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Show TOBY BARNES, just home from the ofTice, stood regarding regard-ing his wife with amusement. "You have the manner, Kay, of being be-ing about to leap up and wave a flag. What's happened?" "I've just discovered something important about myself." Kay's short, light curls were becomingly haphazard. Her eyes were of an intense blue. She was slender and young and vivid. "I'm supremely selfish." She rose to her feet and gesticulated with both hands, "I want to be utterly, gloriously engrossed en-grossed In ME!" They both laughed. Then Kay ran forward and dragged her husband down into a wide, comfortable chair, squeezing in beside him. "You're a perfectly grand guy," she smiled, "but this Christmas, my man, I'm going to be superbly selfish, self-ish, as an experiment. Will you try it too, Toby?" "All right," he agreed, "I'll take you on." The next morning Kay tilted a pert gray hat on her curls, and walked imperiously to the shopping district "I'm fed up with being poor, and scrimping and saving 10 . I can be generous in mean, little j ways. Today I . . . spend on myself!" my-self!" She felt guilty and ridiculous, and she turned her eyes away from a haberdasher's window where gentlemen's gentle-men's furnishings were invitingly displayed. Toby needed masses and masses of things. No, just this once she would spend with a bang all she had on something frivolous for herself. her-self. Toby had promised to do the same. At noon she happened to notice a tall person standing by the next store window. He was absorbed in thought Kay hardly breathed while the man suddenly plunged into the store door. She crept close to a sheltering pillar while she watched what happened inside. She saw the man point to a woman's wom-an's rich, quilted housecoat She saw him pay for it, and leave, but without a package under his arm. Just the sort of housecoat for which she had yearned hopelessly. She gasped in dismay. For one hot second she was possessed with anger. Toby wasn't playing fair. He had no right to make her feel ashamed and abject on Christmas morning! .When Toby's flapping overcoat was out of sight Kay slipped into the same shop, going straight to the counter her husband had left "May I inquire," she asked crisply, "if that quilted housecoat Just purchased, pur-chased, is to be delivered to Mrs. Toby Barnes?" She gave the house address. The clerk was startled into admitting the fact Kay threw up her chin. "I asked my husband, Mr. Barnes, to step in here today to buy that for me. I've changed my mind. May I exchange ex-change it for something else I prefer?" pre-fer?" The clerk weakly nodded. Christmas eve found Kay a bit cryptic. Toby carelessly inquired if a package had been delivered that afternoon. Kay said yes; it was waiting in the closet And it was, though not quite what Toby supposed. Kay was excited as a child on Christmas morning. There were waffles for breakfast and especially good coffee. Afterwards Mrs. Toby Barnes shoved her tall husband Into his big chair. "Sit there," she commanded com-manded him, and left the room. "When is this fine exhibition of selfishness going to begin?" he shouted after her. "I want to see it in action!" Kay returned with a large package pack-age elaborately wrapped. Toby looked pleased. "There you are," he said. "I'm sorry, Kay, to fall down on our agreement, but I knew you wanted the darned thing." "There you are!" cried Kay hurling hurl-ing the box at him. "I simply will not let you squander your money on expensive things for me, Toby." Toby opened the box, drawing forth a manly, well-tailored dressing dress-ing gown for a tall gentleman. "You know," muttered his wife la a small voice, "you haven't a thing to sit ! ' around in at home." "So this," he raved, "Is the great ! exhibition of selfishness! And where is your housecoat, I'd like to know?" I Kay, in a thin, quivering voice, begged him to be kind while she explained. ex-plained. O Wtsttrn Newipsftr Union. |