The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-22

raced all the way to the shop upon the under
standing that the tail should be the prize of
the winner. Johnny, the eldest, As might
have been expected came in foremost, to the
great grief and encouragement of his bro
theirs, till he magnanimously promised them
that they should have the tail after he had
done with it. Rather more quickly than they
had set out, the trio returned from the
bakers, Johnny and Tommy Todd carry
ing the dish between them. Willy, the
youngest, much wanted to carry the cover,
but the more mature wisdom of Johnny
suggested that perhaps the pig would keep
hotter with it on; so Willy had to content
himself with walking behind as near as posi-
BILE, and shifting the fragrance of the savory
burden. When they reached home Mr..
Brown had just arrived, and their father and
Milly were endeavoring adequately to express
their appreciation of the hampers Mr.
Brown seemed pleased by the interruption,
and patting the boys heads paternally, asked
them if they were good bops. Johnny and
Tommy, though a little abashed, answered
manfully with view to sixpences) that they
were, but Willy, who was of a nervous tenn
perament began to cry. and promised irrele-
vanity that he wouldn't do it again.
Dinner time speedily arrived, much to the
satisfaction of everybody. A few minutes
before the appointed hour came young gen
tleman with a very stiff shirt collar and a
rather bashful expression of countsnance,
whom Millys bushes at once designated as
Charley Collins Almost before Charley had
been formally introduced, Miss Pinnifer came
upon the scene, dressed in the black satin
spencer and pink muslin skirt with little
blue bows pinned on all over her, and lead
ing by the hand solemn individual whom
she introduced in a tragedy tone as my bro
ther.' The individual thus alluded to did
not trouble himself to salute the company
but dropped into the first chair in his way
and fixed his eyes with strong glare
upon Mr.. Brown. The party arranged
themselves round the table, and began
to do full justice to the good
cheer. For some time there was but little
conversation, everybody being too busily EN-
ployed to talk when suddenly Miss Pinnifers
brother paused in the very act of conveying
large piece of turkey to his mouth, and
pointing with his fork, and the morsel still
on it, at MIR. Brown, said ''Halloa!" Mr.
Brown looked little uncomfortable when
Miss Pinnifer fastened to explain-"Youll
excuse my brother, sir, he's of unsound
mind" And then leaning over two Of the
little Todds, and seizing her brother by the
collar of his coat, she shook him violently,
and said in an impressive voice, Robert,
behave" Whereupon Robert became much
depressed, and "behaved" accordingly
incident had subsidized, the dinner pro-
ceeded with great smoothness, and the
little party, which at first had felt some
little constraint, Was rapidly unbending
under the genial influence of the Christmas
cheer. At last came the crowning glory, in the
shape of the pudding. And such pudding
1t was the very largest-sized pudding within
the memory Of the Oldest inhabitant; so big,
indeed, that Milly couldn't bring it in herself,
L I ~
And rich l should rather think it was 1t
was regular millionaire of a pudding. Miss
Pinnifer's brother again created little con-
fusion by insisting on eating pepper with it,
and shedding tears when the cruet was taken
away from him; but when at last he was pre-
vailed upon to try it without seasoning, he
sent up his plate three times, from which
infer that he was by no means such an idiot
as was generally supposed.
At last the dinner came to an end-as
dinners will, the mores the pity-and the
party drew round the fire in a COSY semi
circle, and set to work regularly to enjoy
themselves. The kettle was put on the fire.
the spirits and lemons and sugar were
brought out, and Mr.. Brown volunteered to
brew some punch-which he did as though
punch had been his daily drink from his
youth up-and then, when everybody was
served, the pipes and tobacco were brought
out and Mr.. Brown called upon John Todd
for a song And John sang song, and an
other and another after that, to the most tre-
mendous applause, even the blackbird drop
ping his critical airs for once, and applauding
as loudly as anybody And then Mr.. Brown
sang song; after which Charley Collins sang
a song, with remarkable chorus, which was
sung by the whole strength of the company
with such goodwill that the people next door
couldn hear themselves talk, and knocked at
the wall with the poker as a gentle hint for
peace and quietness; and Milly herself sang a
song, and then Miss Pinnifers brother mur-
INJURED something which was understood to
mean that he would also favor tho company;
hut being asked the name Of the song he
replied, after much consideration, More
Pudding" So to make up for his short
comings Miss Pinnifer volunteered, and after
repeating five times that she had cold
(which wasn't true) and that she hadn't a
note in her voice (Which was), she began
with intense expression, ''Will you love me
then as now" The direction of her glances
made it quite personal matter between her
self and Mr.. Brown, who should by every
rule of propriety have sungIin reply, Dearest,
then III love thee more. But he didn't
Probably he didn't know the song, or, still
more probably, he wouldn't have sung it
II hG kUc1o ii!
AS slight protection against the too op-
pressive glances of Miss Pinnifer, Mr.. Brown
entered into conversation with Charley Col
Inns, who had by this time got rid of his bash
fulness, and appeared, as he really was, a
light-hearted, manly young fellow. Charley
had conceived a great liking to Mr. Brown,
and was very confidential with him; so that
Mr.. Brown was speedily made aware that his
young friend was a clerk at the moderate
salary of eighteen shillings a week; that he
had had an offer of situation where he could