"No. I'm going to do it now."

He went out into the dining-room, where his mother was, and slipping his
arms around her little body, said: "What do you think, Mammy?"

"Well, what?" she asked, looking affectionately into his eyes.

"I got five hundred dollars to-night, and I get thirty a week next year.
What do you want for Christmas?"

"You don't say! Isn't that nice! Isn't that fine! They must like you.
You're getting to be quite a man, aren't you?"

"What do you want for Christmas?"

"Nothing. I don't want anything. I have my children."

He smiled. "All right. Then nothing it is."

But she knew he would buy her something.

He went out, pausing at the door to grab playfully at his sister's
waist, and saying that he'd be back about midnight, hurried to
Marjorie's house, because he had promised to take her to a show.

"Anything you want for Christmas this year, Margy?" he asked, after
kissing her in the dimly-lighted hall. "I got five hundred to-night."

She was an innocent little thing, only fifteen, no guile, no shrewdness.