"Oh, the same old slippers," said the Idiot. "You know the ones I mean--the ones he's going to get from Santa Claus. Really, I'm not surprised, after all. If I were a minister, and realized that truckloads of embroidered slippers of every size and color, covered with stags of red worsted jumping over rivulets of yellow floss, with split agates for eyes set in over the toe, were to be dumped in my front yard every Christmas Eve by that old reprobate, Santa Claus, I think I, too, would set him down as a fraud, or an overworked cobbler, anyhow." [Illustration: "'DR. PREACHLY ONLY GOT EIGHT PAIRS LAST XMAS'"] "That's exaggerated--a comic-paper idea," said Mrs. Idiot. "I don't believe the average clergyman gets so many slippers. Dr. Preachly only got eight pairs last Christmas." "Is that all?" cried the Idiot. "Mercy, what a small income of slippers! Dear me! how can he live with only eight pairs of slippers? But, after all, slippers are an appropriate gift for a clergyman," he added, "and Santa Claus should be credited with that fact. Slippers have soles, and the more slippers he gets the easier it is to save their soles, and therefore--" "Really, my dear, you are flippant," said Mrs. Idiot. "Not at all," rejoined the Idiot. "I am merely trying to sit on two stools at once--to retain my respect for Dr. Preachly without giving up my everlasting regard for Santa Claus. If I can't do both I am very much afraid it will be Dr. Preachly, and not Santa Claus, who will go to the wall in this establishment, and that would be sad. I can't say I think much of the doctor's logic. Do you?" "I didn't notice his logic," Mrs. Idiot replied. "Very likely," said the Idiot; "from what you tell me of his discourse I imagine he must have left it at home, which is a bad thing to do in an argument. To begin, he called Santa a lie, did he?" "Yes; said he didn't exist at all." "Good! Then how could he have been a snob?" "Why, while of course I have no sympathy with his conclusions, Dr. Preachly handled that point pretty well. It certainly is true that in the homes of the rich there is a lavishness of gifts that you don't find in the homes of the poor, and therefore Santa Claus treats the rich better than he does the poor. We all know that." "Hum!" said the Idiot. "And so it is Santa Claus who is the snob, eh, and not Fortune?" "Well, Dr. Preachly did not touch upon that. All he said was that Santa Claus was a snob for favoring 'high society' and in many cases absolutely ignoring the submerged." "But I don't see how," said the Idiot. "Suppose he brings a diamond necklace to the daughter of a Croesus?" "Precisely," said the Idiot. [Illustration: "'A CHINA DOLL TO THE DAUGHTER OF A CARPENTER'"] "And a china doll to the daughter of a carpenter?" said Mrs. Idiot. "That's tact, not snobbishness," said the Idiot. "What would the daughter of a carpenter do with a diamond necklace? The china doll is not only more appropriate, but a better plaything."