BERTIE'S CHRISTMAS EVE


It was Christmas Eve, and the family circle of Luke Steffink, Esq., was
aglow with the amiability and random mirth which the occasion demanded. A
long and lavish dinner had been partaken of, waits had been round and
sung carols; the house-party had regaled itself with more caroling on its
own account, and there had been romping which, even in a pulpit
reference, could not have been condemned as ragging. In the midst of the
general glow, however, there was one black unkindled cinder.

Bertie Steffink, nephew of the aforementioned Luke, had early in life
adopted the profession of ne'er-do-weel; his father had been something of
the kind before him. At the age of eighteen Bertie had commenced that
round of visits to our Colonial possessions, so seemly and desirable in
the case of a Prince of the Blood, so suggestive of insincerity in a
young man of the middle-class. He had gone to grow tea in Ceylon and
fruit in British Columbia, and to help sheep to grow wool in Australia.
At the age of twenty he had just returned from some similar errand in
Canada, from which it may be gathered that the trial he gave to these
various experiments was of the summary drum-head nature. Luke Steffink,
who fulfilled the troubled role of guardian and deputy-parent to Bertie,
deplored the persistent manifestation of the homing instinct on his
nephew's part, and his solemn thanks earlier in the day for the blessing
of reporting a united family had no reference to Bertie's return.

Arrangements had been promptly made for packing the youth off to a
distant corner of Rhodesia, whence return would be a difficult matter;
the journey to this uninviting destination was imminent, in fact a more