1933-12-16 — Page 12

HONG KONG DAILY PRESS, SATURDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1933.

ANNOUNCING

FORTHCOMING

GALA NIGHTS CARNIVAL DINNER DANCES

SPECIAL PRICES

FESTIVITIES

Fancy or Evening

Dress

XMAS &

PENINSULA HOTEL.

11

DEC. 24 CHRISTMAS EVE TILL

DEC. 24

A.M.

NEW YEAR

DEC. 26

DEC. 26

1933

1934

BOXING DAY

TILL 1 A.M.

BOXING DAY

HONG KONG HOTEL

CHRISTMAS EVE TILL 2 A.M.

CARNIVALS

TILL 1 A.M.

$7.00 PER COVER

CARNIVALS

TILL 2 A.M.

TILL 1 A.M.

DEC. 31

DEC. 31

$8.00 PER COVER

NEW YEAR'S EVE TILL 2 A.M.

NEW YEAR'S EVE TILL 2. A.M.

REPULSE BAY HOTEL

PHONE FOR RESERVATIONS

DEC. 24

CHRISTMAS EVE

TILL 1 A.M.

PENINSULA HOTEL

58081

DEC. 31

NEW YEAR'S EVE

Also

TILL 2 A.M.

TEA DANCES From 4.30 p p.m. till 6.30 p.m.

HONG KONG HOTEL

30281

REPULSE BAY HOTEL

27775

CHRISTMAS EVE CHRISTMAS DAY

On

NEW YEAR'S EVE NEW YEAR'S

DAY

ARRANGED CONVEYANCES".

MOTOR BUSES

FROM REPULSE BAY HOTEL

15 MINUTES AFTER CARNIVALS

FERRIES

FROM HONGKONG AND KOWLOON 15 AND 30 MINUTES AFTER . CHRISTMAS EVE

AND NEW YEAR'S. EVE. CARNIVALS

THE

During the Holiday Season

Why not go on a trip to SUMCHUN-?

HONGKONG & SHANGHAI HOTELS. LTD.

See Native Chinese Life in Real Chinese Village Enjoy Walking and Hunting Trips.

Chinese Theatre - Chinese Music

Music

Artistic Chinese Garden with many varieties

of beautiful flowers.

Admission Free-

All Welcome.

Two elaborately equipped Flower Boats on which special Chinese Food is served. Or Foreign Food. Also Chinese and Foreign Drinks.

Only 35 minutes by train from Kowloon Station.

The Yau Sang Chinese Theatre

SUMCHUN

Theatre open form 1 p.m. till 6 a.m.

Seven Poor Travellers

(Contjuued from Page 5).

"Well! "

she returned more positively, "no. Nobody ever ask- ed to see them, and nobody ever did see them,"

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the windy hills that slope down to the Medway, almost believeing that I could desery, some of my travellers in the distance. After it fell dark, and the cathedral bell was heard in the invisible steeple quite a bower of frosty

rime when I had last seen it-

ม

I found the party to ba thus carries in his pocket, whose in- composed. Firstly, myself. Se-structions were, so soon as he condly, a very decent man indeed, should hear the whistle blown, to with his right arm in a sling, who dash into the kitchen, seize the had a

certain clean, agreeable hot plum-pudding and mince-pies, smell of wood about him, from and speed with them to Watts's which I judged him to have some Charity, where they would be re- thing to do with shipbuilding.ceived (he was further instructed) Thirdly, a little sailor-boy, a mere by the sauce-female, who would be child, with a profusion of rich provided with brandy, in a blue dark brown hair, and deep, wo state of combustion manly-looking eyes. Fourthly a All these arrangements were shabby-genteel personage In a executed in the most exact and threadbare, black suit, and ap- punctual manner. I never saw a parently in very bad circumstances,fner turkey, finez. beef, or greater with a dry, suspicious look; the prodigality of sauce and gravy; absent buttons on his waistcoat and my travellers did wonderful èred out with red tape; and -a Justice to everything sat before bundle of extraordinarily tattered them. It made my heart rejoice papers sticking out of an inner to observe how their wind-and- breast-pocket. Fifthly, a foreigner frost-hardened faces softened in by birth, but an Englishman in the clatter of plates and knives speech, who carried his pipe in and forks, and mellowed in the the band of his hat, and lost no fire and supper heat. While their time in telling me, in an easy, chats and cape and wrappers, hang-

As I am not easily haulked in a design when I am set upon it, I urged to the good lady that this was Christmas Eve; that Christ- mas comes but once a year which is unhappily too true, for when It begins to stay with us the whole year round we shall make this earth a very different place;" that I was possessed by the desire to treat the travellers to a supper and a temperate glass of hos. was- sall; that the voice of Fame had been heard in that land, deciad-flection that probably some travel-simple, engaging way, that he was ing up, a few small bundles on the

ing my ability to make hot was- sall; that if I were permitted to Hold the feast, I should; In a word, that I could be merry 'and wise myself, and had been over known at a punch to keep others so, although I was decorated with no badge or medal, and was not a brother, orator, apostle, saint, or prophet, 'of any denomination whatever. In the end I prevall ed, to my great joy. It was settled that at nine o'clock that night a. turkey and a piece of roast-beet shouldi amoke. upon the board; and that I, faint and unworthy; minister for once of Master Richard Watts, should preside as the Christmas supper host of the six pour travellers.

the poor

striking five, six seven, I became so full of my travellers that I could eat no dinner, and felt constrained to watch them still in the red coats of my fire. They were all arrived by this time, .I throught, had got their tickets, and were gone in Then m3 pleasure was dashed by the re-

・

lers had come too late and were

a, watchmaker from Geneva, and ground in a cornér, and in another shut out.

travelled all about the Continent, corner three or four old walking- After the cathedral bell had mostly on foot, working as sticks, worn down at the end to struck eight, I could smell a de-Journeyman, and seeing new com- mere fringe, linked this snug in- licious savour turkey and roast tries--possibly (I thought) also terior with the bleak outside in a beef rising to the window of my amuggling a watch or so, now and golden chain." adjoining bedroom, which looked then. Sixthly, a little widow, who When supper was done, and my down into the inn-yard just where had been very pretty and was brown beauty had been elevated the Ights of the kitchen reddened stil very young, but whose beauty on the table, there was a general a massive fragment of the castle had been wrecked in some great

when had I ever thought so highly of the corner, since the days when

I connected with Jack Horner? However, as I declined, Ben, whose touch on all convivial instruments

wall. It was high time to make misfortune, and whose mannerequisition to me to take the the wassail now; therefore I had was remarkably timid, scared, and corner which suggested to me comfortably enough how much my up the materials (which, together solitary. Seventhly and lastly, friends here: made of a fire-for with their proportions and comtraveller of a kind familiar to my binations, I must decline to impart, boyhood, but now almost obsolete as the only secret of my own, 1-book-pediar, who had a quan was ever known to keep), and tity of pamphlets and number made a glorions/jarom. Not in with him, and who presently boasts a bowl; for a bowl anywhere but ed that he could repeat ~ more on a shelf is a low superstition,verses in an evening than he could is perfect, drew the table apart and Instructing my travellers to fraught with cooling and slopping: sell in a twelvemonth.

te open right and left on either side but in a brown earthenware Pit All these I have mentioned in of me, and form round the are, cher, tenderly, suffocated, when the order in which they sat at closed up the centre with myself full, with a coarse cloth.. It being table. I presided, and the matronly and my chair, and preserved the now upon the stroke of nine, I set presence faced me. We were not out for Watts's Charity, carrying long in taking our places, for the my brown beauty in my arms. I supper had arrived with we, in the would trust Ben. the waiter, with following procession

told gold; but there are strings in the human béart which must

never be sounded by another, and drinks that I make myself are those strings in mine

Gy Myself, with the pitcher. Inattentive boy with hot plates.

Ben with beer

THE TURKEY, Female carrying sauces to be on the spot. THE BEEF,

order we had kept at table. He had already, in a tranquil manner, boxed the ears of the inattentive boys until they had been by im- perceptible degrees boxed out of the room; and he now rapidly. skirmished the sauce-female into the High Street, disappeared, and...” softly closed the door.

I went back to my inn to give the necessary directions for the turkey and roast-beef, and, during the remainder or the day, could settic to nothing for thinking of travellers. When the wind blew hard, against the win- dorns-it was a cold day, with dark gusts of sleet alternating with periods of wild brightness, as it the year were dying atfully-I pictured them advancing towards their resting-place along various

The travellers were all assembled, cold roads, and felt delighted to

This was the time for bringing think how little they foresaw the the cloth was laid, and Ben had

the poker to bear on the bullet of supper

that awaited them I brought a great billet of wood; and

wood. I happed it three times, painted their ortraits in my had laid it artfully on the top of

like an enchanted talisman, and a mind, and indulged in little the fire, so that a touch or two

brillant host of merry-makers lightening touches. I made them of the poker after supper should

burst out of it, and sported off footsore; I made them weary: I make a roaring blaze. Having

by the chimney-rushing up the made them carry packs and deposited my brown beauty in a

And rendering no assistance middle in a fiery country-dance, bundles; I made them stop by red nook of the hearth, inside the

As we passed along the High and never coming down - again. finger-posts and milestones, les fender, where she soon began to ning on their ben sticks, and sing like an ethereal cricket, diffus Street, comet-like, we left a long Meanwhile, by their sparkling Booking wistfully at what was ing at the same time odours as tail of fragrance behind us which light, which threw our lamp into written there; I made them lose of ripe vineyards, spice forests, caused the public to stop, suiming the shade, I Alled the glasses, and their way; and filled their five and orange groves--I say, having in wonder. We had previously gave my travellers, Christmas! wits with apprehensions of lying stationed my beauty in a place of left at the corner of the Inn-yard Christmas Eve, my friends when out all night, and being frozen to security and improvement, I in-wall-eyed young man connected the shepherds who were poor death I took up my hat, and troduced myself to my guests by with the fly department, and well-travellers too, in their way, heard went out, climbed to the top of shaking hands all round, and accustomed to the sound of a the angles sings “On earthy peace: the old castle, and locked over giving them, a hearty welcome. railway whistle which Ben always Good-will towards ment

Man with tray on his head, con- taining vegetables and sundries. Volunteer hostler from hotel, grinning"