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? N the left, Just past Mk If)) the weather hen's J!I nest, and not more t.han two steps from the box where they keep the yvj^Y\V^V cuckoo, there Is the long V/r/Z t\s% bed where roses bloom all \ /1 '-he year round. And they grow like this bo that jp\ Columbine may always have one t0 stick In her *?-1>?hair and that odd. 'mock ing, 8oft-hearted cynic PierColumbine. rot may cull one now and Again to twiddle between his teeth. If you know the way, and the Cheshire car will let you. you walk down the garden path, past the # butterfly lime, and arrive at the neatest little cottage In Olympus. Now this is the dwelling place of the Harlequin set?Harlequin, Columbine, Clown and Pantaloon. It is one cottage in a lktle colony on the lower slopeB of Mount Olympus (Vhere the high gods dwell: Jupiter and the like), and Is most Important because it contains the oldest inhabitants. The Clerk of the Weather lives a little higher up. The Four Queens and Kings live in a square of pagoda-like houses, and are w-aited upon by the Knaves. Pierrot and Pierrette live In romantic seclusion by a pool In a tumble-down place covered with blue roses. And away behind the fields of stars where the flocks of clouds graze, there is another village where the. Seven Princesses live, and the Third Son and an Ogre, and a Talking Rabbit, and all those peculiar and beautiful people who are entangled in our minds with the memories of night nurseries, and the scent of our mothers who bent over us in wonderful toilettes, and told us to go to sleep, or they'd be late for dinner. When it gets to be about Christmas there is a sort of aroma of excitement on the low?r slopes of Olympus, and, especially in the house where Harlequin lives?a delicious sense of something exciting happening. Columbine opens the lid of the well that looks down onto the world, and there comes up a murmur of children's voices, and you can hear the quaintest things being said about the hanging up of stockings, and about Santa Claus and tl)e likely width of chlmnevs, and the running power of reindeer. And there is a iremeuuuuD /j?9HH| rustle of colored pi.per, and a great run on almonds und raisins, and lHjHCnV. quite respectable citizens stand In jJBEMI Ym front of shop windows gazing at -* dolls and dolls gaze back at them, ott SBfe3 so that the citizens go back forty ?*< years at a rush, and the rush Is so r& |||j|Oa great sometimes that they get tears 'W In their eyes; for memory Is quick- jv er than motor cars, and the road It travels Is often dark and broken. ? So Columbine leaves the top of the well open all day and all night. & and all the people In her cottage sleep with their windows open, so u that the sweetly laden air comes up 3? and gives them wonderful dreams. It does more than that. It waves IjL i|||p$ the branches of the Christmas tree m?m$; that grows at the bottom of the /? . ; ?. garden, near the sausage frames. and very soon candles begin to bud (Z; on its branches. Now when the candles begin to* W3bU< get ripe, which happens at the same . Ly sHSBSI/., time that geese and turkeys hang t In rows In shops and grow rosettes all over them. Harlequin takes an old. oaken pipe from a cupboard un- 2$ der fche stairs, and they all sit round ftv while he puts It to his lips and (sj blowsAs he plays, dreams come to them 0\ of their ancient days, for Harlequin ^ ^ Is first cousin to Mercury, and wears Tj P a black mask to hide the light of his face when he visits Columbine, who Is Psyche, the Soul; the Clown Is Momus, the Spirit of Laughter; % and Pantaloon Is Charon, who has that grim work of ferrying the souls over the Styx. _ There's an odd link of memories ^ and of things held all through the centuries, but the most charming Is this: Columbine Is a flower-like person, and there Is a flower called Columbine, and It is so called because It Is like four doves with outspread wings, and the French dove is colombe, and the dove Is the symbol of the soul. So the world Is never allowed to forget beautiful things, even if the burden of history Is borne on the back of a flower. And the god-like glow and glitter of Mercury's limbs still shows In the glistening sequins on Harlequin's clothes, parti-colored as they have always been, to show how he covered his nakedness with rags. All this, beautified by the essence of Time, like things put away In a cedar chest, comes back when Harlequin blows on his pipe that air the shepherds learnt In Greece from Pan. The next night Clown will take out another kind of pipe, a long churchwarden of white clay, and All it with tobacco, and then as the fragrant clouds roll up into the rafters, memories come of all the great people of the Harlequinades they play down in the world, all inspired by them, and they see the figure of Tariaton. who was the first clown, and Invented the very clothes they now wear, hand In hand with Grlmaldl, that great clown And they seem to see all the great Italian Harlequins, and the dainty French Columbines, and the old dandles of fifteenth-century Venice whose clothes Pantaloon wears. Do you know that elderly gentlemen In the World smell that magic tobacco, or something like It. and they forget their paunches, or their bald heads, and they sit and dream of the time they went to their first pantomime? Was it "Cinderella." or "Beauty and the Beast"? Or was it that splendid thing "Mother Goose." or that enKS, trancing production "The Yellow Dwarf"? ^ii Such things are conjured m \ up by Just that one pipe of tobacco smoked in the cottage on Olympus, and on that night a gentle breeze blows up through the well, laden with the poignant, ~~ eternal memories of child ? ? hood, and the candles on Pantaloon. the Christmas tree are 0 I all ready to be lighted. They are bo ready that when Pantaloon looks out of his window before making up his face for the day he sees that the candles have burst Into flame-floweiu In the night. Then Columbine takes out a pipe, and she puts some magic soap Into nectar and stirs it round with the bowl of the pipe until frothy suds appear. And then she blows bubbles that float up and out of the window until they reach the Christmas tree, when they turn Into great, glittering glass balls. sorts of colors, and show pictures of the world all colored and shining. The children in the World look up and think they see Harlequin and Columbine floating down as gently as feathers, but they don't say so because their elders would only tell them It wa9 the clouds. But it is Harlequin and Columbine and Pantaloon end Clown follow soon after. bringing the C h r i s t mas tree with them. Now their ~ "V- work begins, each to his If own J?b and Columbine to ."''fTfigv { ' hers. Clown to preparing & ; the laughter that ra u 8 t spring up in this season. \<M gr and ripple as easily as a v I' barley field in a breeze. 1 Harlequin to his magic. Jt 'or common things must ^<ff'1' appear beautiful n o w. i and a penny must buy the Pierrette wealth of the Indies. And ' Pantaloon to stirring up old memories In dull people, so that uncles must remember all their nephews in remembering when they were nephews themselves, and had a peculiar hunger at ChristmaB. Columbine is awfully practical. Her sentiment' extends from the Joy of watching the making of baby-clothes to the pleasure of remembering to put nice soap In the spare rooms. It is she who sees that children get the right presents, and when they don't it is not her fault, but the fault of some stupid person In a shop. Ti- la aha whn atiecentfi the secret delight of keeping presents hidden at the bottom of the wardrobe; and It Is she who suggests the secret delight of peeing at children when they are asleep. ^ ^a^s<s Vjt There are Pagan Saints who find Arcadia everywhere. Pan pipes as much In the crowded city as on Mount Ida when the sun Is high. And Columbine finds roses where the world sees thorns; and Harlequin finds magic in motor 'buses; and Pantaloon* digs away for pleasant memories in the most unlikely places, and finds them bright and clean, and as good as new These half-gods of mine (and yours) come down at Christmas to correct the bilious attitude of the rest of the year They come to sow those 8 e e d 8 that grow to flowers 1q the still Innocent hearts. They - By are l^e ,n^u* ence that makes you give a man ft fifty centB instead of a B quarter. And the being j"S who says that the bus- . ine8S of llfe weighs more .j*' ^ian Bf>n* timent had better hang up his stock- ing on Christmas Eve. and p. see what It feels like to err0 ' find nothing but a hole In It In the morning. And uhen it is dark these four quaint figures flit through the country, city, town and village Jike conspirators. Harlequin tapping doors and windows with his magic wand. "Open, open!" he cries to the Spirit of Christmas. "Let the rich uncle reward his needy nephew, and the unforgiving father his repentant son. Mothers, forget to be jealous of your elder daughter's growing beauty. Children, forget your spite and naughtiness. Let's be old-fashioned Let's believe in ghosts. I'll tell you ghost-stories, stories of yourselves when you were children and played Pirates on the stairs. And Clown savs as he taps on the doors with his red-hot poker: "Open. open, you old grousers! And let the Spirit of Fun come into this house. Romp a bit. and lose your twopenny dignity, for pompous stlfTness makes the gods laugh." Pantaloon, taking his 'urn. taps with his walking-stick. and sayB: "Open. open, and let in the flood of memories of the good old tlmea! gs Holly and mistletoe and robins, and church bells &*\ sounding over the snow. fflBjSX And hampers all packed to jflj^K/ be sent away, and plenty fifegfw to eat at home. ||?0 And then Columbine U&S steals up to the windows. ?|gl and taps them with the rose from her hair, and Vf3 she whispers: ~ 1 V " ' "Open, open to me all you who have no children Harlequin, and no friends and no hope, and I will be the warm, nestling thing you covet for your frozen hearts, and you shall feel my soft cheek against yours till the tears come and your heart takes life again. You shall give Joy to other people's children. And if you have no friends who have children, are there not a thousand, thousand chil- I dren who have no friends? Go to them, and give *n ua?i will Ko roun rH pH al I lie III an y%ju tau, auu j\j u nm uv ..? ? most more than you can bear, for there is a link between those who suffer. Are there not some you have forgotten or neglected? This lonely man. that lonely woman whom you have left uncared for, perhaps for years. Put on your hat and your coat, and put your heart on your sleeve, ' so that all may know your errand." To see her pleading before black, sombre houses where a thin light shines under a blind; to see her face pressed against the window of some big mansion where a man or a woman sits alone with hearts like stone; to see her tr^rs as she essays to melt an aching heart Is to see something so touching and beautiful that one almost wonderB the doors and windows are not instantly opened to admit the spirit of love she begs for so pitifully. "Look at yourselves. Messieurs et Mesdames Importance, and remember the funny little things you used to be when you b't at coral and bells and wore bibs, and thought everybody In the world had enough to eat; when you hated to go to bed early, and crept downstairs in your nightgowns to listen over the bannisters to the voices in t..e dining room; when no Jam for tea was a tragedy. And when your mother's knee was the throne of justice and mercy, for you buried your head there with her hand in your ^ hair, and forgot to be afraid of the Columbine has her own very partuctilar work, and she calls it In W i *ier m'nd Secret Delights. She calls '1 because she delights in making up odd names for emotions, as, 11111*% I 'U 'or instance, when she pointed out t u-n lnvpra In mp nnp rinv in the ^ spring, who were seated under a / ;te hedge, yellow-flushed with prlm< Fi roses; they were holding hands and vof$| looking at the hills beyond Just as vyiifi some wonderful thing was about f0 conie over the hills to tell them W'ffHsli * what their feelings meant. And the '&[ peace was so great and the momert w&?$j|g so held that the World seemed to tj have stopped breathing, and semey-fe 1r?\ thing superhuman to have poured wtSBfi i !q\ out a cup of stillness. And she f?gj uS called it Liquid Velvet. A Liquid mm I ? Velvet moment. And I understood z&m i jffl It Ib Columbine who watches that ypk' $6 beautiful comedy of the newly mar/?l rled, who steal about their house Ofl hand-in-hand, fearful of waking the very new servants, fearful of creak/ft lng the boards as they gaze enrapM tured on the very new furniture. J'jW looking with Joy on the very new (?) pots and pans In the kitchen, turn.*?, ing the electric lights up and down t7j) all over the place to see the effect > In their new bedroom. And he has a dreadful brooch for her hidden V. where be keeps his razors; and she Wk &lw has knttted him a t,e ,ie wi" have to wear Hut It 18 an yen ecu/ beautiful Someone wrote the other day that people who read are more interest^ ed. nowadays, in business lhan In love, and I'm so sorry for that man. He is more blind than I thought anybody could be Business may be the means to an end. but Love is ???J the beginning and the end. And It Ib Just at this season that Love makes business: hence the shops full of gifts Imagine a poet writing: "Cent, per cent, the moon Is rising, Watch the stocks upon the bank; Rubber shares are too surprising, Speculators are surmising Who the deuce they have to thank!" No one can get a heartbeat out of that, and whatever your business man says, he knows he gets all the good In his life out or neario^ais. So this Christmas Spirit creeps about the world, mocked at, scorned, but alive yet. And you who feel these things may one night see this quaint quartet at work, perhaps for a second at the corner of your street, perhapB just vanishing down the drive, or moving swiftly down a country lane. And you may say wonderlngly: "It is a cobweb, a moth, and the branch of a tree, and the starlight makes them look like?like something I remember." Itut I tell you who they are?Harlequin. CNum bine. Clown and Pantaloon. And If you hear a child's laugh ring out suddenly, and It brings a new. quick emotion, one of them has conquered you! The spirit of rhrlstrnas doesn't cling to presents In proportion to their cost?unless ynu are very rich; and if you are very rich the voice of the Jeweler and of the furrier and of the motor car maker will seem to you as wise as the word of a happy poor man. though he were a nhilosopher. Pimple and genuine and glad?strike these notes and the chimes will be very melodiously for you and for tho?e whom you try to make happy. And remember, you can't feign Christmas without being t/Xff caught as an Impostor. both by your own con science and by the feel- wdl Ings of those about you. /V\ rr" The very vrlue of Christmas is that it puts the genuineness of everybody to an unerring test. Clown. I \ ta?Ml i\jp?ATO Navy to Test Battleships WASHINGTON.?Corrugated battle* ships will be the subject of tests this winter by Naval Constructor Da* I vid W. Taylor, on duty in the bureau of construction and repair, in the na- ' val testing tank at the Washington yard. Four vessels for the merchant service have been built in England on this plan. Two outward curves, 23 inches deep, run the length of the Bhips between the load line and the bilge. Between the convex curves is a concave surface of equal depth. This partial application of the tube principle greatly increases the strength of the hull. So much strength is added that the stringer plates may be dispensed with. This Increases the space available for bulk cargo. In addition, however, it is Bald that the corrugated hull saves fuel and lessens the effect of waves on the steadiness of the ship. English reports Indicate that a corrugated hull will save 16 per cent, in fuel over the cost of driving a smooth hull of equal displacement. Two models, of equal weight and dimensions, each about twenty feet long, will be Postal Deposit Savings POSTMASTER General Frank H. Hitchcock made public the other day the latest available figures showing that the deposits in postal savings depositories have now reached the sum of {28,000,000. The system was inaugurated January 3, 1911, but most of the deposits have been made within the last year. The deposits represent 290,000 individuals, making an average of $86 per depositor. The system is now operat eu ill l~,ffd puaiUIULI'D, 111 c?ci; v/nt I of the forty-eight states, including 644 branch postofflces. According to the figures compiled i by the controller of the currency the , total amount of the deposits in the savingB banks of the country in 1911 was $4,212,583,598. This amount was deposited in 1,884 banks by 9,794.647 individual depositors, and the average savings bank account for each depositor was $430.09. Comparison of these statistics shows that the average amount held by each savings bank depositor was about five times the average amount held by each postal savings bank depositor. According to the report of the controller of the currency, the postal sav- j Army Officers on Detach IT is now estimated at the war department that more than 60 per cent, of all army officers now on detached service will have to be removed from their present posts at once, owing to legislation by congress during the last session. This means that more than half of the officers now serving as military attaches at American legations and embassies abroad, as Instructors In the military academy at West Point, as instructors In the Army Service schools, as Instructors of state militia organizations and as Instructors in various military academies in foreign military schools will be ordered back to their regiment^. The law. as one officer put it. is "excessively mandatory," Inasmuch as Spanish Minister Rejoices JT was stated In an authetic quarter the other day that the Spanish minister, Senor Don Juan Riano, has 50 suits of clothes and a correspondingly large number of accessories. Spacious and perfectly equipped quarters are required to accommodate this wardrobe, and in selecting the new legation special attention was paid to this feature. The present legation. In New Hampshire avenue, has commodious dressing rooms and closets for each suite but such an outfit as Senor Riano's in order to be easily handled and ac- j ces3ible has to have a room to Itself, and. if possible, one built for the purpose. The garments are cJassifled, and that they may be easily found an in ventory is fastened on the door. According to the most advanced authori ties "wet" and "dry" rooms are neces 6ary for the complete wardrobe The | "wet" room removes the creases and j takes the place of sponging; the "dry" room hardens the costume in the lines It has taken. Whether Senor Riano's new home Is , With Corrugated Hulls constructed here, one with a corrugated and the other with a plain hull. Each will be attached to the traveling crane which spans the experimental tank at the Washington navy yard, and the resistance of the models to the water when pulled at a given rate of speed will be accurately registered on the delicate gauges attached to the crane. If the corrugated hull presents less resistance to the water the fact will be Instantly indicated on the gauges No vessel of this type has yet been constructed in this country. The first corrugated vessel was built in England in 1909. Capt. G S. Macllwaine of the British navy, recently asked the admiralty to make a te6t of corrugated ships. He spent a month on the Baltic in a ship in which the ordinary stiff bilge keel is replaced by a keel bearing deep horizontal corrugations. His observations convince him that the corrugated ship is vastly superior to the ordinary type in strength, stability, speed and carrying capacity. Captain Macllwalne claimed that the Idea of the corrugated ship was worked out by Arthur H. Haver, a naval architect. The seventh vessel of the kind to come into existence is now being built for Norway. The British officer says that a corrugated vessel is earned about twenty per cent, further with the same amount of coal than a plain ship of Bimllar dimensions. This in a warship means either increase In effective range or increase of armor, armament, etc. Show Average of $86 ings bank of the United Kingdom in 1910 held $112,668,566, out of a grand total of $1,076,265,509 in private and postal savings banks. In round numbers the postal eavings deposits in the United States are about one-half of one per cent, of the combined deposits in postal depositories and savings banks, while In the United Kingdom the postal savings constitute about 1 Vi per cent, of the combined deposits in private and postal savings banks. In France, according to the latest available figures, the postal savings in 1909 aggregated $316,456,866, or an average of about $57 for each depositor. Postmaster General Hltchcok's figures show that 7,357 banks have qualified to receive postal savings funds. ed Duty to Be Removed it requires that any officer responsible for a failure to obey it to the -full shall forfeit his pay and allowances. Consequently every officer who has not served at least two of the last six years in command of troops will have to re'urn to his regiment before December 15. It has also been found by the law officers of the war department that about a third more of the officers on detached service will have to bo removed within six months. A large number of officers on detached duty in Washington are caught pretty severely by this order. It is said that there are officers who have not been with their commands for years, as they have had pull enough to keep them in easy Jobs hero in Washington, where they can do their stunts and not half try, and fill in the rest of the time doing society acts. Washington society without Its army and navy officers is mighty slow. There has always been feminine influence to keep plenty of the young men on detached duty in Washington. Of course, this order of congress la oougaiory. in Fifty Suits, Etc. provided with all inest- com.oris is not known, but that every means has been adopted to keep the minister the "best dressed man in town." as ho was considered in Paris when connected with the Spanish embassay there, is certain. And it may be mentioned In this connection that as much care is exercised in the selection and proper preservation of the so-called accessories" <cl.s tn the actual suits These accessories" include many articles of personal adornment little known to the ordinary man, but are considered absolutely necessary in mind of the Spanish Don Of course, under this head, may be considered firBt, the very latest 111 hats, gloves and ties.