CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS SUPPLEMENT. 1929.
11
Specialities for Che Festive Season
Highland Nectar Pare Old Scots Wusky
tra
XMAS & NEW YEAR HAMPERS.
WE BEG TO NOTIFY Customers that Assorted HampERS “SUITABLE FOR THE FESTIVE SEASON MAY BE OBTAINED FROM US AT THE FOLLOWING. REDUCED RATES:-
No. 1 HAMPER $42.
1 OT. MOET & CHANDON DRY IMPERIAL
CHAMPAGNE.
1 PT. BLACKBERRY Brandy,
1 PT. D.O.M.
1 OT. MARTELL'S XXX BRANDY.
2 Ots. King George IV Gold Label
OR PIRFection WHISKY.
1 OT. SUPERB TAWNY PORT..
2 OTS. St. Julien CLARET.
1 OT. OLD BROWN SHERRY,
SIAL
BLACK
1 OT. PURITAN OLD TOM OR DRY GIN.
·1 OT. BURGUNDY,' BURGOYNE'S,
1 PHIAL Pomeranzen BITTERS. *
No. 2 HAMPER-$38.
1 QT. GUILLEMART CHAMPAGNE.
1 PT. D.O.M.
1 QT. BURGOYNE'S BURGUNDY,
1 OT. MARTELL'S XXX BRANDY.
2 QTS. KING GEORGE IV Gold LabeL
OR PERFiction Whisky.
2 OTS. TAWNY DRY PORT.
2DTE, ST. JULIEN CLARET
1 QT. Puritan Old Tom OR DRY GIN.
1 OT. VINO DE PAŠTO SHERRY.
1 PHIAL POMERANZEN BITTERS,
No. 3 HAMPER-$33,
1 OT. BURGOYNE's BurguNDY.
1 PT. PEPPERMINT G.F.
1 PT. D.O.M.
2 OTS. SUPERIOR Rich Old Port.
2 Qts. King George IV Gold Label
OR PERFiction Whisky.
| 1 QT, England's XXX BRANDY.
1 OT. AMONTILLADO SHERRY.
1 OT. Puritan Old Tom or Dry Gin.
2 OTS. Medoc CLARET.
1 PHIAL POMERANZEN BITTERS:
OTHER HAMPERS MADE UP TO SUIt Customer's reQUIREMENTS
King George IV Gold Label Whisky
Dimple Scots Special Whisky
Haig & Haig Gold Label Whisky Champagnes, Sherries, Ports, Liqueurs, etc., etc. Guaranteed First Quality.
MARTELL
GANDE, PRICE & CO., LTD.
Telephone No. C. 135.
WINE & SPIRIT MERCHANTS.
HONG KONG
་
be dared. All these were in the arms of that inexhaustible patriarch of Christmas. And he would come at twelve o'clock pre- *cisely.
Yet-confound the fellow-there he was, as large as life, on the landing before me, and it lacked some minutes to the hour. I would have sworn it was he, though every judge in England had called me be fore him and a thousand barristers in spot- less bands had cross-examined me.
Arms Laden With Gifts
A tall and bent old man; his white beard flowing upon his withered bosom; his arms loaded with gifts; his footfall ghostly. For a terrible moment I saw him, and then he vanished from my sight. I stood there, transfixed by wonder and un- able to move a step.
Good gracious! Had I and all the world been lying about this old man for hundreds of years? Were there, in truth, more things in heaven and earth than were dreamed of in our philosophy? It was as though a hand from the Unseen had gripped me by the arm and a ghostly voice had whispered. "Believe believe!-the children's stories are true; they are not fakes. There are fairies. This is a Father Christmas, and you-oh man!-have been permitted to see him.'
and bethought me of ancient jargon con- cerning subjectives and objectives, and all that stuff. Clearly the brain had projected this image and I had been so obsessed by the child's hope of this mythical pantaloon with the white beard that I had actually created him for myself thrown him upon the screen of my imagination and been frightened by him. And yet, as Betsy Prig observed I did not believe there was any "sich person.' It was absurd, preposterous! -hardly a story even for modern children. To this thought I clung obstinately. Father Christmas did not exist, and I had not seen him.
Pantaloon of Dreams
Valiant because of the assurance, I com- posed myself to remember that I had left the gifts upstairs, and that, much as I despised the pantaloon of dreams, I had still to play his part. Duty must be done, and the role fulfilled: and cheered, as ever, by the task, I set out once more to perform it. The house was empty of ghosts, I said, and I was alone.
Yet hardly had that thought come to me when a new and ominous sound smote upon my ready ear. Someone moved upon the stairway. I could hear the stealthy shuffling of alien footsteps almost, I thought, the sound of a man's breathing. And my heart beat fast at that. I did not stop to ask myself if ghosts breathed,
This, I say, was my first impression, but not readily would I surrender my reason
A man or a spirit coming down my to the voices. A long, a very long whisky stairs! If the latter, he would walk through and soda in the study below somewhat me, I imagined, as X rays may pass through steadied the imagination, and I began to the chest of a fat man. If the former, he study with more calm a situation which un- would probably shoot me, unless previously doubtedly had shaken me. In this mood II had taken the precaution to hit him on recalled all that I knew of spiritualism, the head with a candlestick. The latter was
old and heavy and of Sheffield platea fact which I hoped the Father would appreciate. And I gripped it as though it were a bludgeon, and made my steps as stealthy as his own, and crept like a very night-bird cut into the hall, and met the fellow face to face and, by heaven! as the dramatists say, it was Father Christmas, and still his arms were full of gifts. Why, then, did I pluck him by the beard, rudely and un- spiritually? God alone knows, but I did, and the hair remained upon his face, and the beard did not come off in my hands.
"Guv'ner," he observed shrewdly, "it's a fair cop, and I'll come quiet."
Common words, I am told, often utter- in such emergencies.
ed
Abandon The Wreckage The very old gentleman wished to inti- mate thereby that, having broken into my house and acquired a set of tortoiseshell crnaments together with an old fur coat and a diamond horseshoe pin, he was will- ing to abandon this wreckage and to accom- pany me without resistance to the police station.
But I did not conduct him thither. How could I and tell the boy that Father Christmas was in gaol? Such things are not done. I let the old man go, and I believe he cried, "God bless yer."
And now I am back upon the old pro- blem:
"Does that mythical personage called Father Christmas exist, or does
he
not? In the case that he does, he is, self- confessed, a burglar-though obviously he could not be prosecuted for housebreaking, I must leave it to the lawyers and to the decanter of "pre-war."