"We could make two loads of it, sir," he said. "I c'n take your wife and half the bundles up first and come back--"
"It isn't to be thought off," interrupted Bosworth, quickly. "Don't you remember me, Tobias?"
"It--it ain't Mr. Van Pycke? Well, by gracious! It beats the--"
Bosworth checked him in time. To Miss Pembroke he said: "Tobias drove me all the way from the freshman class to the senior."
"I knew it, Mr. Van Pycke. That's why I engaged him."
Tobias was suddenly confused. "Excuse me, I was thinking of another gentleman when I said wife, sir. My mistake, sir. It sha'n't happen again."
"Don't make rash statements like that, Tobias," said Bosworth, boldly. "You can't tell what will happen."
"Put the bundles in, Tobias," said Miss Pembroke quietly, far from amused. "Mr. Van Pycke must ride on the seat with you. He has done it a great many times, if tradition is to be trusted."
"Drive us into the alley at the rear of Mr. Pembroke's house, please. We're going in through the kitchen, Mr. Van Pycke. There's to be a Christmas tree at three o'clock. You are to be Santa Claus. I'll secrete you in the butler's pantry until it is time for you to appear. Now, please don't object. We have the fur coat and the whiskers and the red cap. All you have to do is to come in and play you're delighted. You will read off the names and--now, _do_ be nice! You know it will be great fun."
He could not resist the appeal in her eyes. It seemed to him that to be disagreeable about it--or even reluctant--would be the most dastardly crime imaginable. He caught the spirit.
"Oh, lovely," she cried. "Hurry up, please. It's after two, and I still have to put some things on the tree."
She squeezed into the decrepit little hack, laughing joyously. He scrambled up beside Tobias, clinging manfully to less than ten inches of seat, a splendid grin on his face all the way across town, utterly oblivious to the curious stares of Christmas pedestrians who passed them by.
He was thinking only of her smile of delight and of the amazing change it had wrought in him--like a flash, so to speak. Already Christmas was beginning to mean a great deal to him.
The chatty Tobias, reminiscent and more or less paternal, swung into an alley entrance in course of time,--not without a smug uplifting of his left eyebrow,--and trotted his venerable nag onward until a sharp rapping on the window-glass from within brought him to a rather heroic stop between two widely separated back gates.