lengthy consideration, they decided on a clockwork engine at a
shilling, but the other toys they resolved to buy at a cheaper shop.
Nora went into the Emporium to get the toy and whilst Owen was waiting
for her Mr and Mrs Rushton came out. They did not appear to see Owen,
who observed that the shape of one of several parcels they carried
suggested that it contained the engine that had been taken from the
window a little while before.

When Nora returned with her purchase, they went in search of a cheaper
place and after a time they found what they wanted. For sixpence they
bought a cardboard box that had come all the way from Japan and
contained a whole family of dolls--father, mother and four children of
different sizes. A box of paints, threepence: a sixpenny tea service,
a threepenny drawing slate, and a rag doll, sixpence.

On their way home they called at a greengrocer's where Owen had ordered
and paid for a small Christmas tree a few weeks before; and as they
were turning the corner of the street where they lived they met Crass,
half-drunk, with a fine fat goose slung over his shoulder by its neck.
He greeted Owen jovially and held up the bird for their inspection.

'Not a bad tanner's-worth, eh?' he hiccoughed. 'This makes two we've
got. I won this and a box of cigars--fifty--for a tanner, and the
other one I got out of the Club at our Church Mission 'all: threepence
a week for twenty-eight weeks; that makes seven bob. But,' he added,
confidentially,''you couldn't buy 'em for that price in a shop, you
know. They costs the committee a good bit more nor that--wholesale;
but we've got some rich gents on our committee and they makes up the
difference,' and with a nod and a cunning leer he lurched off.

Frankie was sleeping soundly when they reached home, and so was the
kitten, which was curled up on the quilt on the foot of the bed. After
they had had some supper, although it was after eleven o'clock, Owen
fixed the tree in a large flower-pot that had served a similar purpose
before, and Nora brought out from the place where it had been stored
away since last Christmas a cardboard box containing a lot of
glittering tinsel ornaments--globes of silvered or gilded or painted
glass, birds, butterflies and stars. Some of these things had done
duty three Christmases ago and although they were in some instances
slightly tarnished most of them were as good as new. In addition to
these and the toys they had bought