ce the
puppies--how big they were!--were sitting with Mrs. Spaniel. Joyous
uproar greeted him: they flung themselves upon him. Shouts of "Daddy!
Daddy!" filled the house, while the young Spaniels stood by more
bashfully.

Good Mrs. Spaniel was gratefully moved. Her moist eyes shone brightly in
the firelight.

"I knew you'd be home for Christmas, Mr. Gissing," she said. "I've been
telling them so all afternoon. Now, children, be still a moment and let
me speak. I've been telling you your Daddy would be home in time for a
Christmas Eve story. I've got to go and fix that plum pudding."

In her excitement a clear bubble dripped from the tip of her tongue. She
caught it in her apron, and hurried to the kitchen.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The children insisted on leading him all through the house to show how
nicely they had taken care of things. And in every room Gissing saw
the marks of riot and wreckage. There were tooth-scars on all
furniture-legs; the fringes of rugs were chewed off; there were prints
of mud, ink, paints, and whatnot, on curtains and wallpapers and
coverlets. Poor Mrs. Spaniel kept running anxiously from the kitchen to
renew apologies.

"I DID try to keep 'em in order," she said, "but they seem to bash
things when you're not looking."

But Gissing was too happy to stew about such trifles. When the
inspection was over, they all sat down by the chimney and he piled on
more logs.

"Well, chilluns," he said, "what do you want Santa Claus to bring you
for Christmas?"

"An aunbile!" exclaimed Groups

"An elphunt!" exclaimed Bunks

"A little train with hammers!" exclaimed Yelpers

"A little train with hammers?" asked Gissing. "What does he mean?"

"Oh," said Groups and Bunks, with condescending pity, "he means a
typewriter. He calls it a little train because it moves on a track when
you hit it."

A painful apprehension seized him, and he went hastily to his study. He
had not noticed the typewriter, which Mrs. Spaniel had--too late--put
out of reach. Half the keys were sticking upright, jammed together and
tangled in a whirl of ribbon; the carriage was strangely dislocated. And
yet even this mischance, which would once have horrified him, left him
unperturbed. It's my own fault, he thought: I shouldn't have left it
where they could play with it. Perhaps God thinks the same when His
creatures make a mess of the dangerous laws of life.

"A Christmas story!" the children were clamouring.

Can it