The dark has frightened him these
three years past."
I turned up the lights and the bright glare revealed all
the more cruelly the tattered figure before us.
Father Christmas advanced a timid step across the floor.
Then he paused, as if in sudden fear.
"Is this floor mined?" he said.
"No, no," said Time soothingly. And to me he added in a
murmured whisper, "He's afraid. He was blown up in a mine
in No Man's Land between the trenches at Christmas-time
in 1914. It broke his nerve."
"May I put my toys on that machine gun?" asked Father
Christmas timidly. "It will help to keep them dry."
"It is not a machine gun," said Time gently. "See, it is
only a pile of books upon the sofa." And to me he whispered,
"They turned a machine gun on him in the streets of
Warsaw. He thinks he sees them everywhere since then."
"It's all right, Father Christmas," I said, speaking as
cheerily as I could, while I rose and stirred the fire
into a blaze. "There are no machine guns here and there
are no mines. This is but the house of a poor writer."
"Ah," said Father Christmas, lowering his tattered hat
still further and attempting something of a humble bow,
"a writer? Are you Hans Andersen, perhaps?"
"Not quite," I answered.
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