Produced by D Alexander and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED GENTLEMAN BY F. HOPKINSON SMITH ILLUSTRATED BY F. C. YOHN and A. I. KELLER CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS NEW YORK:::::::::::::::::::::1911 COLONEL CARTER'S CHRISTMAS COPYRIGHT, 1903, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS THE ROMANCE OF AN OLD-FASHIONED GENTLEMAN COPYRIGHT, 1907, BY CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS [Illustration: Katy dropped her head on his shoulder again.] _To my Readers:_ It will be remembered, doubtless, that the chronicles of my very dear friend, Colonel Carter (published some years ago), make mention of but one festival of importance--a dinner given at Carter Hall, near Cartersville, Virginia; the Colonel's ancestral home. This dinner, as you already know, was to celebrate two important events--the sale to the English syndicate of the coal lands, the exclusive property of the Colonel's beloved aunt, Miss Nancy Carter; and the instantaneous transfer by that generous woman of all the purchase money to the Colonel's slender bank account: a transaction which, to quote his own words as he gallantly drank her health in acknowledgment of the gift, "enabled him to provide for one of the loveliest of her sex--she who graces our boa'd--and to enrich her declining days not only with all the comforts, but with many of the luxuries she was bawn to enjoy." Several other festivals, however, did take place: not in the days of the dear Colonel's prosperity, nor yet at Carter Hall, but in his impecunious days in New York, while he was still living in the little house on Bedford Place within a stone's throw of the tall clock-tower of Jefferson Market. This house, you will recall, sat back from the street behind a larger and more modern dwelling, its only outlet to the main thoroughfare being through a narrow, grewsome tunnel, lighted during the day by a half-moon sawed out in the swinging gate which marked its street entrance and illumined at night by a rusty lantern with dingy glass sides. All reference to one of these festivals--a particular and most important festival--was omitted, much to my regret, from my published chronicles, owing to the express commands of the Colonel himself: commands issued not only out of consideration for the feelings of one of the participants--a man who had been challenged by him to mortal duel, and therefore his enemy--but because on that joyous occasion this same offender was his guest, and so protected by his hospitality.