MEMORIAM
FRANCIS BARTON GUMMERE
I often wonder what inward pangs of laughter or despair he may have
felt as he sat behind the old desk in Chase Hall and watched us
file in, year after year! Callow, juvenile, ignorant, and
cocksure--grotesquely confident of our own manly fulness of worldly
_savoir_--an absurd rabble of youths, miserable flint-heads indeed
for such a steel! We were the most unpromising of all material for
the scholar's eye; comfortable, untroubled middle-class lads most of
us, to whom study was neither a privilege nor a passion, but only a
sober and decent way of growing old enough to enter business.
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