It was Christmas. The air was full of excitement and secrecy. William, whose old-time faith in notes to Father Christmas sent up the chimney had died a natural death as the result of bitter experience, had thoughtfully presented each of his friends and relations with a list of his immediate requirements.  
He had a vague and not unfounded misgiving that his family would begin at the bottom of the list instead of the top. He was not surprised, therefore, when he saw his father come home rather later than usual carrying a parcel of books under his arm. A few days afterwards he announced casually at breakfast:
 
"Well, I only hope no one gives me 'The Great Chief,' or 'The Pirate Ship,' or 'The Land of Danger' for Christmas."
 
His father started.
 
"Why?" he said sharply.
 
"Jus' 'cause I've read them, that's all," explained William with a bland look of innocence.
 
The glance that Mr. Brown threw at his offspring was not altogether devoid of suspicion, but he said nothing. He set off after breakfast with the same parcel of books under his arm and returned with another. This time, however, he did not put them in the library cupboard, and William searched in vain.
 
The question of Christmas festivities loomed large upon the social horizon.
 
"Robert and Ethel can have their party on the day before Christmas Eve," decided Mrs. Brown, "and then William can have his on Christmas Eve."
 
William surveyed his elder brother and sister gloomily.
 
"Yes, an' us eat up jus' what they've left," he said with bitterness. "I know!"
 
Mrs. Brown changed the subject hastily.
 
"Now let's see whom we'll have for your party, William," she said, taking out pencil and paper. "You say whom you'd like and I'll make a list."
 
"Ginger an' Douglas an' Henry and Joan," said William promptly.
 
"Yes? Who else?"
 
"I'd like the milkman."
 
"You can't have the milkman, William. Don't be so foolish."
 
"Well, I'd like to have Fisty Green. He can whistle with his fingers in his mouth."
 
"He's a butcher's boy, William! You can't have him?"
 
"Well, who can I have?"
 
"Johnnie Brent?"
 
"I don't like him."
 
"But you must invite him. He asked you to his."
 
"Well, I didn't want to go," irritably, "you made me."
 
"But if he asks you to his you must ask him back."
 
"You don't want me to invite folks I don't want?" William said in the voice of one goaded against his will into exasperation.
 
"You must invite people who invite you," said Mrs. Brown firmly, "that's what we always do in parties."
 
"Then they've got to invite you again and it goes on and on and on," argued William. "Where's the sense of it? I don't like Johnnie Brent an' he don't like me, an' if we go on inviting each other an' our mothers go on making us go, it'll go on and on and on. Where's the sense of it? I only jus' want to know where's the sense of it?"
 
His logic was unanswerable.
 
"Well, anyway, William, I'll draw up the list. You can go and play."
 
William walked away, frowning, with his hands in his pockets.
 
"Where's the sense of it?" he muttered as he went.
 
He began to wend his way towards the spot where he, and Douglas, and Ginger, and Henry met daily in order to wile away the hours of the Christmas holidays. At present they lived and moved and had their being in the characters of Indian Chiefs.
 
As William walked down the back street, which led by a short cut to their meeting-place, he unconsciously assumed an arrogant strut, suggestive of some warrior prince surrounded by his gallant braves.
 
"Garn! Swank!"
 
He turned with a dark scowl.
 
On a doorstep sat a little girl, gazing up at him with blue eyes beneath a tousled mop of auburn hair.
 
William's eye travelled sternly from her Titian curls to her bare feet. He assumed a threatening attitude and scowled fiercely.
 
"You better not say that again," he said darkly.
 
"Why not?" she said with a jeering laugh.
 
"Well, you'd just better not," he said with a still more ferocious scowl.
 
"What'd you do?" she persisted.
 
He considered for a moment in silence. Then: "You'd see what I'd do!" he said ominously.
 
"Garn! Swank!" she repeated. "Now do it! Go on, do it!"
 
"I'll—let you off this time," he said judicially.
 
"Garn! Softie. You can't do anything, you can't! You're a softie!"
 
"I could cut your head off an' scalp you an' leave you hanging on a tree, I could," he said fiercely, "an' I will, too, if you go on calling me names."
 
"Softie! Swank! Now cut it off! Go on!"
 
He looked down at her mocking blue eyes.
 
"You're jolly lucky I don't start on you," he said threateningly. "Folks I do start on soon get sorry, I can tell you."
"What you do to them?"
 
He changed the subject abruptly.
 
"What's your name?" he said.
 
"Sheila. What's yours?"
 
"Red Hand—I mean, William."
 
"I'll tell you sumpthin' if you'll come an' sit down by me."
 
"What'll you tell me?"
 
"Sumpthin' I bet you don't know."
 
"I bet I do."
 
"Well, come here an' I'll tell you."
 
He advanced towards her suspiciously. Through the open door he could see a bed in a corner of the dark, dirty room and a woman's white face upon the pillow.
 
"Oh, come on!" said the little girl impatiently.
 
He came on and sat down beside her.
 
"Well?" he said condescendingly, "I bet I knew all the time."
 
"No, you didn't! D'you know," she sank her voice to a confidential whisper, "there's a chap called Father Christmas wot comes down chimneys Christmas Eve and leaves presents in people's houses?"
 
He gave a scornful laugh.
 
"Oh, that rot! You don't believe that rot, do you?"
 
"Rot?" she repeated indignantly. "Why, it's true—true as true! A boy told me wot had hanged his stocking up by the chimney an' in the morning it was full of things an' they was jus' the things wot he'd wrote on a bit of paper an' thrown up the chimney to this 'ere Christmas chap."
 
"Only kids believe that rot," persisted William. "I left off believin' it years and years ago!"
 
Her face grew pink with the effort of convincing him.
 
"But the boy told me, the boy wot got things from this 'ere chap wot comes down chimneys. An' I've wrote wot I want an' sent it up the chimney. Don't you think I'll get it?"
 
William looked down at her. Her blue eyes, big with apprehension, were fixed on him, her little rosy lips were parted. William's heart softened.
 
"I dunno," he said doubtfully. "You might, I s'pose. What d'you want for Christmas?"
 
"You won't tell if I tell you?"
 
"No."
 
"Not to no one?"
 
"No."
 
"Say, 'Cross me throat.'"
 
William complied with much interest and stored up the phrase for future use.
 
"Well," she sank her voice very low and spoke into his ear.
 
"Dad's comin' out Christmas Eve!"
 
She leant back and watched him, anxious to see the effect of this stupendous piece of news. Her face expressed pride and delight, William's merely bewilderment.
 
"Comin' out?" he repeated. "Comin' out of where?"
 
Her expression changed to one of scorn.
 
"Prison, of course! Silly!"
 
William was half offended, half thrilled.
 
"Well, I couldn't know it was prison, could I? How could I know it was prison without bein' told? It might of been out of anything. What—" in hushed curiosity and awe—"what was he in prison for?"
 
"Stealin'."
 
Her pride was unmistakable. William looked at her in disapproval.
 
"Stealin's wicked," he said virtuously.
 
"Huh!" she jeered, "you can't steal! You're too soft! Softie! You can't steal without bein' copped fust go, you can't."
 
"I could!" he said indignantly. "And, any way, he got copped di'n't he? or he'd not of been in prison, so there!"
 
"He di'n't get copped fust go. It was jus' a sorter mistake, he said. He said it wun't happen again. He's a jolly good stealer. The cops said he was and they oughter know."
 
"Well," said William changing the conversation, "what d'you want for Christmas?"
 
"I wrote it on a bit of paper an' sent it up the chimney," she said confidingly. "I said I di'n't want no toys nor sweeties nor nuffin'. I said I only wanted a nice supper for Dad when he comes out Christmas Eve. We ain't got much money, me an' Mother, an' we carn't get 'im much of a spread, but if this 'ere Christmas chap sends one fer 'im, it'll be—fine!"
 
Her eyes were dreamy with ecstasy. William stirred uneasily on his seat.
 
"I tol' you it was rot," he said. "There isn't any Father Christmas. It's jus' an' ole tale folks tell you when you're a kid, an' you find out it's not true. He won't send no supper jus' cause he isn't anythin'. He's jus' nothin'—jus' an ole tale——"
 
"Oh, shut up!" William turned sharply at the sound of the shrill voice from the bed within the room. "Let the kid 'ave a bit of pleasure lookin' forward to it, can't yer? It's little enough she 'as, anyway."
 
William arose with dignity.
 
"All right," he said. "Go'-bye."
 
He strolled away down the street.
 
"Softie!"
 
It was a malicious sweet little voice.
 
"Swank!"
 
William flushed but forbore to turn round.
 
That evening he met the little girl from next door in the road outside her house.
 
"Hello, Joan!"
 
"Hello, William!"
 
In these blue eyes there was no malice or mockery. To Joan William was a god-like hero. His very wickedness partook of the divine.
 
"Would you—would you like to come an' make a snow man in our garden, William?" she said tentatively.
 
William knit his brows.
 
"I dunno," he said ungraciously. "I was jus' kinder thinkin'."
 
She looked at him silently, hoping that he would deign to tell her his thoughts, but not daring to ask. Joan held no modern views on the subject of the equality of the sexes.
 
"Do you remember that ole tale 'bout Father Christmas, Joan?" he said at last.
 
She nodded.
 
"Well, s'pose you wanted somethin' very bad, an' you believed that ole tale and sent a bit of paper up the chimney 'bout what you wanted very bad and then you never got it, you'd feel kind of rotten, wouldn't you?"
 
She nodded again.
 
"I did one time," she said. "I sent a lovely list up the chimney and I never told anyone about it and I got lots of things for Christmas and not one of the things I'd written for!"
 
"Did you feel awful rotten?"
 
"Yes, I did. Awful."
 
"I say, Joan," importantly, "I've gotter secret."
 
"Do tell me, William!" she pleaded.
 
"Can't. It's a crorse-me-throat secret!"
 
She was mystified and impressed.
 
"How lovely, William! Is it something you're going to do?"
 
He considered.
 
"It might be," he said.
 
"I'd love to help." She fixed adoring blue eyes upon him.
 
"Well, I'll see," said the lord of creation. "I say, Joan, you comin' to my party?"
 
"Oh, yes!"
 
"Well, there's an awful lot comin'. Johnny Brent an' all that lot. I'm jolly well not lookin' forward to it, I can tell you."
 
"Oh, I'm so sorry! Why did you ask them, William?"
 
William laughed bitterly.
 
"Why did I invite them?" he said. "I don't invite people to my parties. They do that."
 
In William's vocabulary "they" always signified his immediate family circle.
 
William had a strong imagination. When an idea took hold upon his mind, it was almost impossible for him to let it go. He was quite accustomed to Joan's adoring homage. The scornful mockery of his auburn-haired friend was something quite new, and in some strange fashion it intrigued and fascinated him. Mentally he recalled her excited little face, flushed with eagerness as she described the expected spread. Mentally also he conceived a vivid picture of the long waiting on Christmas Eve, the slowly fading hope, the final bitter disappointment. While engaging in furious snowball fights with Ginger, Douglas, and Henry, while annoying peaceful passers-by with well-aimed snow missiles, while bruising himself and most of his family black and blue on long and glassy slides along the garden paths, while purloining his family's clothes to adorn various unshapely snowmen, while walking across all the ice (preferably cracked) in the neighbourhood and being several times narrowly rescued from a watery grave—while following all these light holiday pursuits, the picture of the little auburn-haired girl's disappointment was ever vividly present in his mind.
 
The day of his party drew near.
 
"My party," he would echo bitterly when anyone of his family mentioned it. "I don't want it. I don't want ole Johnnie Brent an' all that lot. I'd just like to un-invite 'em all."
 
"But you want Ginger and Douglas and Henry," coaxed his Mother.
 
"I can have them any time an' I don't like 'em at parties. They're not the same. I don't like anyone at parties. I don't want a party!"
 
"But you must have a party, William, to ask back people who ask you."
 
William took up his previous attitude.
 
"Well, where's the sense of it?" he groaned.
 
As usual he had the last word, but left his audience unconvinced. They began on him a full hour before his guests were due. He was brushed and scrubbed and scoured and cleaned. He was compressed into an Eton suit and patent leather pumps and finally deposited in the drawing-room, cowed and despondent, his noble spirit all but broken.
 
The guests began to arrive. William shook hands politely with three strangers shining with soap, brushed to excess, and clothed in ceremonial Eton suits—who in ordinary life were Ginger, Douglas, and Henry. They then sat down and gazed at each other in strained and unnatural silence. They could find nothing to say to each other. Ordinary topics seemed to be precluded by their festive appearance and the formal nature of the occasion. Their informal meetings were usually celebrated by impromptu wrestling matches. This being debarred, a stiff, unnatural atmosphere descended upon them. William was a "host," they were "guests"; they had all listened to final maternal admonitions in which the word "manners" and "politeness" recurred at frequent intervals. They were, in fact, for the time being, complete strangers.
 
Then Joan arrived and............