“Just so,” said the kind gentleman, stroking the curly head before him. “And you brought these things to pay for the money?”
“Yes,” said Jack, cheerfully. “’Cause you buy fings with money, you see, so I s’pose you buy money with fings.”
“And what did you mean to do with a thousand dollars?” asked the gentleman. “Buy candy, eh?”
Then Jack looked up into the gentle gray eyes and told his little story about the poor woman whom he had seen the day before. “She was so poor,” he said, “her little boy could not have any Christmas at all, only an apple and some bread, and I’m sure that isn’t Christmas. And she hadn’t any money, not any at all. So I fought I would buy her some, and then she could get everything she wanted.”
By this time the two other gentlemen had their hands in their pockets; but the first one motioned them to wait, and taking the little boy on his knee, he told him in a few simple words what a bank really was, and why one could not buy money there.
“But you see, dear,” he added, seeing the disappointment in the child’s face, “you have here in your hands the very things that poor woman would like to buy for her little boy. Give her the fine hobby-horse and the drum and the paint-box, too, if you like, and she can give him the finest Christmas that ever a poor boy had.”
Jack’s face lighted up again, and a smile flashed through the tears that stood in his sweet blue eyes. “I never fought of that!” he cried, joyfully.
“And,” continued the old gentleman, drawing a gold piece from his pocket and putting it in the little chubby hand, “you may give that to the poor woman to buy a turkey with.”
“And that,” cried the second old gentleman, putting another gold piece on top of it, “to buy mince-pies with.”
“And that,” cried the third old gentleman, while a third gold piece clinked on the other two, “to buy a plum-pudding with.”