his shoulder and got into the chimney.

There was plenty of soot on the bricks, but he did not mind that, and
by placing his hands and knees against the sides he crept downward
until he had reached the fireplace. Leaping lightly over the
smoldering coals he found himself in a large sitting-room, where a dim
light was burning.

From this room two doorways led into smaller chambers. In one a woman
lay asleep, with a baby beside her in a crib.

Claus laughed, but he did not laugh aloud for fear of waking the baby.
Then he slipped a big doll from his pack and laid it in the crib. The
little one smiled, as if it dreamed of the pretty plaything it was to
find on the morrow, and Claus crept softly from the room and entered
at the other doorway.

Here were two boys, fast asleep with their arms around each other's
neck. Claus gazed at them lovingly a moment and then placed upon the
bed a drum, two horns and a wooden elephant.

He did not linger, now that his work in this house was done, but
climbed the chimney again and seated himself on his sledge.

"Can you find another chimney?" he asked the reindeer.

"Easily enough," replied Glossie and Flossie.

Down to the edge of the roof they raced, and then, without pausing,
leaped through the air to the top of the next building, where a huge,