BY ORPHEUS C. KERR.

CHAPTER XIV.

CLOVES FOR THREE.

Christmas Eve in Bumsteadville. Christmas Eve all over the world, but
especially where the English language is spoken. No sooner does the
first facetious star wink upon this Eve, than all the English-speaking
millions of this Boston-crowned earth begin casting off their hatreds,
meannesses, uncharities, and Carlyleisms, as a garment, and, in a
beautiful spirit of no objections to anybody, proceed to think what can
be done for the poor in the way of sincerely wishing them well. The
princely merchant, in his counting-room, involuntarily experiences the
softening, humanizing influence of the hour, and, in tones tremulous
with unwonted emotion, privately directs his Chief-Clerk to tell all the
other clerks, that, on this night of all the round year, they may,
before leaving the store at 10 o'clock, take almost any article from
that slightly damaged auction-stock down in the front cellar, at actual
cost-price. This, they are to understand, implies their Employer's
hearty wish of a Merry Christmas to them; and is a sign that, in the
grand spirit of the festal season, he can even forget and forgive those
unnatural leaner entry-clerks who are always whining for more than their
allotted $7 a week. The President of the great railroad corporation, in
the very middle of a growling fit over the extra cost involved in
purchasing his last Legislature, (owing to the fact that some of its
Members had been elected upon a fusion of Radical-Reform and
Honest-Workingman's Tickets,) is suddenly and mysteriously impressed
with the recollection that this is Christmas Eve. "Why, bless my soul,
so it is!" he cries, springing up from his littered rosewood desk like a