But by and by, when the right time had come, the folding-doors were opened, just like the two covers to a Christmas fairy book.  Then, in a second, it was so still you might have heard a pin drop.

Such a funny little old gentleman had arrived:  his face alive with dimples, and smiles, and wrinkles.  His cheeks were as red and round as winter apples, and where there wasn’t a wrinkle there was a dimple; and no doubt there was a dimple in his chin, and his chin maybe was double, only you couldn’t tell, for it was hidden ever so deep under a beard as white as a snow-drift.

He walked along, tottering under the weight of a huge pack full of presents.  He extended his small arms towards the audience most affectionately, and you could see that his antiquated coat-sleeves were bristling with toys and glistening with ornaments.  His eyes twinkled with fun, and his mouth, which seemed nearly worn out with laughing, grew bigger every minute.

It took the dear old gentleman some time to clear his throat; but when he had found his voice, which at first was as fine as a knitting-needle, and all of a tremble, he made

THE SPEECH OF SANTA CLAUS.

“How do, my darlings?  How do, all round?  Bless your little hearts, how do you all do?  Did they tell ye Santa wasn’t a-comin’, my dears?  Did your grandpas and grandmas say, ‘Humph! there isn’t any such a person.’  My love to the good old people.  I know they mean all right; but tell them they’ll have to give it up now!”

(Here Santa Claus made a low bow.  Everybody laughed and clapped; but Prudy whispered, “O, don’t he look old all over?  What has he done with his teeth?  O, dear, has anybody pulled ’em out?”)

“Yes, my dears,” continued the old gentleman, encouraged by the applause,—­“yes, my dears, here I am, as jolly as ever!  But bless your sweet little hearts, I’ve had a terrible time getting here!  The wind has been blowin’ me up as fierce as you please, and I’ve been shook round as if I wasn’t of more account than a kernel of corn in a popper!

“O, O, I’ve been ducked up to the chin in some awful deep snow-drifts, up there by the North Pole!  This is the very first time the storms have come so heavy as to cover over the end of the North Pole!  But this year they had to dig three days before they could find it.  O, ho!

“I was a-wanderin’ round all last night; a real shivery night, too!  Got so broke up, there’s nothing left of me but small pieces.  O, hum!

“Such a time as I had in some of those chimneys, you haven’t any idee!  Why, if you’ll believe me, over there in Iceland somebody forgot to clear out the chimney, and there I stuck fast, like a fish-bone in your throat; couldn’t be picked out, couldn’t be swallowed!

“The funniest time that was!  How I laughed!  And then the children’s mother woke up, and, ‘O, dear,’ said she; ’hear the wind sigh down the chimney!’ ‘Only me,’ says I; ‘and I’ve caught you napping this time!’ She helped me out, and when I had caught my breath, I climbed out the window; but, deary me, I shouldn’t wonder if that very woman went to sleep again, and thought it was all a dream!  Heigh-ho! that’s the way they always treat poor Santa Claus nowadays.”