General Lee Christmas By Aurmep Burson The most outstanding feature you noticed on meeting him for the frst time, was his eyes. One minute piercing blue of a cerulean clearness, the next they had changed to 8 dull grey as though a film had Jerossed them and you got the fede ing that was going on in the head behind that was entirely foreign tothe matter in hand. And. usually, there was. Those who knew him best insist he "had two complete characters and was possessed ' of either at will, a Jekyll-Hyde per sonality.
Then when you had shaken the liliand he thrust out you marvelled at the enormous strength he lads But you never discovered until later, if you were lucky, that all the pow for of the man was in the arm you shook, The other was so riddled with bullets and machete cuts as t0 be almost useless, Southern Ancestry soft with an occa sional "Na Awleans" drawl that, gave away his southern ancestry, His hair at the temples was snow, white und his face was browned and seamed, The mouth was wide but the lips were compressed and, con trary to what one would expect ta find in such a man, his nose wap not the curved beak of a bind of Brey but une of very Ineignifenn® proportions.
met him first some yenrs ayo id New York and while it was anys thing but the poor relation foch I got the reaction that here was bull in a China shop. One had to think twice as to where to take him.
He might do anything, and he use wally did.
Specifically I recall some nights. Inter showing him a touch of night life. We got him into a dinner cent, the first he said he had ever worn though he consorted with Presi" dentes like a father and made and lo them at will, and carly. morning found us in Maxim's in the "roaring forties" famous for its volving dance floor.
He liked the atmosphere but he: had little use for the dancing part~ ner we had provided. She had sounded the depths of Ife in theory and he in actuality and naturally there was a difference between the two as wide as the Pacific. But played up to him because the daily papers had gone wild over his arri" val and women are women the world over.
She told mo on the quiet that there was something around hig.
that interfered with hid reasoned it was money.
8 odd enough to carry it that way in New York.
A Common-Sense Preca But it wasn't. It was an enarme ous pearl-handled 45 calibre pistol and during an interval, he lifted it from his middle and passed it over to me before the eyes of all tha diners, while the astonished waiter sought the atmosphere outside, pronto.
Many of the patrons had recognize him and the episode was cone idered the quaint act of a hard living man. "But T saw nothing humorous in it, The real drama was that he had an automatic strap~ ped in a shoulder hoist up under his left arm.
For 20 years, he told me, he: had never gone in a public place without selecting a seat with his. nek against a wall, innumerable at~ tempts on his life had made hima wary of almost every man with whom he came in contact: and he took no chanees, He was General Leo Christmas and his mame and- exploits" were known' in every: adobe shack: from,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.