“Whatcher want it fer, Sam?” he blubbered as he saw it go into the little fellow’s pocket.

“Mind yer own business!  I just want it,” answered Sam surlily.

“Betcher I know,” taunted the bigger boy.

“Betcher yer don’t.”

“Do!”

“Don’t!”

Another fight seemed imminent.  But wisdom prevailed with Sammy.  He would not challenge fate a third time.  “Come on, then, and see,” he grunted.

And Ike followed.  Off the two trudged, through the brilliantly lighted streets, until they came to a part of the city where the ways were narrower and dark.

“Huh!  Knowed you was comin’ here,” commented Ike as they turned into a grim, dirty alley.

Little Sam growled, “Didn’t!” apparently as a matter of habit.

“Did!” reasserted Ike.  “Just where I was comin’ myself.”

Sam turned to him with a grin.

“Was yer now?  By—!  Ain’t that funny?  I thought of it right off.”

“Sure.  Same here!”

They both burst into a guffaw and executed an impromptu double-shuffle of delight.  They were at the door of a tenement house with steep stairs leading into darkness.  Up three flights pounded the two pairs of heavy boots, till they reached a half-open door, whence issued the clatter of a sewing-machine and the voices of children.  Sam stood on the threshold grinning debonairly, with hands thrust into his pockets.  Ike peered over his shoulder, also grinning.

It was a meagre room into which they gazed, a room the chief furniture of which seemed to be babies.  Two little ones sprawled on the floor.  A third tiny tot lay in a broken-down carriage beside the door.  A pale, ill-looking woman was running the machine.  On the cot bed was crumpled a fragile little fellow of about five, and a small pair of crutches lay across the foot of the bed.

When the two boys appeared in the doorway, the woman stopped her machine and the children set up a howl of pleasure.  “Sammy!  Ikey!” cried the woman, smiling a wan welcome, as the babies crept and toddled toward the newcomers.  “Where ye come from?”

“Been to see the shops and the lights in the swell houses,” answered Sammy with a grimace.  “Gee!  Ain’t they wastin’ candles to beat the cars!”

“Enough to last a family a whole year,” muttered Ike with disgust.

The woman sighed.  “Maybe they ain’t wasted exactly,” she said.  “How I’d like to see ’em!  But I got to finish this job.  I told the chil’ren they mustn’t expect anything this Christmas.  But they are too little to know the difference anyway; all but Joe.  I wish I had something for Joe.”

“I got something for Joe,” said Sammy unexpectedly.

The face of the pale little cripple lighted.

“What is it?” he asked eagerly.  “Oh, what is it?  A real Christmas present for me?”

“Naw!  It ain’t a Christmas present,” said Sam.

“We don’t care anything about Christmas,” volunteered Ikey with a grin.