Settlement workers, churches, schools, charity associations--things of
that sort doubtless saw to them. It was not his business. But wasn't
it his business? Could it possibly be his business to know--and care?

"I beg your pardon, sir."

Van Landing looked up. A tall, slender man in working-clothes, a
basket on one arm, his wife holding to the other, tried to touch his
hat. "The crowd makes walking hard without pushing. I hope I didn't
step on your foot."

"Didn't touch it." The man had on no overcoat, and his hands were red
and chapped. He was much too thin for his height, and as he coughed
Van Landing understood. "Shopping, I suppose?"

Why he asked he did not know, and it was the wife he asked, the young
wife whose timid clutch of her husband's arm was very unlike the
manner of most of the women he had passed. She looked up.

"We were afraid to wait until to-morrow, it's snowing so hard. We
might not be able to get out, and the children--"

"We've got three kiddies home." The man's thin face brightened, and he
rubbed his coat sleeve across his mouth to check his cough. "Santa
Claus is sure enough to them, and we don't want 'em to know different
till we have to. A merry Christmas, sir!"

As they went on Van Landing turned and looked. They were poor people.
But were they quite so poor as he? He had seen many for whom he might
have made Christmas had he known in time--might have saved the