"Corking things?" He lifted her chin with a light finger and looked into
her innocent eyes. "Oh, Milly, Milly, once upon a time there was a
Princess, with eyes like yours, and she lived in a garden where black
swans swam on a pool, and she wore pale-green gowns and there were
poppies in the garden. And a Fool loved her. But she shut him out of the
garden. He wasn't good enough even to kneel at her feet, so she shut him
out and married a Prince with a white feather in his cap."
He had a chuckling sense of Whiting as the white-feathered Prince. But
Milly's eyes were clouded. "I don't like to think that she shut the poor
Fool out of the garden."
For a moment he cupped her troubled face in his two hands. "You dear
kiddie." Then as he turned away he found his own eyes wet.
As he started up-stairs Pussy peeped out at him.
"Wouldn't it be--corking--to see a Fluffy Ruffles doll--a-walking up the
street?"
In a beautiful box up-stairs the Fluffy Ruffles doll stared at him. She
was as lovely as a dream, and as expensive as they make 'em. There was
another doll in blue, also as expensive, also as lovely. Ostrander could
see Milly with the blue doll matching her eyes.
There were toys, too, for the baby. And there was a bunch of violets.
And boxes of candy. And books. And there were things to eat. Besides the
fruits a great cake, and a basket of marmalades and jellies and
gold-sealed bottles and meat pastes in china jars, and imported things
in glass, and biscuits in tins.
Ostrander, after some consideration, opened the tin of biscuits and,
munching, he wrote a note. Having no paper, he tore a wrapper from one
of the boxes. He had the stub of a pencil, and the result was a scrawl.
"MY DEAR WHITING:
"It was I who borrowed your car--and who ran away with your junk. I
am putting my address at the head of this, so that if you want it
back you can come and get it. But perhaps you won't want it back.
"I have a feeling that to you and your wife I am as good as dead.
If you have any thought of me it is, I am sure, to pity me. Yet I
rather fancy that you needn't. I am down and out, and living on ten
dollars a month. That's all I got when the crash came--it is all I
shall ever get. I pay four dollars a month for my room and twenty
cents a day for food. Sometimes I pay less than twenty cents when I
find myself in need of other--luxuries. Yet there's an adventure in
it, Whiting. A good little woman who lives in this house begs me to
work. But I have never worked. And why begin? I've a heritage of
bad habits, and one does not wish to seem superior to one's
ancestors.
"The winters are the worst. I spend the summers on the open road.
Ask Marion if she remembers the days when we read Stevenson
together in the garden? Tell her it is like that--under the
stars--Tell her that I am getting more out of it than she is--with
you--
"But the winters send me back to town--and this winter Fate has
brought me to an old house in a shabby street just a bit back from
the Club. On the first floor there is a little family. Three
kiddies and a young mother who works to keep the wolf from the
door. There's a Pussy-Kiddie, and a Milly-Kiddie, and a baby, and
they have adopted me as a friend.
"And this Christmas I had nothing to give them--but a red candle to
light their room.
"When I got into your car it was just for the adventure. To breathe
for a moment the air I once breathed--to fancy that Marion's ghost
might sit beside me for one little moment, as she will sit beside
you to the end of your days.
"I have played all roles but that of robber--but when I saw the
things that you had bought with Marion's money for Marion's
children--it went to my head--and I wanted them in the worst way
for those poor kiddies--who haven't any dolls or Christmas dinners.
"I am playing Santa Claus for them to-night. I shall take the
things down and leave them in their poor rooms. It will be up to
you to come and take them away. It will be up to you, too, to give
this note to the police and steal my freedom.
"You used to be a good sport, Whiting. I have nothing against you
except that you stole Marion--perhaps this will square our
accounts. And if your children are, because of me, without their
dolls to-morrow, you can remember this, that the kiddies are happy
below stairs--since Dick Turpin dwells aloft!
"From among the rest I have chosen for myself a squat bottle, a box
of biscuits, and a tin of the little imported sausages that you
taught me to like.
"Well, my dear fellow, happy days! To-morrow morning I shall
breakfast at your expense, unless you shall decide that I must
breakfast behind bars.
"If you should come to-night, you will find in the window a red
candle shining. They have put it there to guide St. Nicholas and a
certain Fluffy Ruffles doll!
"Ever yours,
"Tony."
He found an envelope, sealed, and addressed it. Then he went to work.
Four trips he made down the stairs. Four times he tiptoed into the
shadowed room, where the long red candle burned. And when he turned to
take a last look there on the table beside the tree stood the blue doll
for Milly and the Fluffy Ruffles doll for Pussy and the rattles and
rings and blocks for the baby, and on the chairs and the shelf above the
tree were the other things--the great cake and the fruit and the big
basket and the boxes of candy.
And for the little mother there were the violets and a note:
"The red candle winked at your window and brought me in. It is useless
to search for me--for now and then a Prince passes and goes on. And he
is none the less a Prince because you do not know him."
And now there was that other note to deliver. Out in the cold once more,
he found the moon gone and the snow falling. As he passed the saint on
the old church, it seemed to smile down at him. The towers and gables
were sheeted with white. His footsteps made no sound on the padded
streets.
He left the note at Whiting's door. He fancied that, as the footman held
it open, he saw Marion shining on the stairs!
He was glad after that to get home and to bed, and to the warmth of his
blanket. There was the warmth, too, of the wine.
In a little while he was asleep. On the table by his untidy bed was the
box of biscuits and the bottle and the tin of tiny sausages.
If all went well he would feast like a lord on Christmas morning!