here, madam," said I, stopping suddenly short under a lamp-post in front of the Public Library, "I want to tell you right now that if you think you are going to take me into any of the homes of the hopelessly rich at this hour of the morning, you are the most mightily mistaken creature that ever wore a psyche-knot. Why, great heavens, my dear lady, suppose the owner of the house were to wake up and demand to know what I was doing there at this time of night? What could I say?"
"You have gone on slumming parties, haven't you?" she demanded coldly.
"Often," said I. "But that's different."
"Why?" she asked, with a simplicity that baffled me. "Is it any worse for you to intrude upon the home of a Fifth Avenue millionaire than it is to go unasked into the small, squalid tenement of some poor sweatshop worker on the East Side?"
"Oh, but it's different," I protested. "I go there to see if there is anything I can do to relieve the unhappy condition of the persons who live in the slums."
"No doubt," said she. "I'll take your word for it, but is that any reason why you should neglect the sufferers who live in these marble palaces?"
As she spoke, she hooked hold of my arm once more, and in a moment we were climbing the front door steps of a palatial residence. The house showed a dark and forbidding front at that hour in the morning despite its marble splendors, and I was glad to note that the massive grille doors of wrought iron were heavily barred.
"It's useless, you see. We're locked out," I ventured.
"Indeed?" she retorted, with a sarcastic smile, as she seized my hand in her icy grip and literally pulled me after her through the marble front of the dwelling. "What have we to do with bolts and bars?"
"I don't know," said I ruefully, "but I have a notion that if I don't bolt I'll get the bars all right."
I could see them coming, and they were headed straight for me.
"All you have to do is to follow me," she went on, as we floated upward for two flights, paying but little attention to the treasures of art that lined the walls, and finally passed into a superbly lighted salon, more daintily beautiful than anything of the kind I had ever seen before.
"Jove!" I ejaculated, standing amazed in the presence of such luxury and beauty. "I did not realize that with all her treasures New York held anything quite so fine as this. What is it, a music-room?"
"It is the nursery," said my companion. "Look about you and see for yourself."
I did as I was bidden, and such an array of toys as that inspection revealed! Truly it looked as if the toy-market in all sections of the world had been levied upon for tribute. Had all the famous toy emporiums of Nuremberg itself been transported thither bodily, there could not have been playthings in greater variety than there greeted my eye. From the most insignificant of tin-soldiers to the most intricate of mechanical toys for the delectation of the youthful mind, nothing that I could think of was missing.
The tin-soldiers as ever had a fascination for me, and in an instant I was down upon the floor, ranging them in their serried ranks, while the face of my companion wreathed with an indulgent smile.
"You'll do," said she, as I loaded a little spring-cannon with a stub of a lead-pencil and bowled over half a regiment with one well-directed shot.
"These are the finest tin-soldiers I ever saw!" I cried with enthusiasm.
"Only they're not tin," said she. "Solid silver, every man-jack of them—except the officers—they're made of platinum."
"And will you look at that little electric railroad!" I cried, my eye ranging to the other end of the salon. "Stations, switches, danger-signals, cars of all kinds, and even miniature Pullmans, with real little berths that can be let up and down—who is the lucky kid who's getting all these beautiful things?"
"Sh!" she whispered, putting her finger to her lips. "He is coming—go on and play. Pretend you don't see him until he speaks to you."
As she spoke, a door at the far end of the apartment swung gently open, and a little boy tiptoed softly in. He was a golden-haired little chap, and I fell in love with his soft, dreamy eyes the moment my own rested upon them. I could not help glancing up furtively to see his joy over the discovery of all these wondrous possessions, but alas, to my surprise, there was only an unemotional stare in his eyes as they swept the aggregation of childish treasures. Then, on a sudden, he saw me, squatting on the floor, setting up again the army of silver warriors.
"How do you do?" he said gently, but with just a touch of weariness in his sad little voice.
"Good morning, and a Merry Christmas to you, sir," I replied.
"What are you doing?" he asked, drawing near, and watching me with a good deal of seeming curiosity.
"I am playing with your soldiers," said I. "I hope you don't mind?"
"Oh, no indeed," he replied; "but what do you mean by that? What is playing?"
I could hardly believe my ears.
"What is what?" said I.
"You said you were playing, sir," said he, "and I don't know exactly what you mean."
"Why," said I, scratching my head hard in a mad quest for a definition, for I couldn't for the life of me think of the answer to his question offhand, any more than I could define one of the elements. "Playing is—why, it's playing, laddie. Don't you know what it is to play?"
"Oh, yes," said he. "It's what you do on the piano—I've been taught to play on the piano, sir."
"Oh, but this is different," said I. "This kind is fun—it's what most little boys do with their toys."
"You mean—breaking them?" said he.
"No, indeed," said I. "It's getting all the fun there is out of them."
"I think I should like to do that," said he, with a fixed gaze upon the soldiers. "Can a little fellow like me learn to play that way?"
"Well, rather, kiddie," said I, reaching out and taking him by the hand. "Sit down here on the floor alongside of me, and I'll show you."
"Oh, no," said he, drawing back; "I—I can't sit on the floor. I'd catch cold."
"Now, who under the canopy told you that?" I demanded, somewhat impatiently, I fear.
"My governesses and both my nurses, sir," said he. "You see, there are drafts—"
"Well, there won't be any drafts this time," said I. "Just you sit down here, and we'll have a game of marbles—ever play marbles with your father?"
"No, sir," he replied. "He's always too busy, and neither of my nurses has ever known how."
"But your mother comes up here and plays games with you sometimes, doesn't she?" I asked.
"Mother is busy, too," said the child. "Besides, she wouldn't care for a game which you had to sit on the floor to—"
I sprang to my feet and lifted him bodily in my arms, and, after squatting him over by the fireplace where if there were any drafts at all they would be as harmless as a summer breeze,
