But Santa Claus heard him and understood. He didn’t speak again to Merrythought. He only looked at him when they reached a poor house where all Santa Claus left for the little boy was a fire-engine, and next door where the baby had only a monkey-on-a-stick.
‘Perhaps all children don’t have too many toys,’ thought Merrythought. ‘But they all have something. And I am tired to death of toys, just tired to death of them.’
Now Santa Claus drove through the white countryside, on and on and on, until there was not a house to be seen.
‘Where can we be going?’ Merrythought asked himself. ‘This looks like the end of the world.’
On and on and on, until, half buried in the snow, Merrythought spied a little brown house. There was a light in the window, though it was the middle of the night.
‘Somebody trimming a Christmas Tree, I suppose,’ thought Merrythought. ‘More toys and tinsel and gold, no doubt.’
To his surprise Santa Claus did not stop. He slowed up a little and gently, very gently, he lifted Merrythought out and dropped him in the snow.
‘Go look in the window,’ said Santa Claus, ‘and if I am not mistaken there will be something for you to see. I will be back for you by and by.’
And off sped the sleigh and out of sight among the white drifts of snow.