“Oh, Jeremy!” She suddenly flung her arms round his neck and kissed him. Hamlet barked and escaped the brush and comb, then seized Mary’s hair ribbon, that had, as usual, fallen to the floor, and ran with it to a distant corner. Incidents followed that had nothing to do with presents. Then when Christmas Day grew very near indeed, those parcels at the bottom of his play-box became an obsession. He went up a hundred times a day to look at them, to take them out and stroke them, to feel their knobs and protruding angles, to replace them, first in this way and then in that. Sometimes he laid them all out upon the bed, sometimes he spread them in a long line across the carpet. He brought up Hamlet and made him look at them. Hamlet sniffed each parcel, then wanted to tear the paper wrappings; finally, he lay on the carpet and rattled in his throat, wagging his tail and baring his teeth. Christmas Eve arrived, a beautiful, clear, frosty day. III Jeremy came in from his morning walk, his cheeks crimson, looking very nautical in his blue reefer coat. He went straight up to his room, locked the door, and opened the play-box. The parcels were all there. He counted them, felt them, sighed a sigh of satisfaction and pride, then closed the play-box again. He took off his coat and went downstairs. Helen, meeting him in the hall, cried: “Oh, Jeremy, father wants to see you.” “Where?” “In the study.” Jeremy paused. The word “study” had always a strangely disagreeable sound. Their father never wished to see any of them there unless for some very unpleasant purpose. He threw his mind back. What had he been doing? What sin had he within the last day or two committed? He could think of nothing. His parcels had kept him quiet. Both he and Hamlet had been very good. Only Aunt Amy had spoken to him about sulking. But that had been over a week ago. No, he had been very good. There could be nothing. Nevertheless, he walked down the hall with slow and hesitating step. Hamlet wanted to come with him. He had to stop him. Hamlet sat down near the door and watched him enter with anxious eyes. He did not like Mr. Cole. The study was a close, dark room lined with book-shelves, rows and rows of theological works all dusty and forlorn. In the middle of the left wall between the book-shelves hung a large photograph of the Forum, Rome, and on the similar space on the other wall a photograph of the Parthenon. Behind a large desk sat Mr. Cole, very thin, very black, very white. His small son stood on the other side of the desk and looked at him. “Well, my boy, what is it?” “Helen said you wanted me.” He shifted from one foot to the other and looked anxiously at the Forum. “Did I? Ah, let me see. . . . What was it? Hum, ha. Ah, yes. Of course. It’s your journey-money. I should have asked you many days ago. I thought your mother had taken it. She had apparently forgotten.” Journey-money? Of what was he talking? Journey-money?