We exhaust our
paltry store of consolation; and then beat them, sobbing, to sleep. Then
we grovel in the dust of a million years, and ask God why. Thus we call
out of the rat-trap. As for the children, no one understands them except
old maids, hunchbacks, and shepherd dogs.
Now comes the facts in the case of the Rag-Doll, the Tatterdemalion,
and the Twenty-fifth of December.
On the tenth of that month the Child of the Millionaire lost her
rag-doll. There were many servants in the Millionaire's palace on the
Hudson, and these ransacked the house and grounds, but without finding
the lost treasure. The child was a girl of five, and one of those
perverse little beasts that often wound the sensibilities of wealthy
parents by fixing their affections upon some vulgar, inexpensive toy
instead of upon diamond-studded automobiles and pony phaetons.
The Child grieved sorely and truly, a thing inexplicable to the
Millionaire, to whom the rag-doll market was about as interesting as Bay
State Gas; and to the Lady, the Child's mother, who was all form--that
is, nearly all, as you shall see.
The Child cried inconsolably, and grew hollow-eyed, knock-kneed,
spindling, and corykilverty in many other respects.
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