"Well, you shall have a jack-knife too—and some—fire-crackers,"—ransacking his memory for childish tastes.
"Is it going to be Christmas?" asked his nephew, beginning to feel that life was still worth living.
"Yes. We have Christmas once a month at Elmhurst—oftener if needed."
"Are you Santa Claus?" asked Philip in an awed voice.
"I'm a friend of his," returned Richard gravely, with an odd sense that this was a plagiarism which would be detected.
But there is nothing like the trustingness of childhood.
"Then can you get anything you want from Santa Claus for little boys?"
"Almost anything," said Mr. De Jarnette cautiously, remembering mothers.
It was a fruitful vein and Philip worked it for all it was worth. When at last his eyelids closed over the bright eyes and the curly head lay still against his uncle's breast, Santa Claus's friend stood committed to a bushel of candy, a bag of peanuts, some pink lemonade, a balloon (showing the connection of ideas), a dog, two white rabbits, a sure enough engine, and a billy goat. He considered peace cheaply purchased at that. He would have impoverished the exchequer rather than have had another two hours of conflict.
"Is he likely to keep this up long?" he asked Mammy Cely whom he met in the hall just as he had laid his young nephew on his bed and tip-toed from the room. He wiped his brow nervously.