“Don’t tell me,” he cried, stopping the word that was on my lips; “I tell you, I hate holidays.  The shops look merry, do they, with their bright toys and their green branches?  The pantomime is crowded with merry hearts, is it?  The circus and the show are brimful of fun and laughter, are they?  Well, they all make me miserable.  I haven’t any pretty-faced girls or bright-eyed boys to take to the circus or the show, and all the nice girls and fine boys of my acquaintance have their uncles or their grand-dads or their cousins to take them to those places; so, if I go, I must go alone.  But I don’t go.  I can’t bear the chill of seeing everybody happy, and knowing myself so lonely and desolate.  Confound it, sir, I’ve too much heart to be happy under such circumstances!  I’m too humane, sir!  And the result is, I hate holidays.  It’s miserable to be out, and yet I can’t stay at home, for I get thinking of Christmases past.  I can’t read—­the shadow of my heart makes it impossible.  I can’t walk—­for I see nothing but pictures through the bright windows, and happy groups of pleasure-seekers.  The fact is, I’ve nothing to do but to hate holidays.  But will you not dine with me?”

Of course, I had to plead engagement with my own family circle, and I couldn’t quite invite Mr. Bluff home that day, when Cousin Charles and his wife, and Sister Susan and her daughter, and three of my wife’s kin had come in from the country, all to make a merry Christmas with us.  I felt sorry, but it was quite impossible, so I wished Mr. Bluff a “Merry Christmas,” and hurried homeward through the cold and nipping air.

I did not meet Bachelor Bluff again until a week after Christmas of the next year, when I learned some strange particulars of what occurred to him after our parting on the occasion just described.  I will let Bachelor Bluff tell his adventure for himself.

“I went to church,” said he, “and was as sad there as everywhere else.  Of course, the evergreens were pretty, and the music fine; but all around me were happy groups of people, who could scarcely keep down merry Christmas long enough to do reverence to sacred Christmas.  And nobody was alone but me.  Every happy paterfamilias in his pew tantalized me, and the whole atmosphere of the place seemed so much better suited to every one else than me that I came away hating holidays worse than ever.  Then I went to the play, and sat down in a box all alone by myself.  Everybody seemed on the best of terms with everybody else, and jokes and banter passed from one to another with the most good-natured freedom.  Everybody but me was in a little group of friends.  I was the only person in the whole theatre that was alone.  And then there was such clapping of hands, and roars of laughter, and shouts of delight at all the fun going on upon the stage, all of which was rendered doubly enjoyable by everybody having somebody with whom to share and interchange the pleasure, that my loneliness got simply unbearable, and I hated holidays infinitely worse than ever.