in demanding three eggs for breakfast when every one knew that eggs
were seventy-two cents a dozen. The only compensation they had out of
the experience--aside from the realisation that they were living up to
a principle--was the untiring effort he made to entertain them with
stories of his adventures as a tramp! He gracelessly confessed that he
had travelled under many names, and that he was known by various
soubriquets that would not sound well on Fifth Avenue but still
possessed the splendid virtue of being decorative. There was not the
slightest doubt that he had roamed the land over, and there was not
even the faintest suspicion that he had profited by travel.

And this brings us up to Christmas Eve. With February not far away,
and Uncle Joe lamentably liable to have another attack, the Bingles
curtailed quite considerably in their preparations for the festivities
in honour of the five little Sykeses. They spent but a third of the
customary amount in providing presents, and they were not quite sure
that they were wise in spending as much as that. Uncle Joe went to
considerable pains to convince them that they were making fools of
themselves in throwing away money that might be needed for his
funeral, and absolutely refused to become a party to the affair. He
moped in his bedroom, over an oil-stove, and made himself generally
unpleasant. As for "The Christmas Carol," he had but one opinion about
it, and this is no place to express it.

When he came into the sitting-room after the departure of the Sykeses,
breaking in upon the tender reflections of Mr. and Mrs. Single, he
represented the ghost who might have been at the feast but was, for
some reason, obligingly late.

As he stood over the blaze, rubbing his bony old knuckles, he was a