Within Harry’s place, Christmas found little enough berth except that above the great soaped-over mirror at the far end of the room a holly wreath dangled from the tarnished gilt frame and against the clouded-over glass a forefinger had etched a careless Merry Christmas.

At tables set so close that waiters side-stepped between them, the habitues of Harry’s place dined—­wined, too, but mostly out of uncovered steins or two-inch stemless glasses.  And here and there at smaller tables a solitary figure with a seer’s light in his eyes sipped his greenish milk!

An electric piano, its shallow tones undigested by the crowded room, played in response to whomsoever slipped a coin into its maw.  Kicked-up sawdust lay in the air like flakes.

From her table near the door Miss Marjorie Clark pushed from her a litter of half-tasted dishes and sent her dark glance out over the room.  A few pairs of too sinuous dancers circled a small clearing around the electric piano.  Waiters with fans of foam-drifting steins clutched between fingers jostled them in passing.  At a small table adjoining, a girl slept in her arms.  Two more entered, elbow in elbow, and directly a youth in a wide-striped wool sweater muffled high to his teeth, and features that in spite of himself would twitch and twitch again.

“Hi, Blink,” he said in passing.

“Hi.”

Reader, your heart lifted up and glowing with Yuletide and good-will toward men, turn not in warranted nausea from the reek of Harry’s place.  Mere plants can love the light and turn to it, but have not the beautiful mercy to share their loveliness with foul places.  The human heart is a finer work.  It can, if it will, turn its white light upon darkness, so that out of it even a single seed may take heart and grow.  A fastidious olfactory nerve has no right to dominion over the quality of mercy.  The heart should keep its thousand doors all open, each heart-string a latch-string, and each latch-string out.

Marjorie Clark met her companion’s eyes above the rim of his stein.  “Looks more like hell on a busy day down here than like Christmas Eve, don’t it?”

He was warmed, and the tight skin had softened as dried fruit expands in water.  “Ah-h-h, but I feel better, kiddo.”

“That’s three steins you’ve had, Blink.  And there’s no telling what you filled up on those three times you went out.”

“It’s Christmas Eve, kiddo.  What kind of a good time do you want for your money?  A Christmas tree trimmed in tin angels?”

“Do I?  You just bet your life I do.”

“Then let me get it for you, sugar-plum.  You just stick to me to-night and you can have any little thing your heart desires.  Here, waiter.”  And he jingled again in the depths of his pocket.

“If you want to lose my company double quick, just you order another stein.  Just look at you seeing double already.”

“I’m all right, baby; never felt better in my life.”