The elder man watched him with a half smile. "You'll take the old man, then, and I'll see to the young ones," he remarked after a time.
Sigourney Hooper slipped on his overcoat again. "By the way," he said, "they think Santa Claus sent me," and he gave a grin of amusement.
Dr. Brewster looked grave. "Who is Santa Claus, anyhow?" he returned. "The embodiment of goodness, charity and kindly feeling."
"They were right, then," replied Sigourney, holding out his hand. "We'll have to give them a Christmas, doctor, for I promised not to keep grandfather from the bosom of his family on that festal day. Holy Moses! Festivities in that hole! Ugh!"
Dr. Brewster sat smiling to himself long after his visitor had departed. A wheel within a wheel, the ripples caused by the dropping of the smallest of pebbles; the movings toward a broad humanity set astir by the prattle of a child; by the instinctive appeal for warmth and protection made by a little hunted animal; the breath of the spirit on the face of the waters! He pondered over these mysterious forces, while Kittyboy purred contentedly at his elbow.
Kittyboy fared well these days. He never failed to station himself by the doctor's chair at meal time, and was so indulged in the matter of tid-bits that his coat grew as sleek as satin; and if he had not been of such a very volatile temperament, it is quite likely that he would have become fat and lazy.
The housekeeper confided to Maggie that something had made the doctor grow ten years younger, and the housemaid immediately attributed the fact to the presence of Kittyboy. Certain it is that the doctor busied himself with many things to which he had heretofore seemed indifferent, and his sober establishment underwent all sorts of changes. "All on account of the cat," said Maggie.
A well-to-do physician who has retained just enough practice to keep him contented is rather an enviable individual, and Dr. Brewster looked the picture of genial content as he stepped into his carriage on Christmas Eve. Just where he went was best known to his coachman, who had long ago learned the value of keeping his own counsel. But the faith in Santa Claus which that evening justified was felt in more than one wretched dwelling. Especially did two anxious little souls, who had staked their last hope on the letter they had sent, feel that their mustard seed of belief had indeed grown to gigantic size when hampers and bundles from Santa Claus were displayed to their glad and astonished eyes.
"Oh, Bill, I said I believed he'd bring all I wanted, and more," cried Gerty, laughing and crying at the same time. "And he did, he did. And grandpop's gone to stay in that grand room and get well, and I'm goin' to get well, and we've a whole turkey and fixins, Bill, fixins. I never said nothin' about them. And gran'pop 'll be here an' help us eat it. An', oh, Bill. They are a Sandy Claus, they are, ain't they?"