He looked at his watch.
"Of course--we'll wait for you."
Then he hung up the receiver.
"As long as Santy will be here so soon, we'd better wait till he comes, and let him distribute the presents, don't you think?"
He paused a minute, trying to remember.
"Let me see--when was it I last saw him?--yes, yes--it's all of forty years. I was just a little shaver then. I wonder if he's changed much, or grown much older."
As for the children, they could hardly think, much less talk. They sat there, almost in a daze, blinking and looking at the little candles, which seemed to wink back at them as if they had been in the jolly secret all the time.
The youngsters had hardly gotten over their wonder and bewilderment, when they heard sleighbells, and a loud "Whoa--whoa--you old reindeer, whoa when I tell you!" Then there was a stamping on the porch and the old brass knocker was lifted--it fell--"clack, clack"; the door opened, and in walked the welcome guest.
Have you yourself ever seen Santa Claus, or only pictures of him? Well, he really looks like his pictures, only more human--like people you know and love, though of course more magnificent.
In the first place, he wasn't so fat--he was plump in the stomach, but not so really round all over as in the old pictures of him. But perhaps that is because when they were taken there weren't so many children in the world to make things for, and he has grown just a little thinner since then, being so busy, you know.