Brant said that. They stood where they were like the people in the
_Sleeping Beauty_, and Peter climbed up on to his chair again to see what
was going to happen. He pulled up his stockings, and then sat forward
in his chair with his eyes gazing at Stephen and his hands very tightly
clenched. When, afterwards, he grew up and thought at all about his
childhood, this scene always remained, over and beyond all the others. He
wondered sometimes why it was that he remembered it all so clearly, that
he had it so dramatically and forcibly before him, when many more recent
happenings were clouded and dull, but when he was older he knew that it was
because it stood for so much of his life, it was because that Christmas Eve
in those dim days was really the beginning of everything, and in the later
interpretation of it so much might be understood.

But, to a boy of that age, the things that stood out were not, of
necessity, the right things and any unreality that it might have had was
due perhaps to his fastening on the incidental, fantastic things that a
small child notices, always more vividly than a grown person. In the very
first instant of Stephen's speaking to the man with the muffler it was
Dicky the Fool's open mouth and staring eyes that showed Peter how
important it was. The Fool had risen from his chair and was standing
leaning forward, his back black against the blazing fire, his silly mouth
agape and great terror in his eyes. Being odd in his mind, he felt perhaps
something in the air that the others did not feel, and Peter seemed to
catch fright from his staring eyes.

The man at the door had turned round when Stephen Brant spoke to him, and
had pushed his way out of the crowd of men and stood alone fingering his
neck.

"I'm here, Stephen Brant, if yer want me."