"Heaven grant I may always be as much," said the Idiot. "For if a father is Santa Claus, and a boy or a girl believes in Santa Claus as a friend, as a companion, as something that brings them only sincerity and love and sympathy, then may we feel that Tiny Tim's prayer has been answered, and that God has blessed us all." XI AS TO NEW-YEAR'S DAY It was New-Year's eve, and Mr. and Mrs. Idiot with their old friends were watching the old year die. The old year had been a fairly successful one for them all, and they were properly mournful over its prospective demise, but the promise of the new was sufficiently bright to mitigate their sorrow. "What a sandwich life is, after all!" ejaculated the Idiot. Mr. Pedagog started nervously. The remark was so idiotic that even its source seemed to make it inexcusable. [Illustration: "'I DON'T QUITE CATCH YOUR DRIFT'"] "I don't quite catch your drift," said he. "As the man said when an avalanche of snow fell off his neighbor's roof and missed him by an inch," said the Idiot. "Why, just think a moment, Doctor, and my drift will overwhelm you. Look about you and consider what we have ourselves demonstrated to-night. If that does not prove life a series of emotional sandwiches, then I don't know what a sandwich is. Twenty minutes ago we were all gladness over the prosperity of the year gone by. Five minutes ago we were all on the verge of tears because the good old year is going the way of all years. An hour from now we will be joyously acclaiming the new. Two thick slices of joy with a thin slice of grief between." "Ah!" said Mr. Pedagog. "I see. There is something in the analogy, after all. The bread of joy and the ham of sorrow, as you might put it; do make up the sum of human existence; but in some cases, my lad, I am afraid you will find there is only one slice of bread to two of ham." "No doubt," replied the Idiot, "but that does not affect my proposition that life is a sandwich. If one slice of ham between two slices of bread is a ham sandwich, why is not one slice of bread between two slices of ham a bread sandwich? What is a sandwich, anyhow? The dictionary says that a sandwich is something placed between two other things; hence, all things are sandwiches, because there is nothing in the world, the world being round, that is not between two other things. Therefore, all things being sandwiches, life is a sandwich, Q. E. D." "Is life a thing?" demanded Mr. Pedagog. "Certainly," said the Idiot. "And a mighty good thing, too. If you don't believe it look the word thing up in the dictionary. All things are things." "But," continued the Schoolmaster, his old spirit of antagonism rising up in his breast, "granted that life is a thing, what is it between so that it becomes a sandwich?" "The past and the future," said the Idiot. "It is a slice of the immediate between a slice of past and one of future." Mr. Pedagog laughed. "You are still the same old Idiot," he said.