s brown and scarlet rooster, which he had found
on his Christmas tree the evening before. He had been put to bed
immediately thereafter and had gone to sleep with the rooster in his arms.
The fowl had a charmingly realistic crow, operated by a pneumatic device
upon which the baby had promptly learned to blow. He performed upon it
uninterruptedly throughout breakfast.

"See here, my son," said Anthony, hurriedly finishing his coffee, "let's
see if you can't appreciate some of your less voiceful toys. Here's a
rabbit with fine soft ears for you to pull. There's a train of cars. Let
me wind it for you. Your Grandfather Marcy must have expended several good
dollars on that--you want to show up an interest in it when he comes out
to see you to-day. And here's Auntie Dingley's pickaninny boy-doll--well,
I don't blame you for failing to embrace that. Auntie Dingley was born in
Massachusetts."

[Illustration: "Toys which can be relied upon to please a twenty
months old infant."]

The boy cast an indifferently polite eye on these gifts as their charms
were exhibited to him, and clasped the brown and scarlet rooster to his
breast. There were moments, half hours even, when he became sufficiently
diverted from his fowl to cease from making it crow, but at intervals
throughout the day the family were given to understand once for all that
it is not the most expensive and ornate toys which can be relied upon to
please a twenty-months-old infant. Even the automobile presented by Dr.
Roger Barnes, and warranted to go three times around the room without
stopping, was a tame affair to the recipient compared with the rooster's
shrill salute.

"Remember, Tony," Juliet had said, a month before Christmas, "you are not
to give me any expensive personal gift this year. I care for nothing half
so much as for making the home complete. If--if--you cared to give me
something toward the bathroom fund----"

"All right," said Anthony promptly, for he had learned by this time to
know his wife well. The bathroom fund was dear to her heart. The small
room at the front of the house upstairs, which had been left unfurnished,
had been temporarily fitted up as a bathroom by sundry ingenious devices
in the way of a tin bath and a hot and cold water connection, but a full
equipment of the best sort was to be put in as soon as practicable, and
there was a growing fund therefor.

On Christmas morning, nevertheless, in addition to a generous addition to
th