The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-12-28

exchange them if it is an accommo- dation to our customers. Sometimes il saves many a tear.
 "That's true enough" the lady re- piled. I've shed bitter ones over salt and pepper shakers that have been given me and the countless spoons and knives and forks that I've gotten with my initials on them. They make mo sick when I look at them and realize 1 can't exchange them to match my other silver"
 "Christmas giving within few years I remarked, twill probably reach the very practical point of talk ing one's friends down to the shops before Christmas and allowing them to select their own presents" l suggested, as I reflected upon the many disap- pointed recipients I'd heard of since Christmas.
 T was terribly harassed over a gift that I had" my friend continued Tt was marked with large and influen- tial monogram and I didn't want it and my sister and I worried our brains sick over what to do with it."
 Couldn't we exchange it?' said she plaintively.
 "Its marked" I replied with a note of finality.
 "A sudden happy idea struck us,' my
  of ours was to be married the next week, and her initials were exactly the same as mine. So we decided to box up the gift and send it off as a wedding present"
 You must have had something against her to send her the ugliest set of spoons you admit freely, that you ever saw l advised.
 Well, the same thing had been done to me-" she replied quickly. "The person who sent them to me sent them out of sheer meanness, because she knew 1 detested that pattern of silver"
 q don't believe any friend who cared enough about you to send you half dozen silver spoons" I defended, would be as mean as that.'
 You are mistaken she said hotly "They were undoubtedly sent in that spirit, and every time l looked at them they made me mad, and so it was happy solution of how to save my temper when I sent them to our cousin who was to be married"
 Perhaps your cousin will pass them on to some one else," I suggested.
 "A jeweler told me-" my friend replied, "that he knew that a certain silver bowl had been sent three successive Christ masses to three different people, because it had been sent to them each time to be put in different case"
 Sort of peripatetic Christmas gift l OpSefNeu.
 (Which reminds me that I received silver bowl I am going to exchange, she said ''It is so hideous that l almost die when I look at it. It stands on four terrible Joking little feet like some curious animal On the handle are strange little animals which might be unicorns q never saw one, by the way) if they didn't bear such a striking resemblance to the mock turtle in Alice in Wonderland. Wine would turn to vinegar in that bowl, and as for conviviality-it would have fled to the four corners of the earth If 1t had beer confined in that monstrosity.' v'
 I'm going to name you the original grouch when it comes to Christmas pres ents," I said emphatically.
 sI believe a lot of folks give Christ mas presents just for spite she snapped back 'grhey feel like they've got to give you something-som sort of obligation irnrels them to do it-and so they select the very ugliest things they can find
 Like a certain girl know said of two people who were going to get marrieu, I suggested. ''She said she hated them worse than any two people in the world because they were the two most disagree able people she had ever known, and she couldn't wish them worse luck than to be married to each other!'