"Do you keep milk-carts?" I said diffidently.
He screwed up his face and thought.
"I could get you one," he said.
"I don't want you to build one specially for me. If they aren't made, I expect it's because mothers don't like them. It was just an idea of mine."
"Oh yes, they're made. I can show a picture of one in our catalogue."
He showed it to me. It was about the size of a perambulator, and contained every kind of can. I simply had to let Father Christmas see.
"Look at that!" I exclaimed in delight.
"Good lord!" he said, and dived into the pocket again.
I held him there tightly and finished my business with the official.
Father Christmas has never spoken since. Sometimes I wonder if he ever spoke at all, for one imagines strange things in the Children's Shop. He stands now on my writing-table, and observes me with the friendly smile which has been so fixed a feature of his since I brought him home.