THE GAY COCKADE
He stood uncertainly in the hall. Then once again he faced the cold.
Around the corner was a shop where he would buy the red candle. The ten cents which he would pay was to have gone for his breakfast. He had sacrificed his supper that he might not go hungry on Christmas morning. He had planned a brace of rolls and a bottle of milk. It had seemed to him that he could face a lean night with the promise of these.
There were no red candles in the shop. There were white ones, but a red candle was a red candle—with a special look of Christmas cheer. He would have no other.
The turn of a second corner brought him to the great square. Usually he avoided it. The blaze of gold on the west side was the club.
A row of motors lined the curb. There was Baxter's limousine and Fenton's French car. He knew them all. He remembered when his own French car had overshadowed Fenton's Ford.
There were wreaths to-night in the club windows, and when Sands opened the doors there was a mass of poinsettia against the hall mirror.
How warm it looked with all that gold and red!
In the basement was the grill. It was a night when one might order something heavy and hot.
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