He glanced up at the dial which indicated the fares and began to count the change in his pocket.  He knew exactly how much money he had had at the beginning of the trip.  He counted carefully.  Then he plunged his hand into the heavy canvas pocket of his coat.  Perhaps he had half a dollar there.  No, it was empty!

He faced the fact reluctantly.  Fifty cents short, ten fares!  Gone into the pocket of the young gentleman with the fur collar!  The conductor’s hand shook as he put the money back in his pocket.  It meant—­what did it mean?  He drew a long breath.

Christmas Eve!  A dark dreary little room upstairs in a noisy tenement house.  A pale, thin woman on a shabby lounge vainly trying to quiet a fretful child.  The child is thin and pale, too, with a hard, racking cough.  There is a small fire in the stove, a very small fire; coal is so high.  The medicine stands on the shelf.  “Medicine won’t do much good,” the doctor had said; “he needs beef and cream.”

Jim’s heart sank at the thought.  He could almost hear the baby asking; “Isn’t papa coming soon?  Isn’t he, mamma?”

“Poor little kid!” Jim said, softly, under his breath.  “And I shan’t have a thing to take home to him; nor Mary’s violets, either.  It’ll be the first Christmas that ever happened.  I suppose that chap would think it was ridiculous for me to be buying violets.  He wouldn’t understand what the flowers mean to Mary.  Perhaps he didn’t notice I gave him too much.  That kind don’t know how much they have.  They just pull it out as if it was newspaper.”

The conductor went out into the snow to help the nurse, who was assisting the old gentleman to the ground.  Then the car swung on again.  Jim turned up the collar of his coat about his ears and stamped his feet.  There was the florist’s shop where he had meant to buy the violets, and the toy-shop was just around the corner.

A thought flashed across his tired brain.  “Plenty of men would do it; they do it every day.  Nobody ever would be the poorer for it.  This car will be crowded going home.  I needn’t ring in every fare; nobody could tell.  But Mary!  She wouldn’t touch those violets if she knew.  And she’d know.  I’d have to tell her.  I couldn’t keep it from her, she’s that quick.”

He jumped off to adjust the trolley with a curious sense of unreality.  It couldn’t be that he was really going home this Christmas Eve with empty hands.  Well, they must all suffer together for his carelessness.  It was his own fault, but it was hard.  And he was so tired!

To his amazement he found his eyes were blurred as be watched the people crowding into the car.  What?  Was he going to cry like a baby—­he, a great burly man of thirty years?

“It’s no use,” he thought.  “I couldn’t do it.  The first time I gave Mary violets was the night she said she’d marry me.  I told her then I’d do my best to make her proud of me.  I guess she wouldn’t be very proud of a man who could cheat.  She’d rather starve than have a ribbon she couldn’t pay for.”