“After breakfast we went down town; the old man generally to the Free Library, and I to the gambling saloons, or the shop of a merchant I knew, and then to the library. At six we would come home, cook and eat the heavy meal of the day. It consisted generally of bacon and beans, the bacon of questionable quality. Then we would travel into town again, returning to our cabin at midnight for supper and bed. Supper generally was a repetition of breakfast. Once indeed, I suggested making some slap-jacks and was allowed to carry the idea into effect. We both ate and the old man was laid up next day. Towards evening he managed to disgorge the mass and having a scientific mind, he enquired into it. He found the dough completely undigested. This has always been a wonder to me for I had no trouble with my meal and have always had a weak digestion, whereas the old man had the digestion of an ostrich.
“I don’t know what a student of hygiene would say to our diet and mode of life, but I can say my powers of digestion were never better. And our general mode of life was out of the ordinary. We never took our clothes off in going to bed. I must confess, however, that I sometimes took a bath and changed my underclothing. When I announced my intention of spending a dollar on a bath, the old man would sadly shake his head. Not that he objected to what I did with my money, but rather that he looked upon that expenditure as an insane waste.
“On Christmas day I did not seek out the old man. His philosophy was not satisfied with Christmas—although he was a great churchman.
“I enjoyed the luxury of a dinner, a special turkey dinner, costing me a dollar and a half. I entered the Northern Annex, being the restaurant connected with one of the leading gambling saloons of the city, sat down, and a plate of soup was slammed in front of me. I let it be and gazed about me. I was the only one rejoicing in a table to myself. About me were ranged human hulks and derelicts, most of them in pea-jackets, some with fur collars turned above their ears.
“As I sat musing, a man sat down at my side. His features were good, that is, they were regular. They might have been handsome had their lines been a little stronger, as it was they lacked colour. I tendered a few commonplace civilities and had them returned. I remarked on the weather; so did he. I said ‘I have been reviewing all the Christmases I have memory of’. ‘We all do it, a distressing process.’ ‘Think of the great range of Christendom,’ I said. ‘Is it not well to think that you and I are the exceptions? What joy has England had to-day and Anglo-Saxon America; a joy that would be enhanced did the partakers but view us as we sit and so by contrast establish a fitting measure of their own good fortune.’ This was of course off at a tangent, but I wished to draw him out.
“ ‘I have had my mind occupied with my own Christmases my mind travelling over time rather than geography,’ he said.
“ ‘It is weird, is it not; from the nuts and candies in the stocking hung for Santa Claus and devoured ere the mornings light had well broken, to the well-laid table and the maiden kissed beneath the mistletoe at later hours in later years?’ I’m afraid my advances were hardly tactful and my conversation was rather stilted; but if these were so I was evidently forgiven, for my companion replied:
“ ‘With me but two Christmases outstand, that of 1907, and the following Christmas. Widely different as they may be I do not know which will live the longer in my memory.’
“The expression of his face told me he was suffering, and I essayed no further remark. Expectantly I waited. ‘Christmas 1908, I spent at Wind City,’ he said. The very name told of horror, Wind City being the place where a number of adventurers had wintered two years before. It is a name at which the strong men who know shudder.
“ ‘I spent the day digging a grave for the best Pal a man ever had. The tools I used I bought in England, fondly picturing the wealth they would win me.’