Sam looked at him with a frown of rebuke.

“It’s just a present,” he said.  “And it didn’t cost a cent.  I didn’t buy it.  I—­we found it!”

“Found it in the street?” Joe’s eyes shone.

“Yah!” the boys nodded.

“Oh, it is a Christmas present!” cried Joe.  “Santa Claus must have dropped it there for me, because he knew we hadn’t any chimney in this house, and he sent you kind, kind boys to bring it to me.”

The two urchins looked sideways at each other, but said nothing.  Presently Sam drew out the box from his pocket and tried to thrust it into Ike’s hand.  “You give it to ’um,” he said.  “You’re the biggest.”

“Naw!  You give it.  You found it,” protested Ike.

“Ah, g’wan!”

“Big fool!”

There was a tussle, and it almost seemed as if the past unpleasantness was to be repeated from an opposite cause.  But Joe’s voice settled the dispute.

“Oh, Sammy, please!” he cried.  “I can’t wait another minute.  Do please give it to me now!”

At these words Sam stepped forward without further argument and laid the box on the bed in front of the little cripple.  The babies crowded about.  The mother left her machine and stood smiling faintly at the foot of the bed.

Joe pressed the spring. Ping! Out sprang the Jack-in-the-box, with the same red nose, the same leer, the same roguish eyes which had surprised the children of fifty years ago.

[Illustration:  PING! OUT SPRANG THE JACK-IN-THE-BOX]

Jack was always sure of his audience.  My!  How they screamed and begged Joe to “do it again.”  And as for Joe, he lay back on his pillow and laughed and laughed as though he would never stop.  It was the first Jack any of them had seen.

Tears stood in the mother’s eyes.  “Well,” she said, “it’s as good as a play to see him.  Joe hasn’t laughed like that for months.  You boys have done him lots of good.  I wouldn’t wonder if it helped him get well!  If you was Christians I’d say you showed the real Christmas spirit.  But Lord—­perhaps ye do, all the same!  I dunno!”

Sam and Ike were so busy playing with the children that they did not hear.

* * * * *

Gradually the tenement house faded and became a blur before Miss Terry’s eyes.  Once more she saw the mantel-shelf before her and the Christmas Angel with outstretched arms waving to and fro.  “You see!” he said.  “You did not guess all the pleasure that was shut up in that box with old Jack, did you?”

Miss Terry shook her head.

“And you see how different it all was from what you thought.  Now let us see what became of the Canton-flannel dog.”

“The Flanton Dog.”  Miss Terry amended the phrase under her breath.  It seemed so natural to use Tom’s word.

“Yes, the Flanton Dog,” the Angel smiled.  “What do you think became of him?”