"Oh, do be careful!" said Marianne. "A paint box is what I've been longing for! Don't chip it if you can possibly help it!"
"Of course I shan't," replied the Chintz Imp. "If he wouldn't kick so much, I should get him out in half the time."
"I'm not kicking," cried Santa Klaus's voice indignantly. "I've been as still as a rock, even with that horrid penknife close to my ear the whole time."
"Have a little patience," said the Chintz Imp soothingly. "I promise not to hurt you."
Marianne began to feel very cold. The excitement, so far, had buoyed her up; but now the monotonous chip, chipping of the Chintz Imp continued so long that she jumped into her chintz-curtained bed, determined to stay there until something new and interesting called her up again.
"I can't do any good, so I may as well be comfortable," she thought, and pulled the eider-down quilt up to her chin luxuriously.
"I hope he'll get out! It would be a disappointment to have that paint-box taken away again. Perhaps it would be given to someone who wouldn't care for it. I wonder if it's tin, with moist colours? I must ask Uncle Max to have that chimney made wider——" At this point Marianne's eyes closed and she fell asleep.
She was awakened by a loud thump! that seemed to shake the very bed in which she was lying; and as she sprang up in a state of great excitement, she saw Santa Klaus picking himself up from the hearthrug on which he had apparently fallen with great violence.
"Oh dear!" cried Marianne, "I hope you are not hurt? How careless of the Chintz Imp to throw you down like that!"
"It was no one's fault but my own," said Santa Klaus as he dusted the remains of soot and plaster off his brown cloak. "I should have remembered my experience with your great-aunt, but I knew how much you wanted that paint-box," and he slipped into Marianne's stocking a japanned box with a whole sheaf of paint brushes.