Two of the Damned


  TWO Blighted Beings, haggard, lachrymose, and detested, met on a 
blasted heath in the light of a struggling moon.

  "I wish you a merry Christmas," said the First Blighted Being, in a 
voice like that of a singing tomb.

  "And I you a happy New Year," responded the Second Blighted Being, 
with the accent of a penitent accordeon.

  They then fell upon each other's neck and wept scalding rills down 
each other's spine in token of their banishment to the Realm of 
Ineffable Bosh.  For one of these accursed creatures was the First 
of January, and the other the Twenty-fifth of December.