t at once, "It's--so much nearer Christmas than it was half an hour ago! Are you sure everything will keep? All those big packages that came yesterday? That humpy one especially? Don't you think you ought to peep? Or poke? Just the teeniest, tiniest little peep or poke? It would be a shame if anything spoiled! A--turkey--or a--or a fur coat--or anything." "I am--making doughnuts," confided her Mother with the faintest possible taint of asperity. "O--h," conceded Flame. "And Father's watching them? Then I'll hurry! M--Mother?" deprecated the excited young voice. "You are always so horridly right! Lopsy and Beautiful-Lovely and Blunder-Blot are _not_ Christmasing all alone in the Rattle-Pane House! There is a man with them! Don't tell Father,--he's so nervous about men!" "A--man?" stammered her Mother. "Oh I hope not a young man! Where did he come from?" "Oh I don't think he came at all," confided Flame. It was Fla-

me who was perplexed this time. "He looks to me more like a person who had always been there! Like something I mean that the dogs found in the attic! Quite crumpled he is! And with a red waistcoat!--A--A butler perhaps?--A--A sort of a second hand butler? Oh Mother!--I wish we had a butler!" "Flame--?" interrupted her Mother quite abruptly. "Where are you doing all this telephoning from? I only gave you eighteen cents and it was to buy cereal with." "Cereal?" considered Flame. "Oh that's all right," she glowed suddenly. "I've paid cash for the telephoning and charged the cereal." With a swallow faintly guttural Flame's Mother hung up the receiver. "Dogs--do--not--have--butlers," she persisted unshakenly. She was perfectly right. They did not, it seemed. No one was quicker than Flame to acknowledge a mistake. Before five o'clock Flame had added a telephone item to the cereal bill. "Oh--Mother," questioned Flame.-

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