"Please, m'm," he began, "is dis de place where de gent lives as dropped dese packages offen de elevated road?"
Instead of replying to the boy, the maid turned and pulled back the heavy curtain that hung between the hall and the front room. The boys caught a glimpse of a tall Christmas tree and heard the sound of many voices.
"Mrs. Raymond," said the maid, excitedly, "here are some little boys with Mr. Raymond's lost bundles!"
In a moment the hallway was full of people—or rather it seemed so to the boys—and a young man in his shirt sleeves, with his clothes and hair all covered with tinsel, was dragging them into the house. They huddled in a corner, and held firmly to their burdens.
"Where did you find those things, kids?" asked the young man, smiling.
"Dey fell on us in Nint' Av'noo," replied Ratsey, very much embarrassed. "Is dey yourn?"
"You bet they are," answered the young man, looking over the packages. "That is, they belong to the gentleman who lives in this house, and they are for his Christmas tree. He was standing on the crowded platform of a train, and the wind blew the package and his hat away from him."
"We 'ain't got de hat," put in Swipes—and everybody laughed.
"Poor papa!" said one of the ladies, "he's been tramping around for the last two hours trying to duplicate the things."
Just then there was the sound of a key in the lock of the front door, and when it was opened, there entered a fat gentleman loaded with packages. It is hardly necessary to state here what the fat gentleman said when the situation was explained to him, nor to repeat the marvellous account of the rescue of the toys as given by Ratsey. It seems enough to relate that the three boys were taken down into the kitchen and filled full of warm coffee and bread and butter, and eventually placed upon an elevated train and sent down to their own district, each with a silver half-dollar in his pocket. And furthermore, on the following night, Christmas, the same three boys were again in the basement of the big house—this time by invitation—and the tidy maid was furnishing them with such a dinner as they had never even dreamed of. And at the plate of each one was a present—out of the duplicates Mr. Raymond had purchased—Ratsey's being a brass horn of even greater proportions than the one he had found the previous evening. Tag and Swipes likewise received gifts, and the talking those three lads did that night would fill a thick book.