YULETIDE DRAMA ON A TRAIN BY JOHN E. WILKIE (1860-1934) Chief of the United States Secret Service.

ONE OF the pleasantest Christmas days I ever spent was put in on a train on the way from Omaha to Washington. Professional work had kept me from my own fireside, end my approving conscience was hardly sufficient at first to keep me from a little bitterness at having to spend the day in such unfestive surroundings. But subsequent events were largely compensatory.

      A little Christmas drama was enacted on our car, one which was full of the season's spirit. The chief participants were a sporty-looking traveling man and a 10-year-old boy, a little chap who was traveling alone, and whose little story the good-natured traveling man had soon learned.

      The little fellow — a sensitive but manly youngster — was on his way to a relative in the east, an aunt whom he never had seen. His father and mother had just died and he was left alone and practically destitute.

      The traveling man learned that his little follow traveler had his ticket and $1. That was everything, except a little hand satchel and his clothes, that he owned in the world. Whoever had started him on his journey had figured that a dollar would be enough to buy his meals and meet all Incidental expenses.

      To help out with the eating problem he had been furnished with a supply of soda crackers. These were to be his supper. His breakfast he was to buy on the dining car in the morning.

      That youngster was too proud for charity, the stranger soon learned. The problem, then, was how to help him without his knowledge. I was a spectator and prepared to assist if opportunity offered.

"Fixed" Conductor.

      The first thing the traveling men did wee to take the Pullman conductor off into a corner and fix him. That made it possible for the boy to have coffee in the sleeping car with his crackers. He never knew it was against the rules of the company. Nor did he ever guess that coffee thus served would ordinarily be more than 5 cents.

Chief Wilkie.

      Breakfast was the next problem, and that took more finesse. But the traveling man timed his visit to the diner with the boy's. The latter did not suspect that it was by design that both were seated at the same table. Nor was he surprised when the traveling man had great difficulty in selecting a breakfast, and begged for suggestions by the boy. The little chap ate the rolls and coffee he had ordered, and then, as a favor to the traveling man, helped him out with the great mess of things he had assembled around him.

      "The only way I could get a present into his stocking was to get inside his skin," the traveling man remarked to me, "but I was bound he wouldn't get away without a bit of Christmas present, poor chap."

      I saw him fooling with the boy's satchel, and I won't be sure he slipped a bill into the bottom among the clothes. But I have my suspicions.