een nothing rising to the apparent dignity
of candy-shop or grocery-store made him dismiss the notion as untenable.
Presently unfamiliar doings developed. The children who could write
scribbled notes on odd sheets of paper, which the nurses burned in the
fireplace with solemn incantations. Something in the locked dining-room
was an object of pointed interest. Things were going on there, and
expeditions to penetrate the mystery were organized at brief intervals,
and as often headed off by watchful nurses.

When, finally, the children were gotten upstairs and undressed, from the
headpost of each of thirty-six beds there swung a little stocking, limp
and yawning with mute appeal. Gimpy had "caught on" by this time: it was a
wishing-bee, and old Santa Claus was supposed to fill the stockings with
what each had most desired. The consultation over, baby George had let him
into the game. Baby George did not know enough to do his own wishing, and
the thirty-five took it in hand while he was being put to bed.

"Let's wish for some little dresses for him," said big Mariano, who was
the baby's champion and court of last resort; "that's what he needs." And
it was done. Gimpy smiled a little disdainfully at the credulity of the
"kids." The Santa Claus fake was out of date a long while in his tenement.
But he voted for baby George's dresses, all the same, and even went to
the length of recording his own wish for a good baseball bat. Gimpy was
coming on.

Going to bed in that queer place fairly "stumped" Gimpy. "Peeli'" had
been the simplest of processes in Little Italy. Here they pulled a
fellow's clothes off only to put on another lot, heavier every way, with
sweater and hood and flannel socks and mittens to boot, as if the boy were
bound for a tussle with the storm outside rather than for his own warm
bed. And so, in fact, he was. For no sooner had he been tucked under the
blankets, warm and snug, than the nurses threw open all the windows, every
one, and let the gale from without surge in and through as it listed; and
so they left them. Gimpy shivered as he felt the frosty breath of the
ocean nipping his nose, and crept under the blanket for shelter. But
presently he looked up and saw the other boys snoozing happily like so
many little Eskimos equipped for the North Pole, and decided to keep them
company. For a while he lay thinking of the strange things that had
happened that day, since his descent into the Subway. If the gang c