Once More With Footnotes

gone. No sane man could have seen such things. There was a window, if such I may call it, into a world of desert sands under a night sky, wherein three men of African or Asian appearance had made their camp. One of them spoke p assable Latin, which the Oxford Scholar was still just able to understand, despite his state of near inebriation. They too had found their world running out into a cardboard waste, and after considerable study had put it down to some event, possibly astro n omical, which had severely distorted Space and, who knows, perhaps even Time itself.
     
                  They made common cause with the party, much to the chagrin of the ladies present, but it would seem that they were well-educated by heathen standards and indeed kept up the spirits of the company with their tales and outlandish songs. They were also men of considerable wealth, a fact of some importance when the swollen caravan of benighted travellers met a party of Shepherds, orphans of their world, and were able to purc h ase several Sheep which the coachman, who had been raised on a farm, was able to slaughter and dress.
     
                  The Shepherds, being nomads by persuasion, had been wandering for some time from their Window, and told of many fearful wonders.
     
    "Happy Christmas'./It' s Your First One!/Wishing You Joy/
    And a Lifetime of Fun! Sweet Jesus! The dreadful Beagle!"
     
    -
     
Giant Kittens
     
                  What more dare I write? He babbled of four giant kittens with blue bows around their necks, and a rectangle within which was a vast Pie of minc emeat, which they carried for their continued provisions. There were also several glasses, taller than a house, which were found to contain — after considerable effort with ropes and the utilization of a giant sprig of Holly — a sweet Sherry, in which the Oxf ord scholar unfortunately drowned.
     
                  And there was the bellowing red giant, bearded and mad, sitting on a rooftop. And other things, too dreadful to recount — men who were merely colored shapes, and the enormous black and white Caricature of a Dog watching t hem balefully from the top of its Kennel, and things which even as a man of Science I would blush to record.
     
                  It seems that at the last he resolved to quit the company, and came back alone across the plain, believing that to die in the bitter hills of Wil tshire in mid-winter was a better fate for a Christian man than life in that abominable world.
     
                  No sooner had he reached it, and was crawling in extremis across the strange glittering snow, than behind him he heard once again the eldritch creaking and, up on looking around, saw the dreadful oblong slot disappear. Cold winds and snow immediately forced themselves upon it, but he felt it to be a benediction after that dreadful warm world of the brown plain. And thus, staggering in the fresh blizzard, he was f ound ...
     
                  It is now fully dark. The carol singers have gone, and I trust it is to their homes.
     
                  And now my housekeeper departs, having brought me the strange news of the day. A blackamoor on a Camel has been arrested near Avebury. In Swindon a man has be en savagely pecked to death in his own garden, and all there are to be seen in the snow are the footprints of an enormous Bird. Here in Chippenham itself a traveller has reported seeing, before it leapt a tall hedge and ran across the fields, a cat larger than an Elephant. It had a blue bow about its neck. What monsters have been let into the world?
     
                  And on my desk I see my reflection in the shining, tinselly shard that the coachman had clutched in his hands. Who would cover the snow with this to make it g litter, and what fearful reason could there be?
     
                  I open the curtains, and look out upon the busy street. The local coach has come up from Bath and is outside the inn, and all is bustle and Christmas cheer, a world away from the sad ravings and pleadings o f the man downstairs. It is a picture of hope, a reminder of reality, and perhaps he is, after all, no more than a man mazed by exposure, and the tales of giant Beagles and flying sledges are no more than strange jests. Except for the shard of tinsel ...
     
     
    "The tinsel on the straw! Amen! Wishing you all the best,
    Mum and