II
THE SHADOW OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT
I
It was at precisely eight o’clock, on the evening of the twenty-fourth of December, that Mr. Broadstreet yawned, glanced at the time-piece, closed the book he had been reading, and stretched himself out comfortably in his smoking-chair before the cannel fire which snapped and rustled cosily in the broad grate. The book was “A Christmas Carol,” and the reader, familiar as he was with its pages, had been considerably affected by that portion relating to Tiny Tim, as well as cheered by the joyful notes with which the Carol ends.
For some minutes he sat silently surveying the pattern on his slippers, and apparently working it out again on his own brow. Now, Mr. Broadstreet was not a man to act upon impulse. A lawyer in large and profitable practice, and a shrewd man of business as well, he was never known to do, say, or decide anything without deliberation.
“Hold on a bit,” he would say to an eager client, “softly, softly, my friend, you’re too fast for me. Now, what did you say was done with the property?” and so on to the end of the story. If there was any money in the case, Mr. Broadstreet was pretty sure to draw it out, for the benefit of his clients, and, remotely of course, himself.
“When I put my hand down,” he was fond of remarking, with significant gesture upon the office desk, “I never take it up again without something in it.”
In the course of his long practice, aided by a series of fortunate speculations, he had amassed such a goodly sum that his name stood near the head of the list of “Our Prominent Taxpayers;” he drove a fine span of horses, and was free enough with his money, in a general way. That is, when some large philanthropic movement was on foot, Alonzo M. Broadstreet, Esq., was pretty sure to be down for a round sum. He paid his share in church and politics, and annually sent a check to the Board of Foreign Missions. He made it a rule, however, never to encourage pauperism by promiscuous almsgiving, and never tried a case or gave legal advice, for love. Poor people who called at his office for assistance always found him unaccountably busy, and street beggars had long since learned to skip his door on their morning basket-visits.