Part 35

Whiting, coming out in forty minutes, found his car gone. Sands, the door man, said that he had noticed nothing. The policeman on the corner had not noticed.

"I usually stay longer," Whiting said, "but to-night I wanted to get home. I have a lot of things for the kids."

"Were the things in your car?" the policeman asked.

"Yes. Toys and all that--"

Ostrander, with his hand on the wheel, his feet on the brakes, slipped through the crowded streets unchallenged. It had been easy to unlock the car. He had learned many things in these later years.

It was several minutes before he was aware of faint fragrances--warm tropical fragrances of flowers and fruits and spices--Christmas fragrances which sent him back to the great kitchen where his grandmother's servants had baked and brewed.

He stopped the car and touched a button. The light showed booty. He had not expected this. He had wanted the car for an hour, to feel the thrill of it under his fingers, to taste again the luxury of its warmth and softness. He had meant to take it back unharmed--with nothing more than the restless ghost of his poor desires to haunt Whiting when again he entered it.

But now here were toys and things which Whiting, in a climax of generosity, had culled from bake-shop and grocer, from flower-shop, fruit-shop, and confectioner.

He snapped out the light and drove on. He had still a half-hour for his adventure.

It took just three of the thirty minutes to slide up to the curb in front of the tall tenement. He made three trips in and up to the top floor. He risked much, but Fate was with him and he met no one.

Fate was with him, too, when he left the car at a corner near the club, and slipped out of it like a shadow, and thence like a shadow back to the shop whence his steps had tended before his adventures.

When he returned to the tall tenement the small family on the first floor had finished supper, and the mother had gone back to work. The baby was asleep. Milly and Pussy, wrapped up to their ears, were hugging the waning warmth of the little stove.

"Mr. Tony, did you get the candle?" Pussy asked as he came in.

"Yes. But I've been thinking"--his manner was mysterious--"I don't want to put it on the shelf. I want it in the window--to shine out--"

"To shine out--why?"

"Well, you know, there's St. Nicholas."

"Oh--"

"He ought to come here, Pussy. Why shouldn't he come here? Why should he go up-town and up-town, and take all the things to children who have more than they want?"

Milly was philosophic. "St. Nicholas is fathers and mothers--"

But Pussy was not so sure. "Do you think he'd come--if we did? Do you really and truly think he would?"

"I think he might--"

The candle set in the window made a fine show from the street. They all went out to look at it. Coming in, they sat around the stove together.

Pussy drew her chair very close to Ostrander. She laid her hand on his knee. It was a little hand with short, fat fingers. In spite of lean living, Pussy had managed to keep fat. She was adorably dimpled.

Ostrander, looking down at the fat little hand, began: "Once upon a time--there was a doll--a Fluffy Ruffles doll, in a rosy gown--"

"Oh!" Pussy beat the small, fat hand upon his knee.

"And pink slippers--and it traveled miles to find some one to--love it. And at last it said to St. Nicholas, 'Oh, dear St. Nick, I want to find a little girl who hasn't any doll--'"

"Like me?" said Pussy.

"Like you--"