"What do you think of the immigrants?"
The Tree did not exactly laugh aloud, but it certainly laughed all over—with hearty wholesome approving laughter.
"That question is the worst offender of all; it is quarrelsome! It is the most quarrelsome question that could be asked. What are immigrants to me? But next year look out for a book called Santa Claus on Immigrants."
"Put plenty of gore in it!"
"Gore! Gore on Christmas Eve! But if there was gore, since it is in a book, it would have to be dry gore. But wouldn't salve be better—salve for old wounds?"
"If you're going to put salve in, you might use my Waterloo salve!"
"Don't be peculiar, Herbert—especially away from home!"
Certainly the Tree was shaken with laughter this time.
"See what things grow to when once started; here were four questions, and now they fill four books. But time flies. Now I must make haste! My reindeer!—"
His ingenuity was evidently at work upon this pretext as perhaps furnishing him later on a way through which he might effect his escape: in this little theatre of thin illusion there must be some rear exit; and through this he hoped to retire from the stage without losing his dignity and the illusion of his rôle.