"What do you take me for—an expressman?" cried the voice at the fire-place. "I can't leave things that way. It wouldn't be the proper thing. Can't you get a smaller size through?"
"Yes; but will it fit the boy?" said the voice on the roof.
"Lower your lantern down here and we'll see. He's asleep over here in a brass bedstead," replied the other.
And then Jimmieboy saw a great red lantern appear in the fire-place, and by its light he noticed a short, ruddy-faced, merry-eyed old gentleman, with a snowy beard and a smile, tip-toeing across the room toward him. To his delight he recognized him at once as Santa Claus; but he didn't know whether Santa Claus would like to have him see him or not, so he closed his eyes as tightly as he could, and pretended to be asleep.
"Humph!" ejaculated Santa Claus, as he leaned over Jimmieboy's bed, and tried to get his measure by a glance. "He's almost a man—must be five years old by this time. Pretty big for a small velocipede; still, I don't know." Here he scratched his beard and sang:
"If he's too large for it, I think,
'Twill be too small for him,
Unless he can be got to shrink
Two inches on each limb."
Then he walked back to the fire-place and called out, "I've measured."
"Well, what's the result?" queried the voice on the roof.
"'Nothing,' as the boy said when he was asked what two plus one minus three amounted to. I can't decide. It will or it won't, and that's all there is about it."
"Can't we try it on him?" asked the voice up the chimney.