d you, you were going to the Snap-Dragons."

* * * * *

Harry and Polly snubbed "the little ones" when they snapped, and
utterly discountenanced snapping in the nursery. The example and
admonitions of elder children are a powerful instrument of nursery
discipline, and before long there was not a "sharp tongue" amongst all
the little Skratdjs.

But I doubt if the parents ever were cured. I don't know if they heard
the story. Besides, bad habits are not easily cured when one is old.

I fear Mr. and Mrs. Skratdj have yet got to dance with the Dragons.

OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS.

OLD FATHER CHRISTMAS.

AN OLD-FASHIONED TALE OF THE YOUNG DAYS OF A GRUMPY OLD GODFATHER.

CHAPTER I.

"Can you fancy, young people," said Godfather Garbel, winking with his
prominent eyes, and moving his feet backwards and forwards in his
square shoes, so that you could hear the squeak-leather half a room
off--"can you fancy my having been a very little boy, and having a
godmother? But I had, and she sent me presents on my birthdays too.
And young people did not get presents when I was a child as they get
them now. _Grumph_! We had not half so many toys as you have, but we
kept them twice as long. I think we were fonder of them too, though
they were neither so handsome nor so expensive as these new-fangled
affairs you are always breaking about the house. _Grumph_!

"You see, middle-class folk were more saving then. My mother turned
and dyed her dresses, and when she had done with them, the servant was
very glad to have them; but, bless me! your mother's maids dress so
much finer than their mistress, I do not think they would say 'thank
you' for her best Sunday silk. The bustle's the wrong shape. _Grumph_!

"What's that you are laughing at, little miss? It's _pannier_, is it?
Well, well, bustle or pannier, call it what you like; but only donkeys
wore panniers in my young days, and many's the ride I've had in them.

"Now, as I say, my relations and friends thought twice before they
pulled out five shillings in a toy-shop, but they didn't forget me,
all the same.

"On my eighth birthday my mother gave me a bright blue comforter of
her own knitting.

"My little sister gave me a ball. My mother had cut out the divisions
from various bits in the rag-bag, and my sister had done some of the
seaming. It was stuffed with bran, and had a cork inside which had
broken from old age, and would no longer f