All the while Punch was speaking he was growing larger and larger, until at last he seemed as big as the giant in the pantomime, and then he gave a terrific jump from the top of the tree, and began to chase Jim upstairs. Oh! how the little boy ran, with Punch close behind him all the time. At length he reached the nursery, and with a bound sprang into his bed and tucked the clothes up round him. There he lay trembling for ever such a time, but when at length he ventured to peep out, the nursery was quite dark, and Punch had evidently gone away, so he curled himself up and went to sleep. The next day when the children were called in to the forbidden room, they simply danced and screamed with delight when they saw the beautiful Christmas-tree. At least all except Jim, for when he looked at the Punch doll on the top of the tree, it seemed to him that it was frowning at him, and he made up his mind _never_ to peep through cracks of doors again, when it was forbidden him, however much he might want to know what was behind them. Now, before he had made this good resolution he had been thoroughly miserable. He could take no pleasure at all in the beautiful presents which Mother gathered for them from the Christmas-tree, for all the time he was watching the Punch doll to see if he would come down from his perch and chase him upstairs again. No sooner did he resolve to be a better boy in future than the expression on Punch’s face changed in a most surprising manner: he seemed almost to smile at Jimmy. [Illustration] Even when the tree was stripped of everything except Punch, and the children were busy pulling the plums out of the big snapdragon Father had lighted, Jimmy fancied the old fellow nodded his head at him once or twice in a friendly fashion, and the little boy was so relieved and happy that he clapped his hands for joy, and shouted with the rest. _L. L. Weedon._ THE GRATEFUL PEDLAR THERE was once a poor old pedlar who sold ribbons and brooches and tapes and needles; his hair was long and his back was bent, and perhaps he did look rather strange; but that was no reason why the boys should have called him names and thrown stones at him as he went through the village. At last a stone hit him on the forehead and he fell on the dusty road, and the bad boys ran away, afraid of what they had done. But one boy named Jack had seen the thing from a field some way off, and now he came running up, and bathed the poor old man’s head and spoke kindly to him, and when the pedlar was better he said: “You are a good boy and you may have what you like out of my pack.” Now, Jack did not like to take anything valuable out of a poor man’s pack, so he looked at all the pretty things, and then he picked out an old knife. [Illustration] The pedlar laughed. “You have chosen the most valuable thing I have,” he said; “that knife will cut through iron or stone as easily as through butter.”