"Was the boy pleased with his toys?" asked Joseph Schotz from his end of the room. His voice was wistful; he had never needed to use his skill for the delight of children of his own.
"Yes, my friend."
"Yes, there is indeed a change in the Man since his first visit," thought Joseph. The smile with which the guest looked up from his toys warmed the sick man's heart, about which a chill had been gathering.
"But he wants more. He always does." There was the purest delight in the father's face as he spoke. "Just the other day I came across an upper chamber in our house which was full of toys. They were all forgotten; but each one had made him happy for a day. That's the thing. He doesn't even have to learn his lessons from them as I do." He smiled whimsically. "I am trying to give him all the toys I—didn't have. And"—his voice died away, and he forced the words with difficulty—"he must have all that I meant to give the boy who—went away."
"You mustn't spoil him," said Schotz, after a moment, with the perfunctory morality of the childless man.
The smile broke out again. "Bless you, you can't spoil children with love. Why, my boy plays with his soldiers, but he doesn't know that war is anything but a game. I wish his father could win battles with toy soldiers and tin swords." His eyes were drawn back to the counter. The next moment he was lost to every sight and sound.
Marvellous operations were soon in progress on the counter. One set of men was intrenched behind all the boxes within sight. Advance and retreat—shifting to right and to left—both sides alert, one would have said—they seemed so under the great hands that hovered over them—the besieged army handled with the same cool intelligence—both sides manœuvred for position.
The cuckoo-clock in the corner struck eleven. The little clerk stared with mouth open at the big man who played with toys. Schotz watched him with questioning eyes as the stranger knitted shaggy brows over some problem that baffled him.