Speaker 1: Reginald on Christmas Presents by H. H. Munroe. I wish
to be distinctly understood, said Reginald that I don't want
a George, Prince of Wales's prayer book as a Christmas present.
The fact cannot be too widely known there ought he
continued to be technical education classes on the science of
present giving. No one seems to have the faintest notion
of what anyone else wants, and the prevalent ideas on
the subject are not creditable to a civilized community. There is,
for instance, the female relative in the country who knows
a tie is always useful and sends you some spotted
horror that you could only wear in secret or in
Tottenham Court Road. It might have been useful had she
kept it to tie up current bushes with, when it
would have served the double purpose of supporting the branches
and frightening away the birds. For it is an admitted
fact that the ordinary tomtit of commerce has a sangdor
aesthetic taste than the average female relative in the country.
Then there are aunts. They are always a difficult class
to deal with in the matter of presents. The trouble
is that one never catches them really young enough by
the time one has educated them to an appreciation of
the fact that one does not wear red woolen mittens
in the West End, they die, or quarrel with the family,
or do something equally inconsiderate. That is why the supply
of trained aunts is always so precarious. There is my aunt,
Agatha parax Antler, who sent me a pair of gloves
last Christmas, and even got so far as to choose
a kind that was being worn and had the correct
number of buttons. But they were nines. I sent them
to a boy whom I hated Intimately. He didn't wear them,
of course, but he could have. That was where the
bitterness of death came in. It was nearly as consoling
as sending white flowers to his funeral. Of course, I
wrote and told my aunt that they were the one
thing that had been wanting to make existence blossom like
a rose. I'm afraid she thought me frivolous. She comes
from the North, where they live in the fear of heaven,
and the Earl of Durham, Reginald, affects an exhaustive knowledge
of things political, which furnishes an excellent excuse for not
discussing them. Aunts with a dash of foreign extraction in
them are the most satisfactory in the way of understanding
these things. But if you can't choose your aunt, it
is wisest in the long run to choose the present
and send her the bill. Even friends of one's own set,
who might be expected to know better, have curious delusions
on the subject. I am not collecting copies of the
cheaper editions of Omar Khayam. I gave the last four
that I received to the lift boy, and I like
to think of him reading them with Fitzgerald's notes to
his aged mother. Lift boys always have aged mothers show
such nice feeling on their part. I think personally, I
can't see where the difficulty in choosing suitable presents lies.
No boy who has brought himself that properly could fail
to appreciate one of those decorative bottles of liqueurs that
are so reverently staged in Morrel's window. And it wouldn't
in the least matter if one did get duplicates, and
there would always be the supreme moment of dreadful uncertainty
whether it was kremdemnth or Chatreeur. Like the expectant thrill
on seeing your partner's hand turned up at bridge. People
may say what they like about the decay of Christianity,
the religious system that produced green Chatreur can never really die.
And then, of course there are liqure glasses and crystallized fruits,
and tapestry, curtains, and heaps of other necessaries of life
that make really sensible presents, not to speak of luxuries
such as having one's bills paid or getting something quite
sweet in the way of jewelry. Unlike the alleged good
woman of the Bible, I'm not above rubies. When found.
By the way, she must have been rather a problem
at Christmas time. Nothing short of a blank check would
have fitted the situation. Perhaps it's as well that she's
died out. The great charm about me, concluded Reginald, is
that I am so easily pleased. But I draw the
line at a Prince of Wales's prayer book. End of
Reginald on Christmas Presents by H. H. Munroe