Every mother loves her biddies; Many a one have I; But where get gifts to fill their fists, When I've no gold to buy? Aha! (_Heads disappear quick._) There is a sprite oft comes this night, Whom children love full well; But what's his name, and where's his hame, He does not always tell. (_Heads appear as before._) Lads and lassies know good Santa, With presents not a few; Would he were here, my chicks to cheer, Living in a shoe! Aha! (_Heads disappear._) Well, I'll get in, and make the children warm. Tucked in their beds, they're always safe from harm. And in their dreams, perhaps, such gifts will rise As wakeful, wretched poverty denies. (_Disappears behind shoe._) _Enter cautiously_, R., SANTA CLAUS; _his fabled dress is hidden by a long domino, or "waterproof;" he has, swung about his neck, a tin kitchen, on which he grinds an imaginary accompaniment to his song_. _Santa._ "You'd scarce expect one of my age"— For gray hair is the symbol of the sage— To play at "hide-and-seek," to your surprise. Here's honest Santa Claus, in rough disguise. But 'tis all right, as I will quick explain, For I've a mystic project "on the brain." I've dropped down chimneys all this blessed night, Where warmth and comfort join to give delight; I've filled the stockings of the merry elves, Who, to fond parents, are rich gifts themselves; And now I've come, resolved to make a show In that old mansion with the copper toe, Where dwells a dame, with children great and small, Enough to stock a school, or crowd a hall. If they are worthy of our kind regard, Christmas shall bring to them a rich reward. So I have donned for once a meaner dress, To personate a beggar in distress. If to my wants they lend a listening ear, The rough old shoe shall glow with Christmas cheer: If they are rude, and turn me from the door, Presto! I vanish, and return no more. _Song_: SANTA CLAUS; _air_, "_Them blessed Roomatics._" My name's Johnny Schmoker, and I am no joker; I don't in my pockets no greenbacks perceive. For, what with high dressing in fashions distressing, I can't with a morsel my hunger relieve. My stomach so tender, that aches there engender; The whole blessed day I am crying out, "Oh!" Drat these grand fashions! they wakens my passions, A-nippin' and gnawin' my poor stomach so! (_Heads appear as before._)