A Christmas Present Assurance Company by C. H. Grinling. I was so
worn out when I got home on the Saturday before Christmas Day that I was
obliged to go straight off to bed. You see, I had been out
shopping all day, buying Christmas presents. It is an old custom in our
family always to give every member a present at Christmas time. It is not
the price of the gift we value so much as the affectionate spirit which it
shows. And yet, for all that we are, every one of us
always more touchy after our Christmas shopping than at any other time in the year.
Indeed, it was to escape from the general irritation just as much as
from over fatigue that I was glad to get off to bed early that evening.
I fell asleep directly. I got between the blankets, and presently I
dreamed the most extraordinary dream. In the first place, I dreamed that I
was an old and valued contributor to the public press, a sufficiently wild idea,
considering that I have at home a large box full of manuscripts returned with
the editor's compliments and regrets. Then I found myself entering an office, on
the door of which was inscribed the Christmas Wedding and Birthday Present Assurance Company.
The manager of the company received me cordially, Yes, he said in reply
to my queries. And then at once it flashed upon me that I must
be interviewing him for an article. Yes, the idea of our company has
caught on and we are doing a rattling business already. What precisely is the
object of your business? I inquired, or at least I dreamt I did,
and I remember feeling pleased that I was doing this thing in the right
style. Why to save people the trouble and expense of buying Christmas, Birthday
and wedding presents? Was the reply. You see, everyone has to give
such gifts nowadays, and to people with many relations and friends, it is
becoming an important item of expenditure as well as a serious call on their time.
You know how you feel yourself when Christmas is drawing near, or a
friend is going to be married, or a birthday in the family is approaching.
You say to yourself, I must give so and so a present,
But I'm sure I don't know what to get, and I really can't afford
the time just now to spend half a day ransacking the shops, and so
you put the thing off till it can't be postponed any longer. Then you
go in desperation into the first shop you come to and either spend twice as
much as you meant to, or buy something which you are a shore aim
to send. Yes, that's so, I said, But how do you
propose to help me by taking the whole thing off your hands? You take
out a policy with us, pay a year's premium, and we choose and
pay for the presents you have occasion to give in the year. But who
judges what I ought to give? I asked, remembering how long I had
discussed with myself whether my wife's aunt would be offended if I left her out
this year. Oh, trust that to us. We have experts in etiquette
who can decide these points to a nicety. Now suppose you want a general
policy covering all sorts of presents. Well, you are a middle class man
with a small family, a moderate number of relations, and a not very
large circle of middle class friends. Our actuary would probably estimate our risk at
taking you at about fifteen pounds per annum for that we should undertake to give
your wife and children each two suitable presents during the year Christmas and Birthday.
Then we should give one present each, probably at Christmas, to half a
dozen selected relations annually. We should also send wedding presents to such of your
friends as might be married during the year. That last would be an uncertain
item, would it not? I queried a little so perhaps, But one
year balances another. You see, we have a very strict set of rules
drawn up by a committee of authors of etiquette primmers as to what persons are
called upon to give one another wedding presence. When you want us to send
a wedding gift on your behalf, you would have to prove either that the
bridegroom or bride had given such a present to you or your or that you
were in the habit of taking at least one meal in a month in the
house of the parents of one or other of the happy pair. Afternoon teas
don't count as meals. In the case of old schoolfellows, we don't admit
liability unless an uninterrupted correspondence has been maintained since separation. In the case of
ladies, we require at least monthly letters. We have not so far had
an instance of a man wishing us to give a present to an old school
chom and do I have no voice in the selection of the gifts I asked?
You may if you like, within certain fixed limits, But we recommend
our clients to leave the matter entirely in our hands. You see from our
large experience we are thoroughly qualified to decide matters of the greatest delicacy. Already
we have statistics carefully compiled which show the precise age two a month at which
rattles and India rubber suckers begin to pall on infants. And we can also
advise with confidence as to when it is safe to entrust young children with tin
soldiers, mechanical toys, et cetera, which it would do them harm to
suck or swallow. In cases of special difficulty, we usually ask for photographs
of the recipients. By a glance at a boy's tie or boots, we
can always tell whether he will most appreciate a book or a malacca cane.
And if a girl has her hair up, we know we are safe in
sending gloves or trinkets. Do the gifts you send usually give satisfaction? In
nearly all instances you see our experience is so valuable in delicate cases, such
as mothers in law and maiden aunts. We never commit the common blunder of
giving such ladies a costly pre present one year and nothing the next. More
family quarrels are caused by the sudden stopping of presents previously given, than by
not making any gifts at all. But perhaps you would like to see our
store rooms. Walk this way. I followed my guide into a large warehouse
which had all the appearances of a fancy fair. One counter looked like a
toy shop, another resembled a tobacconist's, a third a bookseller's, and so
on. In the children's section, I found a very large assortment of most
ingenious mechanical toys and puzzles. But I looked in vain for the Noah's arks,
picture books and fairy tales which so delighted my own childhood. Have children's
tastes changed, so I asked, with reference to these, No was the
reply. The children still like them, But nowadays toys like pantomimes and circuses,
though ostensibly for the children, have to interest and amuse the parents as
well. This toy music hall, for example, with its automatic skirt dancers
and knock about artists is a very popular line. And so are these musical
boxes which play all the latest Coster songs. Both of those are presents sure
to give satisfaction in cases of children from one year old upwards. But come
this way and I will show you our latest development, so saying, the
manager led me into an adjoining room, which, to my amazement I found
filled with such articles as coal scuttles, sauce pans, brooms, basins and
ewers, and other miscellaneous domestic utensils. What I exclaimed, you don't mean
to say that people give useful things like these as presents. Why the millennium
must be approaching? The manager smiled. No, he said, this is
a separate undertaking from the present assurance. We call this the wedding present clearing
house. All the articles you see on this shelf are marked equivalent to salad
bulls. Now, a salad bowl is a very favorite article for a wedding
present. You see, it is handsome and genteel and not too expensive,
and it looks well in a printed list of gifts. The result is that
it is not an uncommon thing for a young married couple to receive from ten
to twenty of these bowls. Well, one salad bowl is quite sufficient for
a family of two persons, even if they are vegetarians, so something must
be done with the others. Some ladies make them up into flower vases,
but many now bring them to us and exchange them for any of the useful
articles on this shelf which they may be in need of. We are glad
of the bulls, which we send out again in our next batch of wedding
gifts. The articles on the next shelf are a better class of goods.
We give them in exchange for silver candlesticks or side dishes, of which young
couples usually have a large surplus. I wish your clearing house had been in
existence when I married, I exclaimed, with the distant recollection of a number
of silver articles which my wife put away years ago in tissue paper, and
which now never saw the light. Perhaps even now it is not too late.
What do you say, Madeline, my dear, I said to my
wife, who now seemed to be by my side. What's that you're talking
about? Came the reply in my wife's voice. I asked you to go
to the nursery to see what's the matter. With the children. They've been
crying for the last ten minutes. I think one of them must have tumbled
out of bed. I hurriedly pulled on some clothes and sallied forth. I
found my two youngsters sitting on their bed and howling. It appeared they had
got up in the middle of the night to see what Santa Claus had put
in their stockings, and they were weeping because there was only one layer in
the boxes of chocolates instead of two like last year. I comforted them with
promises of another box each and went back to bed. It's disgraceful, I
said to my wife, and I shall write to the company about it tomorrow
morning. Madeline stared at me, and then I remembered that I had bought
the chocolates myself at a bargain at the confectioners round the corner, and that
the Christmas Wedding and Birthday Present Assurance Company was only a dream, and of
a Christmas Present Assurance Company by C. H. Grinling