{"product_id":"2940013198845","title":"A Reversible Santa Claus","description":"A Reversible Santa Claus\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eI\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMr. William B. Aikins, _alias_ \"Softy\" Hubbard, _alias_ Billy The Hopper,\u003cbr\u003epaused for breath behind a hedge that bordered a quiet lane and peered out\u003cbr\u003einto the highway at a roadster whose tail light advertised its presence to\u003cbr\u003ehis felonious gaze. It was Christmas Eve, and after a day of unseasonable\u003cbr\u003ewarmth a slow, drizzling rain was whimsically changing to snow.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe Hopper was blowing from two hours' hard travel over rough country. He\u003cbr\u003ehad stumbled through woodlands, flattened himself in fence corners to\u003cbr\u003eavoid the eyes of curious motorists speeding homeward or flying about\u003cbr\u003edistributing Christmas gifts, and he was now bent upon committing himself\u003cbr\u003eto an inter-urban trolley line that would afford comfortable\u003cbr\u003etransportation for the remainder of his journey. Twenty miles, he\u003cbr\u003eestimated, still lay between him and his domicile.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe rain had penetrated his clothing and vigorous exercise had not greatly\u003cbr\u003ediminished the chill in his blood. His heart knocked violently against his\u003cbr\u003eribs and he was dismayed by his shortness of wind. The Hopper was not so\u003cbr\u003eyoung as in the days when his agility and genius for effecting a quick\u003cbr\u003e\"get-away\" had earned for him his sobriquet. The last time his Bertillon\u003cbr\u003emeasurements were checked (he was subjected to this humiliating\u003cbr\u003eexperience in Omaha during the Ak-Sar-Ben carnival three years earlier)\u003cbr\u003eofficial note was taken of the fact that The Hopper's hair, long carried\u003cbr\u003ein the records as black, was rapidly whitening.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAt forty-eight a crook--even so resourceful and versatile a member of the\u003cbr\u003efraternity as The Hopper--begins to mistrust himself. For the greater part\u003cbr\u003eof his life, when not in durance vile, The Hopper had been in hiding, and\u003cbr\u003ethe state or condition of being a fugitive, hunted by keen-eyed agents of\u003cbr\u003ejustice, is not, from all accounts, an enviable one. His latest experience\u003cbr\u003eof involuntary servitude had been under the auspices of the State of\u003cbr\u003eOregon, for a trifling indiscretion in the way of safe-blowing. Having\u003cbr\u003eserved his sentence, he skillfully effaced himself by a year's siesta on\u003cbr\u003ea pine-apple plantation in Hawaii. The island climate was not wholly\u003cbr\u003epleasing to The Hopper, and when pine-apples palled he took passage from\u003cbr\u003eHonolulu as a stoker, reached San Francisco (not greatly chastened in\u003cbr\u003espirit), and by a series of characteristic hops, skips, and jumps across\u003cbr\u003ethe continent landed in Maine by way of the Canadian provinces. The Hopper\u003cbr\u003eneeded money. He was not without a certain crude philosophy, and it had\u003cbr\u003ebeen his dream to acquire by some brilliant _coup_ a sufficient fortune\u003cbr\u003eupon which to retire and live as a decent, law-abiding citizen for the\u003cbr\u003eremainder of his days. This ambition, or at least the means to its\u003cbr\u003efulfillment, can hardly be defended as praiseworthy, but The Hopper was a\u003cbr\u003esingular character and we must take him as we find him. Many prison\u003cbr\u003echaplains and jail visitors bearing tracts had striven with little\u003cbr\u003esuccess to implant moral ideals in the mind and soul of The Hopper, but he\u003cbr\u003ewas still to be catalogued among the impenitent; and as he moved southward\u003cbr\u003ethrough the Commonwealth of Maine he was so oppressed by his poverty, as\u003cbr\u003econtrasted with the world's abundance, that he lifted forty thousand\u003cbr\u003edollars in a neat bundle from an express car which Providence had\u003cbr\u003esidetracked, apparently for his personal enrichment, on the upper waters\u003cbr\u003eof the Penobscot. Whereupon he began perforce playing his old game of\u003cbr\u003eartful dodging, exercising his best powers as a hopper and skipper. Forty\u003cbr\u003ethousand dollars is no inconsiderable sum of money, and the success of\u003cbr\u003ethis master stroke of his career was not to be jeopardized by careless\u003cbr\u003emoves. By craftily hiding in the big woods and making himself agreeable\u003cbr\u003eto isolated lumberjacks who rarely saw newspapers, he arrived in due\u003cbr\u003ecourse on Manhattan Island, where with shrewd judgment he avoided the\u003cbr\u003ehaunts of his kind while planning a future commensurate with his new\u003cbr\u003edignity as a capitalist.","brand":"SAP","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47082347790576,"sku":"2940013198845","price":0.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940013198845_p0.jpg?v=1763578084","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940013198845","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}