he began to perform pedal convolutions of such
startling design and eccentricity that the boys gathered about him and
cheered until, seating himself unexpectedly in the center of a
particularly wide and airy flourish, he flatly told the boys to run
about their business.

Now Muggs, though he carried upon his shoulder a ridiculous pair of
elfin skates, was much too small a boy, his brother thought, to embark
upon the ice, wherefore he stood like a sentinel upon the shore and
drummed and ate incessantly, until an orange catapulted from an
overcrowded pocket, when he pursued it with a roar.

The peal of the village town-clock striking twelve came all too soon,
but homing was no task with a turkey at the end. Muggs, still wrapped in
mysterious silence, knew the very spot where Christmas odors began to
permeate the frosty air and redoubled the speed in his drumming arm, but
when after a vigorous scrubbing his glistening eye fell upon the
holly-bright table and an enormous turkey by the Doctor's plate, only a
frosty menace in Mike's eye, it seemed, restrained another
blood-curdling shriek of delight. There was paralyzing apology in his
eyes as Mike's lips formed the soundless threat--"Mom Murphy!"

"He's holdin' himself in," said Annie, "Mister Muggs, give me the drum!
Ye'll not crowd into the chair with that upon your shoulder!"

It seemed that Mister Muggs would. He began to swell. He began to drum.
He carried his point and crammed himself and his drum into his chair at
the table. He did not speak. Neither, from that time on, did he permit
any lapse in his industry. What Muggs did, from drum to drum-sticks, he
did well.

Muggs ate turkey and mashed turnips. Muggs ate potatoes, cranberry
sauce, boiled onions, and quite a little celery. He glinted ahead at a
pie on the sideboard, seemed to make hurried structural calculations,
and pushed his plate again toward the turkey. Aunt Ellen looked at the
Doctor and the Doctor looked at Muggs.

"If the child eats any more," said Annie bluntly from the kitchen door,
"he must have a pill. 'Tis enough for him to drum away the peace of the
Christmas day without stuffin' himself that hard and round ye fear for
his buttons. An' to my mind, if he'd talk more and eat less, he'd not be
in such danger o' burstin'."

Mike looked slightly agitated.

"Muggs," said the Doctor firmly, "it comes to this. More turkey--one
pill. No turkey--no pill."

Muggs exhibited a capacity for instant de