As soon as I saw that circumstances had organized a pool to corner me and my Christmases, I spent a couple of days sending up rain-making language. Then I settled down to work like a bronco does to harness after kicking off the dashboard and snapping a couple of traces.
"If I've got to be alone this Christmas," I says to myself, "I'll make it the gol-blamedest, crowdedest solitude ever heard of this side of the River."
I looked for the biggest place in town under one roof. Madison Square Garden was it. You remember it. We was there to the Horse Show—so-called. You recollect, I reckon, that the Garden holds right smart of people. At a political meeting once they got 14,000 people into it, and there was still room for Grover Cleveland to stand and make a speech.
Well, feeling kind o' flush and recklesslike, I decided to go and see the manager, or janitor, or whatever he is. And go I did. I says to him: "Could I rent your cute little shack for one evening—Christmas night?"
"Certainly, sir," he says. "There happens to be nothing doing this Christmas."
"How much would it set me back?" I says very polite.
"Only one thousand plunks," says he smiling.
"But, my dear Gaston," I says with a low bow, "I don't want to buy your little Noah's Ark for the baby. I only want to borrow it for one evening."
"One thou. is our bargain-counter limit," he says. "I couldn't make it less for the poor old Czar of Rooshy."
I kind o' hesitated, remembering the time when a thousand dollars would have kept me comfortable for about three years. It's hard to get over the habit of counting your change. Then Mr. Janitor, seeing me kind o' groggy, says, a little less polite: