“Your calendar would be most confusing,” I said. “Nobody but yourself would understand it—and I fear even you would get mixed up. You cannot change time around to suit your personal feelings. There is something inexorable about time. You cannot hold it off.”

“You cannot hold off Christmas either,” groaned Simple. “I know if Christmas came more than once a year I could not stand it.”

“Don’t you like the Christmas spirit?”

“I like any kind of spirits, provided they have alcohol in them. I love eggnog well spiked. What I mean is, if Christmas came twice a year, it would be more than a man could bear. Women like to shop. I do not.”

“Has your shopping been so extensive this season that it has broken you down?” I demanded.

“It has near about done me in, and all I have got so far is one little old present—for Joyce. And there is no way of being sure she will like what I bought. Womens is funny about presents. Joyce is always yowling and howling over how I never give her nothing—so this time I thought I would spend Ten Dollars and get her something real good, and pick it out my own self, without advice from nobody. So I did. It strained my brain. It also strained my nerves, not to speak of my feet. But I did not want to shuff Joyce off with no easy present this time—since I really aim to marry that girl in June. So, beings as the downtown stores are open late on Thursday nights and, being a working man, I cannot go to no store in the daytime, before I even et my supper Thursday I headed for Macy’s to pick out Joyce’s present.

“Don’t you know that store were full, I mean jammed, even though everybody ought to have been home eating dinner! It took me one hour to get to the counter, one more hour to get waited on, another hour to pick out the present, and another hour to fight my way away from the counter. I did not want to get nothing too cheap, neither nothing beyond the cash I had in my pocket. As it was, it used up my carfare for a week after they added the tax onto it that the clerk did not tell me about. By that time it were eight P.M. Then it took me another hour to get the thing wrapped up in a gift box. By that hour I were so weak with hunger and my bunion hurt me so bad that, if I did not love Joyce, I would have said, ‘To hell with it,’ and give up. But I stuck it out. Now, if she do not like the present, I do not care.”