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Speaker 1: A Christmas reverie by Aliph Chim. To morrow, elas I

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am booked to go and dine with our Colonel and

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missus coe O. I hate to depart from my usual way,

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and to morrow, by Jove will be Christmas Day. One

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feels now one hasn't a regular mess. It's a boar

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to go out, and a nuisance to dress and to

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feed at the Commandant's bungalow. Is a dreary attempt at Christmas,

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you know, the punker instead of the Christmas fire, the

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colonel instead of the dear old Squire, the lizard and

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withering noonday glow instead of the robin, and frost and snow.

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I know, after all that my lot isn't bad, But

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somehow or other it makes me sad at a season

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like this, when the thoughts will roam to think what

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they're doing just now at home? I fancy I see them,

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the Squire and all in the breakfast room in the

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dear old hall. There's snow on the drive and the

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grove of birch, and they're ringing the chimes in the

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village church. Yes yonder, he sits in his wonted place

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with a smile on his fresh, benignant face. And the

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mother she's there at the other end. And Harry and

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Jack and Jane and a friend. I wonder whether they're

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altered much. The dad's crisp hair had a silvery touch

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when I said good bye, and he bore up so

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and that why it's nearly ten years ago. The mother too,

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She was tall and erect, but she's stooping a little now,

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I expect. And her hair, in its rich and glossy bands,

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has been fingered, perhaps by time's rough hands, but it

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cannot alter her look so kind it robs, but it

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leaves the heart behind. And I see her beam happily

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round in the way that she always beamed upon Christmas Day.

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There's Harry, who taught me fine esque pards. He's got

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his majority now in the guards, and they say that

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he's leading a steady life and thinking of looking about

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for a wife. There's Jack, why I left him a

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rollicking lad, and now he's a mate on an ironclad

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And Jane, a mere baby in frock and curl. If

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her photograph's true, is a beautiful girl. They're sitting all

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round the family spread. There's a pasty of game and

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a big boar's head. There's holly on window and picture frame,

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and the fire burn up with a crackling flame. Then

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the quiet old rector looks in on his way and

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bids them a blithesome Christmas Day, and together they walk

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through the grove of birch over the stile to the

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village church. At the graveyard gate, the churchwardens stand with

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a merry Christmas and hat in hand. The grocer, the

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smithy and farmer ball, and the squire has a kindly

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word for all. Then when the shadows of night descend,

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the hall is lighted from end to end. There's a

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bonfire huge on the lawn outside and within. The mother

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is in her pride, for she loves this night the

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best of the year, and loads her board with the

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Christmas cheer, the mincemeat pies and the loin of beef,

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and the grand plum pudding with holly leaf. There's happiness

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too in the old Squire's face as he rises and

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says the Christmas Grace. He chuckles and laughs and cracks

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his joke, and the party's a party of merry folk.

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Then he fills a bumper up to the brim. He

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toasts them all and they all toast him a Merry

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Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone who is near

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and dear. But I fancy the mother's eyes are wet

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when the old man says there is one toast yet

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him absent, the youngster who's far away. God give him

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a merry Christmas day. Ah me. I know that my

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lot's not bad, but the reverie somehow makes me sad.

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And this is a time when the thoughts will roam

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wherever we are to the scenes of home. End of

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a Christmas revere by by Aliph Cheam, a pseudonym of

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Walter Yeldham,