XIX
YULETIDE  DOWN  IN  MULBERRY

WE were all at Lynch's in Mulberry Street,
and we all knew it was the evening of
the twenty-fourth of December. Now I,
for one, haven't got anything to say against the
beauties of sporting life, where everything—^money,
drinking, and eating—comes to you in the way of a
surprise; but I must admit that these holidays are
not exactly the most cheerful moments in a sporting
fellow's existence. Try as hard as you may, there
are a few days in the year when a fellow simply
can't help doing a little serious thinking. And the
worst of these days is Christmas Eve.

So we—^there were about six of us—didn't feel
any too hilarious and did a pile of thinking. Those
that had never had a regular home sat kicking be¬
cause they couldn't spend the day with their folks;
and those that had lost their home kicked because
they had lost it for the sake of this sporting life.
And if you'd taken us and stood us up on our heads,
there wouldn't as much as a penny dropped from
our pockets.

And it was Christmas Eve.

Sure enough, old man Lynch, knowing our feel-

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