Santa Claus's Partner

k, his confidential clerk, would not have the least trouble this year in tr

that was because Clark had been in a sort of muddle last winter,-his wife was sick, or one

s pleased at the thought; for Clark was a good fellow, a

t-rate family-a man of principle. How he could ever have been content to remain a simple clerk all these years, Livingstone could not understand.

n the books. He was always delighted wh

ar, but had given him fifty dollars additional, partly because of the trouble in his family, and

ntleman, and it was a mark of a gentleman always to treat subordinates with civility. He k

btedly acted with dignity. Livingstone had had to apologize to him and ask him to remain, and had made the amend (to himself) by giving him fifty dollars extra f

ear a hundred dollars-no, fifty-he must not

mind the donations that he always made at the close o

with a smile, how large the sums used to seem to him. He turned back the stubs only to see how small a tenth used to be. He no longer gave a tenth or a twentieth or even a-he had no difficulty in deciding the exact percentage he gave; fo

e was,-and what a diversified list of charities he contributed to: hospitals, seminaries, asylums, churches, soup-kitchens, training schools of one kind or another. The stubs all bore t

ut she was really kind; she was just a crank, and, somehow, she appeared really to believe in him. Her husba

harities too. Livingstone remembered the note the preacher had written him afterwards-it had rather jarred on him, it was so grateful. He hated "gush," he said to himself; he did not want to be bothered with details of yarn-gloves, flannel petticoats, and toys. He took out

wever, she was an important woman-the leader in the best set in the city. Livingstone sat forward and began to fill out his c

here it had rested colder than before. He really could not spend as much this year as last-why, there was-for pictures, so much; charities, so much, etc. It would quite cut

f years.-Nor that for the asylum; Mrs. Wright was the president of that board, and had told him she counted on him.-Hang Mrs. Wright! It was posi

et he had was that taken together these sums did not amount to a great deal. To bring the saving up he came near cutting out the hospital. However, he decided not to do so. Mrs. Wright believed in him. He would

ntry sunshine passed across Livingstone's cold face and gave

eyes were not on the snow. It had been so long since Livingstone had given a thought to the weather, except as it might affect the net earnings of railways in which he was interested, that he never knew what the weather was, and so far as he w

snow was driving that meant so much to so many people, and his face was thought