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In his excitement when he felt the door move he swung it outward
sharply. It had not been used for some time evidently and the hinges
creaked. He checked the door and listened again. Was he to be balked
after so much success? He was greatly relieved at the absence of sound.
It was quite dark in the room. He could see nothing but the safe. He
reached his hand in and discovered it was filled with bulky articles
covered with some kind of cloth, silver evidently.

He decided that he must have a look and again he switched on the light.
Yes, his surmise had been correct. The safe was filled with silver.
There was a small steel drawer in the middle of it. He had a broad
bladed jack-knife in his pocket and at the risk of snapping the blade he
forced the lock and drew out the drawer. It was filled with papers. He
lifted the first one and stood staring at it in astonishment, for it
was an envelope which bore his name, written by a hand which had long
since mouldered away in the dust of a grave.

V

Before he could open the envelope, there broke on his ear a still small
voice, not that of conscience, not that of God; the voice of a
child–but does not God speak perhaps as often through the lips of
childhood as in any other way–and conscience, too?

“Are you Santa Claus?” the voice whispered in his ear.

“Crackerjack” dropped the paper and turned like a flash, knife upraised
in his clenched hand, to confront a very little girl and a still smaller
boy staring at him in open-eyed astonishment, an astonishment which was
without any vestige of alarm. He looked down at the two and they looked
up at him, equal bewilderment on both sides.

“I sought dat Santy Claus tame down de chimney,” said the younger of the
twain, whose pajamas bespoke the nascent man.

“In all the books he has a long white beard. Where’s yours?” asked the
coming woman.

This innocent question no less than the unaffected simplicity and
sincerity of the questioner overpowered “Crackerjack.” He sank back into
a convenient chair and stared at the imperturbable pair. There was a
strange and wonderful likeness in the sweet-faced golden-haired little
girl before him to the worn, haggard, and ill-clad little girl who lay
shivering in the mean bed in the upper room where God was not–or so he
fancied.

“You’re a little girl, aren’t you?” he whispered.

No voice had been or was raised above a whisper. It was a witching hour
and its spell was upon them all.

“Yes.”

“What is your name?”

“Helen.”

Now Helen had been “Crackerjack’s” mother’s name and it was the name of
his own little girl, and although everybody else called her Nell, to him
she was always Helen.

“And my name’s John,” volunteered the other child.

“John!” That was extraordinary!

“What’s your other name?”

“John William.”

The man stared again. Could this be coincidence merely? John was his own
name and William that of his brother.

“I mean what is your last name?”

“Carstairs,” answered the little girl. “Now you tell us who you are. You
aren’t Santa Claus, are you? I don’t hear any reindeers outside, or
bells, and you haven’t any pack, and you’re not by the fireplace where
our stockings are.”

“No,” said the man, “I’m not exactly Santa Claus, I’m his friend–I–“

What should he say to these children? In his bewilderment for the moment
he actually forgot the letter which he still held tightly in his hand.

“Dat’s muvver’s safe,” continued the little boy. “She keeps lots o’
things in it. It’s all hers but dat drawer. Dat’s papa’s and–“

“I think I hear some one on the stairs,” broke in the little girl
suddenly in great excitement. “Maybe that’s Santa Claus.”