"You tell me a story."
"I'm too busy. Go to sleep."
"Why are you busy?"
"Because I am. Now go to sleep."
"I don't want to go to sleep. I want you to tell me a story."
Pat commenced to cry again. He had sensed an opening.
Peter dropped his guard. "Just one story?" he asked.
Upon the instant Pat ceased crying and sat up. "Tell me about the old beggarman and Saint Pat."
"I don't know it," said Peter. In fact he felt almost as if he had been suddenly called upon to make a speech at a public banquet. Of course, he had heard of Cinderella and Red Riding Hood and Aladdin and the wonderful lamp, but he could not quite remember what any of them did. Suddenly he remembered another source book.
"Once," he began, "there was a man named Goliath and he was the biggest man in the world. He could beat any man in the world. And one day there was a little man named David——."