Christmas ain't so much what you get out of it as what you put into it."

Dan thought of the Captain's words as he crossed the ferry to New York.
All through the day he had been filled with the pleasurable conviction
that the morrow was a pretty decent sort of day to be ashore, and he
had intended to work up to the joys thereof to the utmost of his
capacity.

Now, with his knowledge as to the sort of enjoyment which Captain
Bunker was going to get out of the day, his well-laid plans seemed to
turn to ashes. The trouble was, he could not exactly say why this
should be. He finally decided that his prospective sojourn amid the
gay life of the metropolis had not been at all responsible for the
mental uplift which had colored his view of the day.

It had come, he now believed, solely from the attitude of the Captain
and Jeff Morrill the engineer, and Sam Tonkin the deck-hand--soon to
become a mate--and Bill Lawson, another deck-hand; all of whom had
little children at home. Well, he had no little children at home.
That settled the matter so far as he was concerned. Blithely he began
to plan his dinner and select the theatre he should attend. But, no;
the old problem returned insistently, and at length he was obliged to
confess that he could devise no solution, and that he did not feel half
as good as he had a few hours before.

At all events he would be as happy as he could. After leaving the
company's office, where he received a hearty "Merry Christmas" and a
fat yellow envelope, he went to the neat little brick house on Cherry
Street where he had rooms, and learned that Mrs. O'Hare, his landlady,
had gone to her daughter's house on Varick Street to set up a Christmas