When Penelope heard the scheme she could scarcely wait for her birthday night to come. But the days passed rapidly, after all, because everybody was very busy, and the night of all nights arrived at last. [Illustration] And Uncle Dan, who did not enter the parlor until the games were in progress, exclaimed in amazement, as he turned towards Penelope, "Well, if it be I, as I suppose it be, I have a little dog at home, and he knows me." And drawing his hand across his forehead in a dazed sort of way, he inquired: "Am I dreaming, child? I thought I was in America, but it seems I am in Holland, or perhaps time has gone backward, and it's the old Knickerbocker period." A THANKSGIVING GAME. BY S. SCOVILLE, JUN. "It's outrageous!" said the pater, banging his fist down on the breakfast table in a way that made the mater, accustomed as she was to his ways, jump in spite of herself. "So that's the reason the young rascal's not going to be with us to-morrow until late in the evening. Listen to this;" and the pater began indignantly to read an extract from the morning paper: "'An important change has been effected in the makeup of the Yale eleven. Teddie Larned, '99, has recently made such a fine showing at full-back that he will fill that position in the championship game against Princeton on Thanksgiving day. His punting and line-breaking are phenomenally good.' "That's what I was afraid of when I sent him to college," continued the pater, solemnly, as he folded up the paper. "Football's a rough, brutal game, and those that play it become rough and brutal, when they don't injure themselves for life, as most of 'em do. I wouldn't have one of those young savages in my house. I'll just go up to that game early to-morrow afternoon," he went on, "and bring Teddie home with me. They'll have to get somebody else to fill his place in spite of his being such a phenomenal--er--line-smasher--whatever that is." "Don't be too hasty," advised the mater, in whom Teddie, knowing his father's violent aversion to athletics, had confided. "This game means a great deal to our boy." "Nonsense!" snorted Mr. Larned, indignantly; "it's nothing but a silly school-boy affair anyway. I'm astonished that grown men waste their time encouraging such things by going." Long before the elevated train had reached Harlem it was packed and jammed to the doors with lusty college boys, pretty girls, and sedate heads of families, among whom Mr. Larned saw with astonishment many men of note. All were wearing college colors, all were filled with a delightful, suppressed excitement. Involuntarily the pater began to feel the contagion. But everybody was talking football, and their language sounded strangely to his ears.