"Well, I marked on the MS.--price $15. Commercial poetry--see? We confidently expected that money before Christmas. Why, we took it as a matter of course that the money must come. If it didn't--well, that was a view of things that we couldn't take for a moment--see? Well, the day before Christmas came, but that money did not. I visited the post-office again and again that day, but no letter. The situation was gloomy then, and in the evening I said to my wife, 'I guess I'll have to go to the grocery, anyway.' 'I wouldn't go, Bart,' she said; 'I am afraid he'll say something about the account.' 'I can't help it--I am going, anyhow,' I answered, and grabbed the basket and rushed out, for fear that my wife's fears would deter me from going at all--see? He didn't say anything about the account, and I ordered sparingly. When he got the things all in the basket, he slipped in with them a bottle of nice liquor, and he said: 'Now, Mr. Campbell, this is Christmas Eve.' I went home, and I drank some of the liquor, and when we went to bed things looked a little brighter. I got up in the morning, and they were gloomy again--see? I started down to the post-office, my wife saying it was a fruitless errand, and got there just before the Christmas rule of closing at 10 A. M. shut down the delivery window. The clerk ran through every letter, and when he had got to the last one, and as I half turned to leave, he threw me down a letter which bore the date mark 'Charleston.' I opened it, and there was a check for $15. My legs couldn't carry me home fast enough. I got there, and my wife met me, her face all aglow. 'Well, Bart,' she said. 'Well,' I said, and I felt that she had heard the news--that some one had told her my check had come, for to me it was the biggest piece of news ever was, and that it was common talk was perfectly natural. 'Bartley, I have got $10,' she cried. 'And I have got $15,' I yelled; and she, not noticing it, went on, 'I sold the war book about women, that nobody would buy before, to some people who wanted it. Now, don't be extravagant, Bartley, please.' We had a bottle of champagne that day, and presently I got the position of official reporter of the Legislature at $16 a week; but Christmas time never comes that I do not wonder if I will have as merry and happy a day as the one we celebrated in New Orleans just after the war."