Xmas, Inc.

In Chicago, one "Herman," short, slender, redhaired, obsequious, shrewdest of elevator operators, reported for work one morning last week bearing a large brown-paper bundle. All that day, going up and down, he kept the bundle beside him. Whenever a prosperous and goodnatured face appeared in the car, a face which Herman had seen often before and so might judge belonged to an office-renter in that huge office building, he modestly fished into the bundle, drew out a smaller bundle wrapped in reddest tissue paper and tendered it, with winning humility, to the chosen passenger.

" 'Tsnot very much, Sir," Herman mumbled each time. "But, Merry Christmas."

Like the outsides of the small bundles, the insides were all alike. At a five-&-ten-cent store Herman had purchased some six dozen nickel-plated ash trays. Commuters in that office building compared gifts going out on the 5:15. They showed their prizes to their wives; in voices trembling with affection they told the story of humble Herman and his Christmas spirit.

The day before Christmas, Herman's trouser pocket began to bulge. Now and then, as he reached for the door lever, his pocket clinked. Going up from the ground floor, coming down from the sky, hearty businessmen full of good breakfast or luncheon, swooped under their overcoats and brought out folded bills, crumpled bills, gold coins.

"Here, m'boy," they said gruffly. Or they pounded his shoulder and said so that others noticed, "Here, old scout, buy the wife an' kiddies something nice from me."

As he shut off his elevator car Christmas eve, Herman addressed a fellow operator who was struggling into an overcoat.

"Jees," said Herman, scornfully. "Dat's de kind o' rig I used to wear. Youse guys ha' got about as much dope on yerselves as Santy Claus. Looka here."

He drew forth a roll of paper money, a chuckling pile of coins.

"Xmas, Inc., dat's me," said Herman. "Dey say you can't get sump'n fer nuthin' around here but dat's de bunk. Looka wot I got fer a lot o' lousy little saucers."

The other elevator man left during Herman's description of a "swell show," "a dame an' I don't mean maybe," and some "honest-tuh-God gin" from a man out in Ravenswood.