After the morning meal had been eaten, John devoured the contents of a candy-filled cornucopia from the tree, and drew on his stocking cap, coat, and mittens. Louise's presents were to be delivered, and that was a matter which brooked no unseemly delay. Mrs. Martin's sister answered his ring at the apartment. "Louise home?" he inquired eagerly. Her aunt explained that Louise had gone out of town with her mother for a three-day Christmas visit. "She'll be back, the day after tomorrow," she consoled him. So he left the presents in her charge with instructions to give them to his lady on the very moment of her arrival, and scampered down the carpeted stairway again. Sid DuPree met him in front of his house. John surveyed him warily. "'Lo!" "'Lo!" "What'd your folks give you?" "Oh, lots of things. What'd you get?" Sid stopped a moment to recount his various gifts, lest one of them be omitted in the effort to impress his neighbor. "'Nother football," he boasted. "Cost five dollars, it did." "I got a railway with forty-'leven pieces of track." "My uncle sent me a peachy pair of boxing gloves," Sid continued. "Just wait till you see what my uncle sends me. Always comes in the mail, it does, but it hasn't come yet. Besides, I got a new sled." "And I've got a punching bag." "But you ought to see my 'lectric motor," retorted John, still undaunted. "You just wait till you see the toys I make for it to run." Sid had saved his last and most cherished possession until the last. "My mother, she gave me a real gun, a Winchester. It'll shoot across the lake, it shoots so far. I'm going hunting with it on the ranch, next summer." "That's all right." John was not in the least nonplussed. "But the cops won't let you shoot it in the city, and you've got to wait until spring comes before you can use it. I can go home and have all sorts of fun with _all_ my things, _now_." Silvey and Perry sauntered up. "'Lo!" came the inevitable greeting. "'Lo!" came the inevitable reply. "What did you get for Christmas?" asked Perry. John allied himself instantly with Sid in the effort to outboast the new arrivals. "Sid's got a sure enough gun," he said impressively. "Bigger'n I am." "And John's got an electric motor," chimed in Sid as John finished. "He's going to hitch it on his his new sled with a pair of oars, and go rowing over the snow when snow comes. My, but it's strong!" "We've got a Christmas tree," spoke up Silvey. "So've we," said John. "So've we," Perry added. "But mine's bigger'n any of yours," Bill insisted. "It's so big, we most had to cut a hole in the ceiling to set it up. And wide? It's so wide I can hardly get in the room with it." "'Tain't," exclaimed John incredulously. "Nothing can be bigger'n ours." "Come and see," was Silvey's unanswerable retort. So the quartette trooped up the street to "come and see."