After this Mr Deadwood climbed into a cab and fell fast asleep. Edmund Mildmay got in after him, and said it would be all right, he would "see Deady home--merry Christmas everybody!" So they drove off amid the wild hallooing of their fellow-students, who then chartered other cabs, and drove off too, leaving Jim and the bearded man saying very nice things to each other on the pavement. And so the evening ended in seasonable fashion. Christmas came on apace. Down at Threeways, Christmas was always kept jovially, and Jim had been much in request everywhere. There were skating and hockey, theatricals and dancing, and Jim had been the central figure of all such activities and recreations. But, alas! Threeways was now forbidden land to him. Late in the afternoon of Christmas Eve, Jim sat by his surgery fire smoking a solitary pipe. Paying Koko the twenty-five pounds had left him with very light pockets, but he had bought a few presents. No. 9 was now his home, so to speak, and he did not like to let Christmas pass without recognising the fact in some way. So, earlier in the afternoon, he had journeyed to Regent Street and wandered vaguely round a huge shop which seemed to contain nothing else but what one would like to buy. While waiting his turn, Mortimer found amusement in watching the crowd of purchasers. Here was a boy hungrily eying a huge model yacht or torpedo boat; there a girl, wistfully calculating whether she could afford to give the price marked on the purse, or the letter-case, or the inkstand she knew mother would _love_! Here were two sisters, holding a whispered consultation; there a portly uncle, blandly making a big hole in a ten-pound note for little nephews and nieces. Christmas has not gone from us, although some soured folk say that this sweet and holy season is not what it was. Christmas has certainly conformed itself to the times, like everything else, but Christmas will always be with us. Though there be no snow on the ground, no ice upon the ponds, yet it will always be Christmas in our hearts.