Life — December 3, 1925 — page 27: what you’re looking at

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

- LIFE - Brother Preble (atches the o)pirit Sherwood “It'll cost you twenty-five berries to call.” and thought about home. “A home away from home,” they called it, with de- fiant cheerfulness; but it was away from home—far away. They couldn't persuade themselves to deny that. They could persuade themselves, and others, to do a great many things—being, as they were, traveling salesmen and there- fore preternaturally persuasive. But this was Christmas Eve, and one of them came from Duluth, and one from t Orange, and one from South Bend, and one from Spokane, and they were in the Elks Club, in a small city on the eastern slopes of the Rockies. The man from Spokane was lucky. He would catch the westbound limited at 10:38 and would be home in time for Christmas dinner the next d: The others would spend Christmas in the Elks Club—“a home away from home”— and would then move on to their next ports of call. The club rooms were gaily decorated, as was to be expected, with green crépe paper streamers and red paper hells; there was a towering Christmas tree that sparkled h multicolored electric bulbs; beneath the giant elk’s d, over the fireplace, was a handsomely lettered placard with the appropriate words, “Merry Christmas.” Three of the men were gathered about the great fire, talk- ng and laughing boisterously ; the fourth sat across the room, y examining the advertising pages of the Saturday Eve- ning Post. He was the one from East Orange; he was in the toilet goods business, and his name, although it is of no particular importance, was Joseph Preble. Preble was a short man, with pince-nez glasses that communicated with his car by means of a delicate gold chain. He had a wife and three children, back in East Fon men sat in the genial warmth of the Elks Club Orange, of whom he was desperately fond. wouldn't get to see them before February. One of the men at the fireplace stood up and walked over to Preble. He was from South Bend—a salesman for a pipe organ concern, and therefore suaver and more intellectual than the others. He slapped the surprised Preble on the back “My name's De Vrie,” he announced heartily. the pipe organ game.” “My name's Preble—toilet accessories.” “Glad to know you, Brother Preble,” said De Vrie. “Some of the boys over here thought we might get together and dally with my Lady Luck for a while. Like to join us?” “Sure,” said Preble, who was very lonely. So the four men, brother Elks, sat down to a game of stud poker—a game, be it said, with which Preble was none too familiar. The limit was one dollar. “I can't lose much at that rate,” hz assured himself. As they played, the room clerk strolled from behind his desk and started to tinker with the radio, which had yawned silently at them from a corner of the room. “This might liven things up a little,” he explained pleasantly. “That's an idea,” said De Vrie. some DX.” He dealt the cards. Preble didn’t do so well, and by the fifth hand he had been compelled to buy another five-dollar stack; shortly after that, he bought a third. He was losing faster and more heavily than he had expected, but it was Christmas Eve and he wanted to be a good fellow. So he came in on every pot, even when He probably “I'm in “See if you can pick up comicbooks.com