by A. A. Milne
"Do you think we can go now, Mr. Santa Claus?" asked Little Billee, for the cold was beginning to cut through his little coat, and the sandman had started to scatter the sleepy-seeds all around.
* * *
"Yes, sirree!" returned Santa Claus promptly. "Right away off now instantly at once! I'm afraid I can't get my reindeer here in time to take us up to the house, but we can go in the cars—hum! I don't know whether we can or not, come to think of it. Ah, do you happen to have ten cents in your pocket?" Santa added with an embarrassed air. "You see, I've left my pocketbook in the sleigh with my toy-pack; and, besides, mine is only toy-money, and they won't take that on the cars."
* * *
"I got twenty-fi' cents," said Little Billee proudly, as he dug his way down into his pocket and brought the shining silver piece to light. "You can have it, if you want it."
* * *
"Thank you," said Santa Claus, taking the proffered coin. "We'll start home right away; only come in here first, while I telephone to Santaville, telling the folks where I am."
* * *
He led the little fellow into a public telephone station, where he eagerly scanned the names in the book. At last it was found—"Thomas Harrison, seven-six-five-four Plaza." And then, in the seclusion of the telephone-booth, Santa Claus sent the gladdest of all Christmas messages over the wire to two distracted parents:
* * *
"I have found your boy wandering in the street. He is safe, and I will bring him home right away.
Chapter 3
Fifteen minutes later, there might have been seen the strange spectacle of a foot-sore Santa Claus leading a sleepy little boy up Fifth Avenue to a cross-street, which shall be nameless. The boy vainly endeavored to persuade his companion to "come in and meet mama."
* * *
"No, Billee," the old man replied sadly, "I must hurry back. You see, kiddie, this is my busy day. Besides, I never go into a house except through the chimney. I wouldn't know how to behave, going in at a front door."
* * *
But it was not to be as Santa Claus willed, for Little Billee's papa, and his mama, and his brothers and sisters, and the butler and the housemaids, and two or three policemen, were waiting at the front door when they arrived.
* * *
"Aha!" said one of the police, seizing Santa Claus roughly by the arm. "We've landed you, all right! Where have you been with this boy?"
* * *
"You let him alone!" cried Little Billee, with more courage than he had ever expected to show in the presence of a policeman. "He's a friend of mine."
* * *
"That's right, officer," said Little Billee's father; "let him alone—I haven't entered any complaint against this man."
* * *
"But you want to look out for these fellers, Mr. Harrison," returned the officer. "First thing you know they'll be makin' a trade of this sort of thing."
* * *
"I'm no grafter!" retorted Santa Claus indignantly. "I found the little chap wandering along the street, and, as soon as I was able to locate where he lived, I brought him home. That's all there is to it."
* * *
"He knew where I lived all along," laughed Little Billee, "only he pretended he didn't, just to see if I knew."
* * *
"You see, sir," said the officer, "it won't do him any harm to let him cool his heels—"
* * *
"It is far better that he should warm them, officer," said Mr. Harrison kindly. "And he can do that here. Come in, my man," he added, turning to Santa Claus with a grateful smile. "Just for a minute anyhow. Mrs. Harrison will wish to thank you for bringing our boy back to us. We have had a terrible afternoon."
* * *
"That's all right, sir," said Santa Claus modestly. "It wasn't anything, sir. I didn't really find him—it was him as found me, sir. He took me for the real thing, I guess."
* * *
Nevertheless, Santa Claus, led by Little Billee's persistent father, went into the house. Now that the boy could see him in the full glare of many electric lights, his furs did not seem the most gorgeous things in the world. When the flapping front of his red jacket flew open, the child was surprised to see how ragged was the thin gray coat it covered; and as for the good old saint's comfortable stomach—strange to say, it was not!
* * *
"I—I wish you all a merry Christmas," faltered Santa Claus; "but I really must be going, sir—"
* * *
"Nonsense!" cried Mr. Harrison. "Not until you have got rid of this chill, and—"
* * *
"I can't stay, sir," said Santa. "I'll lose my job if I do."
* * *
"Well, what if you do? I'll give you a better one," said the banker.
* * *
"I can't—I can't!" faltered the man. "I—I—I've got a Little Billee of my own at home waitin' for me, sir. If I hadn't," he added fiercely, "do you suppose I'd be doin' this?" He pointed at the painted boards, and shuddered. "It's him as has kept me from—from the river!" he muttered hoarsely; and then this dispenser of happiness to so many millions of people all the world over sank into a chair, and, covering his face with his hands, wept like a child.
* * *
"I guess Santa Claus is tired, papa," said Little Billee, snuggling up closely to the old fellow and taking hold of his hand sympathetically. "He's been walkin' a lot to-day."
* * *
"Yes, my son," said Mr. Harrison gravely. "These are very busy times for Santa Claus, and I guess that, as he still has a hard night ahead of him, James had better ring up Henry and tell him to bring the car around right away, so that we may take him back—to his little boy. We'll have to lend him a fur coat to keep the wind off, too, for it is a bitter night."
* * *
"Oh," said Little Billee, "I haven't told you about these boards he wears. He has 'em to keep the wind off, and they're fine, papa!" Little Billee pointed to the two sign-boards which Santa Claus had leaned against the wall. "He says he uses 'em on cold nights," the lad went on. "They have writing on 'em, too. Do you know what it says?"
* * *
"Yes," said Mr. Harrison, glancing at the boards. "It says 'If You Want a Good Christmas Dinner for a Quarter, Go to Smithers's Café.'"
* * *
Little Billee roared with laughter.
* * *
"Papa's trying to fool me, just as you did when you pretended not to know where I lived, Santa Claus," he said, looking up into the old fellow's face, his own countenance brimming over with mirth. "You mustn't think he can't read, though," the lad added hastily. "He's only joking."
* * *
"Oh, no, indeed, I shouldn't have thought that," replied Santa Claus, smiling through his tears.
* * *
"I've been joking, have I?" said Little Billee's papa. "Well, then, Mr. Billiam, suppose you inform me what it says on those boards."
* * *
"'Merry Christmas to Everybody,'" said Little Billee proudly. "I couldn't read it myself, but he told me what it said. He has it printed there so that if he misses saying it to anybody, they'll know he means it just the same."
* * *
"By Jove, Mr. Santa Claus," cried Little Billee's papa, grasping the old man warmly by the hand, "I owe you ten million apologies! I haven't believed in you for many a long year; but now, sir, I take it all back. You do exist, and, by the great horn spoon, you are the real thing!"
Chapter 4
Little Billee had the satisfaction of acting as host to Santa Claus at a good, luscious dinner, which Santa Claus must have enjoyed very much, because, when explaining why he was so hungry, it came out that the poor old chap had been so busy all day that he had not had time to get any lunch—no, not even one of those good dinners at Smithers's café, to which Little Billee's father had jokingly referred. And after dinner Henry came with the automobile, and, bidding everybody good night, Santa Claus and Little Billee's papa went out of the house together.
* * *
Christmas morning dawned, and Little Billee awoke from wonderful dreams of rich gifts, and of extraordinary adventures with his new-found friend, to find the reality quite as splendid as the dream things. Later, what was his delight when a small boy, not much older than himself—a pale, thin, but playful little fellow—arrived at the house to spend the day with him, bringing with him a letter from Santa Claus himself! This was what the letter said:
* * *
Dear Little Billee:—You must not tell anybody except your papa and your mama, but the little boy who brings you this letter is my little boy, and I am going to let you have him for a playfellow for Christmas Day. Treat him kindly for his papa's sake, and if you think his papa is worth loving tell him so. Do not forget me, Little Billee. I shall see you often in the future, but I doubt if you will see me. I am not going to return to Twenty-Third Street again, but shall continue my work in the Land of Yule, in the Palace of Good-Will, whose beautiful windows look out upon the homes of all good children.
* * *
Good-by, Little Billee, and the happiest of happy Christmases to you and all of yours.
* * *
Affectionately,
Santa Claus.
* * *
When Little Billee's mama read this to him that Christmas morning, a stray little tear ran down her cheek and fell upon Little Billee's hand.
* * *
"Why, what are you crying for, mama?" he asked.
* * *
"With happiness, my dear little son," his mother answered. "I was afraid yesterday that I might have lost my little boy forever, but now—"
* * *
"You have an extra one thrown in for Christmas, haven't you?" said Little Billee, taking his new playmate by the hand. The visitor smiled back at him with a smile so sweet that anybody might have guessed that he was the son of Santa Claus.
* * *
As for the latter, Little Billee has not seen him again; but down at his father's bank there is a new messenger, named John, who has a voice so like Santa Claus's voice that whenever Little Billee goes down there in the motor to ride home at night with his papa, he runs into the bank and has a long talk with him, just for the pleasure of pretending that it is Santa Claus he is talking to. Indeed, the voice is so like that once a sudden and strange idea flashed across Little Billee's mind.
* * *
"Have you ever been on Twenty-Third Street, John?" he asked.
* * *
"Twenty-Third Street?" replied the messenger, scratching his head as if very much puzzled. "What's that?"
* * *
"Why, it's a street," said Little Billee rather vaguely.
* * *
"Well, to tell you the truth, Billee," said John, "I've heard tell of Twenty-Third Street, and they say it is a very beautiful and interesting spot. But, you know, I don't get much chance to travel. I've been too busy all my life to go abroad."
* * *
"Abroad!" roared Little Billee, grinning at John's utterly absurd mistake. "Why, Twenty-Third Street ain't abroad! It's up-town—near—oh, near—Twenty-Second Street."
* * *
"Really?" returned John, evidently tremendously surprised. "Well, well, well! Who'd have thought that? Well, if that's the case, some time when I get a week off I'll have to go and spend my vacation there!"
* * *
From which Little Billee concluded that his suspicion that John might be Santa Claus in disguise was entirely without foundation in fact.
The Child Who Had Everything But-
John Kendrick Bangs
Chapter 1
I KNEW it was coming long before it got there. Every symptom was in sight. I had grown fidgety, and sat fearful of something overpoweringly impending. Strange noises filled the house. Things generally, according to their nature, severally creaked, soughed and moaned. There was a ghost on the way. That was perfectly clear to an expert in uncanny visitations of my wide experience, and I heartily wished it were not. There was a time when I welcomed such visitors with open arms, because there was a decided demand for them in the literary market, and I had been able to turn a great variety of spooks into anywhere from three thousand to five thousand words apiece at five cents a word, but now the age had grown too sceptical to swallow ghostly reminiscence with any degree of satisfaction. People had grown tired of hearing about Visions, and desired that their tales should reek with the scent of gasoline, quiver with the superfervid fever of tangential loves, and crash with moral thunderbolts aimed against malefactors of great achievement and high social and commercial standing. Wherefore it seemed an egregious waste of time for me to dally with a spook, or with anything else, for that matter, that had no strictly utilitarian value to one so professionally pressed as I was, and especially at a moment like that—it was Christmas morning and the hour was twenty-eight minutes after two—when I was so busy preparing my Ode to June, and trying to work out the details of a midsummer romance in time for the market for such productions early in the coming January.
* * *
And right in the midst of all this pressure there rose up these beastly symptoms of an impending visitation. At first I strove to fight them off, but as the minutes passed they became so obsessively intrusive that I could not concentrate upon the work in hand, and I resolved to have it over with.
* * *
"Oh, well," said I, striking a few impatient chords upon my typewriting machine, "if you insist upon coming, come, and let's have done with it."
* * *
I roared this out, addressing the dim depths of the adjoining apartment, whence had risen the first dank apprehension of the uncanny something that had come to pester me.
* * *
"This is my busy night," I went on, when nothing happened in response to my summons, "and I give you fair warning that, however psychic I may be now, I've got too much to do to stay so much longer. If you're going to haunt, haunt!"
* * *
It was in response to this appeal that the thing first manifested itself to the eye. It took the shape first of a very slight veil of green fog, which shortly began to swirl slowly from the darkness of the other room through the intervening portières into my den. Once within, it increased the vigor of its swirl, until almost before I knew it there was spinning immediately before my desk something in the nature of a misty maelstrom, buzzing around like a pin-wheel in action.
* * *
"Very pretty—very pretty indeed," said I, a trifle sarcastically, refusing to be impressed, "but I don't care for pyrotechnics. I suppose," I added flippantly, "that you are what might be called a mince-pyrotechnic, eh?"
* * *
Whether it was the quality of my jest, or some other inward pang due to its gyratory behavior, that caused it I know not, but as I spoke a deep groan issued from the centre of the whirling mist, and then out of its indeterminateness there was resolved the hazy figure of an angel—only, she was an intensely modern angel. She wore a hobble-skirt instead of the usual flowing robes of ladies of the supernal order, and her halo, instead of hovering over her head as used to be the correct manner of wearing these hard-won adornments, had perforce become a mere golden fillet binding together the great mass of finger-curls and other distinctly yellow capillary attractions that stretched out from the back of her cerebellum for two or three feet, like a monumental psyche-knot. I could hardly restrain a shudder as I realized the theatric quality of the lady's appearance, and I honestly dreaded the possible consequences of her visit. We live in a tolerably censorious age, and I did not care to be seen in the company of such a peroxidized vision as she appeared to be.
* * *
"I am afraid, madam," said I, shrinking back against the wall as she approached—"I am very much afraid that you have got into the wrong house. Mr. Slatherberry, the theatrical manager, lives next door."
* * *
She paid no attention to this observation, but, holding out a compelling hand, bade me come along with her,
her voice having about it all the musical charm of an oboe suffering from bronchitis.
* * *
"Not in a year of Sundays I won't!" I retorted. "I am a respectable man, a steady church-goer, a trustee for several philanthropic institutions, and a Sunday-School teacher. I don't wish to be impolite, but really, madam, rich as I am in reputation, I am too poor to be seen in public with you."
