It might have seemed a pity that calculation as to dollars and cents
entered so much into the Christmas festivities of the family, if it were
not that it entered so largely into the scheme of living that it was
naturally interwoven with every dearest hope and fancy; the overcoming
of its limitations gave a zest to life. Langshaw himself, stopping now,
as was his daily habit, to look at the display made by the
sporting-goods shop on his way home the Friday afternoon before
Christmas Monday, wondered, as his hand touched the ten-dollar bill in
his pocket--a debt unexpectedly paid him that day--if the time had
actually arrived at last when he might become the possessor of the
trout-rod that stood in the corner of the window; reduced, as the ticket
proclaimed, from fifteen dollars to ten.
The inspiration was the more welcome because the moment before his mind
had been idly yet disquietingly filled with the shortcomings of George,
his eldest child, and only son, aged ten, who didn't seem to show that
sense of responsibility which his position and advanced years called
for--even evading his duties to his fond mother when he should be
constituting himself her protector.
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