too; for at sight of me descending
the stairs in my idiotic outfit they betrayed no surprise at all.
One of them set his tray down on a table, stepped neatly ahead as Mr
Felix reached the lowest stair, and opened a door for us on the
right. I found myself at a stand on the threshold, blinking at a
blaze of light, and staring up a perspective of waxed floor at a
miniature stage which filled the far end of the room. Light, as
every one knows, travels farther than sound: were it not so, I should
say that almost ahead of the blaze there broke on us a din of
voices--of happy children's voices. Certainly it stunned my ears
before I had time to blink.

The room was lined with children--scores of children: and some of
them were gathered in little groups, and some of them, panting and
laughing from their dance, had dropped into the chairs ranged along
the walls. But these were the minority. The most of the guests lay
in cots, or sat with crutches beside them, or with hands dropped in
their laps. These last were the blind ones. I do not set up to be a
lover of children: but the discovery that the most of these small
guests were crippled hit me with a kind of pitiful awe; and right on
top of it came a second and worse shock, to note how many of them
were blind.

To me these blind eyes were the only merciful ones, as Mr Felix
beckoned Father Christmas to follow him up to the stage between the
two lines of curious gazers. 'O--oh!' had been their first cry as
they caught sight of me in the doorway: and 'O--oh!' I heard them
murmuring, child after child, in long-drawn fugue, as we made our way
up the long length of the room that winked detection from every
candle, every reflector, every foot of its polished floor.

We gained the stage together by a short stairway draped with flags.
Mr Felix with a wave of his opera-hat, called on the orchestra to
strike up 'A Fine Old English Gentleman' (meaning me or, if you like
it, Father Christmas: and I leave you to picture the fool I looked).
Then, stepping to the footlights, he introduced me, explaining that
he had met me wandering upstairs, rifling his most secret drawers to
fill my bag with seasonable presents for them. Five or six times he
interrupted his patter to pluck a cracker or a bon-bon out of my
beard, and toss it down to his audience. The children gasped at
first, and stared at the magic spoil on the floor. By-and-by one
adventurous little girl crept forward, and pick