Judge — December 1889 — page 33: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHRISTMAS JUDGE 31 gatherer’s clothes so far off from his trembling flesh that he felt as if he were naked. The gnome looked up and remem- bered, and had pity. ‘The man went home to his hut in the forest and carved until late in the night on the toys which brought him ina. liveli- hood. Before midnight he had finished the twelve apostles—little wooden men not a foot tall, and almost as much alike as so many bearded little gnomes. When they were It was Judas that had tumbled out of the sleigh on the Mall and been smashed, and his accursed eye is now out of sight on the bottom of the lake. And when the old toy-maker went home to his hut with his eleven other Judases and be- wailed his hard fortune, the Christmas chimes were pealing out from the gra- cious spires of Nuremberg. the wild wind began to whisperof peace and good- will to men, and the sun done the toy-maker set them on the wooden shelf outside his window tll morning, for the shellac that held their beards on to dry. At midnight the gnomes all came up to the outer world, as is their custom. The goggle-eyed gnome whisked off to the toy-maker’s hut, and finding the little wooden men that were to be apostles standing out on the shelf to dry he sprang up beside them, breathed into their nostrils, whispered intently in their ears and gave them each a fillip on the right eye. Then he laughed; and they all laughed too, for they were now all goggle-eyed gnomes like himself. But when morning came they were simply little wooden men again. The toy-maker tried to sell them for apostles, and the dealer said they made excellent Judases, but that one Judas was enough ; so he bought only one. And when he had secured elsewhere the eleven others he labeled the first one Judas, on account of the cast in his right eye. A SAFE BET, Droor-rvep BILL (calmly)—"* Two t’ one on th’ Ked.” shone out so warm and bright, deep down under the turf and into the goggle-eyed gnome’s gloomy den, that his heart softened to the blessed in- * fluences of the season, and he repented of the knavish trick he had played on the poor old fagot-gatherer. That night he scurried away to the old man’s hut, when midnight sounded out solemnly over the snow-clad roofs and down in the dells where the undines were dancing on the ice. As he looked at his eleven hideous counterparts the gnome hated his own ugliness and removed the spell, and the wicked spirits were disembodied and fled howling away. Then the gnome looked through the frosted casement, and the old man lay dead on his bed with his hands folded and a wistful look on his pinched features. And the eleven changelings had vanished too, for they had become angels and flown up- wards with the old man’s spirit. The gnome has gone back to his treasure, and the eye of Judas rolls uneasily on the bottom of the lake. Jonx PALL socock. CABINET SEKT GERMAN CHAMPAGNE, Without exception the Best in the World. SUPERIOR EVEN TO THE MOST RENOWNED FRENCH CHAMPAGNE. FAVORITE OF H.M., Kaiser Wilhelm For Sale by the Leading Wine Merchants and Grocers, SOLE AGENTS: THOMSEN & CO., 87 Wall Street, New York. Paris Exposition, 1889. HIGHEST AWARD (TheGold Medal), Was received A Jette FURRIER 11 Bast 19th st (Near Broadway) NEW YORK | The most complete assortment of FURS AND FUR GARMENTS, —or— Exclusive Designs and Superior Workmanship. comicbooks*com