what they were
for, Felix had seized them with a cry of joy: "Oil cups! They fit on
the tops of these church lamps. I never expected to find these! Mike!
Go over to Mr. Pestler's and tell him to send me a small box of floating
night-tapers--the smallest he has. Now, Tootcums, you wait and see!"

And then the step-ladder was moved up, and Mike and one of the
Dutchies passed up the lamps to Felix, who drove the hooks into the
rafters--twenty-two of them--and then slid down to the floor, taking in
the general effect, only to clamber up again to lengthen this chain, or
shorten that, so that the whole ceiling, when the cups were filled and
the tapers lighted, would be a blaze of red stars hung in a firmament of
dull, yellow-washed gold.

The final touch came last. This was both a surprise and a discovery.
Hans had found it flattened out on the top of a big, circular table,
and was about to tear it loose when Felix, who let nothing escape
his vigilant eye, seized its metal handle, whereupon the mass sagged,
tilted, straightened, and then rounded out into a superb Chinese lantern
of yellow silk, decorated with black dragons, with only one tear in its
entire circumference, and that one Auntie Gossburger darned so skilfully
that nobody noticed the hole. This, Felix, after much consideration,
swung to the rafter immediately over the throne, so that its mellow
light should fall directly on the child's face.

Kling, while these preparations were in progress, was in a state of mind
bordering on the pathetic. Felix had made him promise not to come up
until the room was finished, but every few hours his head would be
thrust up over the edge of the stairs, his eyes screwed up in his fat
face, an expression of wonder, not unmixed with anxiety, flitting across
his countenance. Then he would back down-stairs, muttering to himself
all the time; his chief cause of complaint being the hiding of so many
things his customers might want to buy and the displaying of so many
others at which they might only want to look!

There was, however, even after the decorations seemed complete, a bare
corner to be filled with something neither too big, nor too small, nor
too insistent in color or form. Felix went twice over the stock, old
and new, twisted and turned, and was about to give up when he
suddenly called to Masie, his face lighting under the glow of a fresh
inspiration:

"I have it now! Come, Tootcums, with me! Mr. Sanderson will help us
o