From that moment he seemed to lose interest in the great loom-room, where busy hands made the shuttles fly to and fro as they wove their reminiscences of Abraham Lincoln. At midnight, when the foreman opened the furnace door and the fierce flames lit up the grimy but intellectual faces of the workmen who stood watching the _History of Our War with Spain_, as it was run into the moulds, Mr. McClure was not present. His face was seen no more in the noisy blacksmith-shop, where strong arms forged the hitherto unpublished portraits of American statesmen. Even when a careless workman in the packing-room dropped a railroad story and shivered that fragile bit of literary bric-à-brac into a thousand pieces, the great Master forgot to reprimand him, so busy was he with his own thoughts. But the literary workmen did not take advantage of the preoccupation of the great Master Mechanic of all modern letters and slight the tasks that had been intrusted to them. On the contrary, they plunged into their tasks with redoubled energy, for well they knew that it was some plan for their happiness that filled the busy mind of the Master, some scheme for the fitting celebration of Christmas Eve, which, next to McClure’s Birthday, is the chief holiday in the literary calendar. And so, into the web and woof of many a _Recollection of Daniel Webster_ and _Later Life of Lincoln_ were woven bright anticipations of the merry Christmas which S. S. McClure was preparing for his trusty employees. Each year Mr. McClure devises a new form of holiday celebration, and this year his bounty took the shape of a huge Christmas tree, from whose branches hung the packages that contained presents for his guests. Christmas Eve is always a half-holiday at the McClure works; and at precisely noon on Saturday the factory whistle blew, the great wheels began to slow up, the dynamos, which furnish light, heat, and ideas for the entire factory, ceased to throb, and the cheerful workers put aside their uncompleted tasks and set about the welcome labor of making ready for their Christmas celebration. In less time than it takes to tell it, the huge store-room, in which the winter supply of literature had already begun to accumulate, was swept clean, garnished with boughs of evergreen, and brightened with sprigs of holly. Scarcely had this work been completed when a shout told of the arrival of the Christmas tree, drawn by four oxen, on the huge extension-wagon used in transporting Scotch serial stories from the foundry to the steamboat landing. In the twinkling of an eye, a score of able-bodied bards seized the great evergreen and placed it upright in the curtained recess at one end of the room, and then every one withdrew, leaving Mr. McClure himself, with four trustworthy aids, to deck the tree and hang the presents on its limbs.