A few days later a sudden frenzy sweeps over us, and though we have many pressing matters on hand, we mobilize pen and paper and literary shock troops and prepare to hurl several battalions at Bill. But, strangely enough, our utterance seems stilted and stiff. We have nothing to say. _My dear Bill_, we begin, _it seems a long time since we heard from you. Why don't you write? We still love you, in spite of all your shortcomings_. That doesn't seem very cordial. We muse over the pen and nothing comes. Bursting with affection, we are unable to say a word. Just then the phone rings. "Hello?" we say. It is Bill, come to town unexpectedly. "Good old fish!" we cry, ecstatic. "Meet you at the corner of Tenth and Chestnut in five minutes." We tear up the unfinished letter. Bill will never know how much we love him. Perhaps it is just as well. It is very embarrassing to have your friends know how you feel about them. When we meet him we will be a little bit on our guard. It would not be well to be betrayed into any extravagance of cordiality. And perhaps a not altogether false little story could be written about a man who never visited those most dear to him, because it panged him so to say good-bye when he had to leave. A LETTER TO FATHER TIME (NEW YEAR'S EVE) Dear Father Time--This is your night of triumph, and it seems only fair to pay you a little tribute. Some people, in a noble mood of bravado, consider New Year's Eve an occasion of festivity. Long, long in advance they reserve a table at their favorite café; and becomingly habited in boiled shirts or gowns of the lowest visibility, and well armed with a commodity which is said to be synonymous with yourself--money--they seek to outwit you by crowding a month of merriment into half a dozen hours. Yet their victory is brief and fallacious, for if hours spin too fast by night they will move grindingly on the axle the next morning. None of us can beat you in the end. Even the hat-check boy grows old, becomes gray and dies at last babbling of greenbacks.