Ted. I should say they were!
Brownie. Then I'd like to know the meaning of this discontent! You twentieth-century boys are a set of ungrateful young scamps, who get the best of everything, and then complain of it, and break it up in three days' time. Santa Claus is spoiling you, I say! Boys a hundred years ago were thankful for the slates and schoolbooks we gave them, and the girls were happy enough over corncob dolls. Now you must have steam-engines, and motors, and automobiles, and dolls that walk and talk, and are so full of cogs and wheels that no real flesh-and-blood little girl could love them at all. I tell you, in all my thousand years of existence, I have never met anything so grasping as the modern children! [Talks so loud and gesticulates so wildly that Ted backs away again.]
Ted [meekly]. Please, Mr.—Mr. Brownie, I didn't mean that! Honest Injun, I didn't!
Brownie. Well, then, explain yourself!
Ted. I—I—I was just thinking that people ask Santa Claus for such f-foolish things that it's a wonder he gives them anything at all.
Brownie. Foolish! I should think they were!
Ted. And if there was anybody that could tell Santa Claus about it, it would save him a lot of trouble.
Brownie. And you think you could manage things better, do you?
Ted. I didn't say that,—I said I would like to help.
Brownie [scratches his nose, scowling very hard]. See here. Suppose I let you try. Santa Claus is unusually busy to-night, and is sending a great number of his Brownies out to fill stockings. I was to look out for this house, among several hundred others, and I—a—well, I have a fancy that I should enjoy letting you help.