“No! If there wasn’t any school, you’d be a dunce. And who wants to be a dunce? I’ll tell you what I wish.”
“What?”
“I wish that every day was just as nice as Christmas, but different. Different, you know, but just as nice. That’s what I wish.”
“So do I.”
And so they agreed upon their wish,—that every day should be like Christmas—different, but just as nice. And they would tell that wish to their father in the morning.
“But do you suppose that money can purchase it, prince?”
“I don’t know. I—I’m afraid it can’t. But father said he would tell the Wishing Man. I wonder what he looks like; I should like to see him.”
“So should I.”
Just then there was a commotion in the fireplace. It sounded as if the wood had fallen forward on the andirons. And so it had. But something else had happened. On the backlog, which was blazing fiercely, there sat a funnier little man than you would see in going around the world. He was red from the top of his cap to the tip of his boot; his coat, which was flung over his little red wings, was red. His face was red, but perhaps that was just a reflection from the coals of the fire. You would think that he would have burned up or that he would have jumped out of the fireplace in a hurry. But he didn’t do anything of the sort. It seems very strange, but it was not strange at all in the Land of Nothing Strange. As he sat there upon that blazing backlog, his hands upon his knees, with the flames leaping around him, and his feet resting down in the red-hot coals, you would have said that this was the most comfortable seat that he had ever found in all his life.