Here and there in the streets you will see groups of boys and girls clustered around a linen-draper’s shop. For it is the linen drapers who especially love to display in their windows a life-like image of Saint Nicholas, ruddy-faced, white-bearded, crowned with his mitre and clad in his bright red robe lined with soft white fur, bearing a crozier in his hand, and mounted on a fiery white horse. Behind him stands his negro servant Jan, or John. On December 5th, the eve of the saint’s feast, he is said to ride over the roofs of the houses, dropping candies into the wide chimneys. And indeed, in houses where children believe this, their faith is rewarded by the fact that candies and other goodies do stream down into the great open hearths and are gathered in by eager little people who have been singing the saint’s praises all through the evening. In many households, moreover, the saint actually presents himself to the eyes of his worshippers and admirers. A knock is heard at the door; it is opened, and amid the breathless silence of the children, Santa Klaus, in flesh and blood, and in all the glory of scarlet robe and bejewelled mitre, steps into the room. He is closely followed by his servant Jan, who bears a basket containing all sorts of presents for the good children, and all sorts of unpleasant reminders for the bad ones. [Illustration: Santa Claus comes to grief on an automobile. Copyright 1908 by Life Publishing Company.] Before these things are distributed, Santa Klaus calls up the children one by one. He praises the good ones for all the kind deeds they have done during the past year, while gently reproving any faults which may have mingled with their virtues. To the bad ones he is stern but just. He reminds them of their misdeeds, and tells them that he cannot give them any presents until they improve. If they have been very, very bad, he hands a birch-rod over to their parents with the advice that it should be used upon their little backs in the task of reformation. Great is the wonder that Santa Klaus should know so much about the children in a whole neighborhood. He goes, or is supposed to go, from house to house in the course of the day, and everywhere he praises the virtues or condemns the faults of the boys and girls arrayed to meet him. Sometimes it is found, by comparing notes, that he was in two or more houses at the same time. Of course, you who have had your eyes opened, guess that the part of Santa Klaus is taken by some older member of each family, who confines his visits to his own circle of relatives. Except in very small villages, there are many Santa Klauses, therefore, going the rounds on Saint Nicholas’s day, each well acquainted in the houses he visits.