[EDITOR. Yes?
AUTHOR. To tell the truth I am rather stuck for the moment.
EDITOR. What is the trouble?
AUTHOR. I don't quite know what to do with Robert for ten hours or so.
EDITOR. Couldn't he go somewhere by a local line?
AUTHOR. This is not a humorous story. The point is that I want him to be outside a certain house some twenty miles from town at eight o'clock that evening.
EDITOR. If I were Robert I should certainly start at once.
AUTHOR. No, I have it.]
As he sat there, his thoughts flew over the bridge of years, and he was wafted on the wings of memory to other and happier Yuletides. That Christmas when he had received his first bicycle….
That Christmas abroad….