“I followed the sea,” he told them once, “and that’s why I’m so handy all round.  But my passion be sporting, and now, having earned a little competence, I’ve retired from the ocean and don’t want to hear nor yet see it no more.  And you folk suit me and I suit you, so I’ll put you first, and if all goes well in the time to come, I dare say your lad, if not yourselves, will be the gainers.”

They was very pleased, of course, and Minnie showed it by fussing over the man a bit and looking after his linen now and then and doing such chores for him as he’d let her do; but he was very independent and, finding he weren’t over anxious for her and her husband to be in his house, though always very willing to come to hers, she gave over her attempts to befriend him in that direction.  Little Joey, however, was always welcome and he’d often drop in on the old sailor and never in vain.  Teddy was fond of sporting dogs and he’d got a lurcher bitch from somewhere, and when she bore a litter, six weeks before Christmas, he had the thought to give Joey the best of the bunch.  When they was a fortnight old, he drowned all but one, and on Christmas Eve, after the child was to bed and asleep, he took the little dog over and stopped and had a drink and explained his purpose.

’Twas strange to ’em to hear the hard-faced, grim-looking chap talk so tender of their only one; but they liked it well enough and fell in with his wish.  He’d promised to eat his Christmas dinner along with them and Joey; but the pup was to come as a rare surprise next morning, and though Minnie Ford didn’t much hold with a young dog about her spick and span home, she couldn’t withstand the little silky creature, nor yet Teddy’s wish to pleasure the child.

“You do this, Minnie,” he said, for he called the family by their Christian names by now.  “You keep the dog till dawn and then you put him in the stocking, what’s hanging at the foot of Joey’s bed, along with your own gifts afore you call him.  Then first thing he sees when he rises up to grab his toys will be the little dog atop of all the rest.”

Which Minnie promised to do and did do, and Joey toddled over the minute after he’d swallowed his breakfast to tell Mr. Pegram how ‘Santa Claus’ had sent him the wonderfullest little dinky dog ever was seen.

“I’m the Santa Claus that sent it, my lovely cherub,” said Teddy, kissing his beautiful face; and ‘Santa Claus’ he was to Joey from that day forward.  It pleased the man well to be so called, and he got the nickname in Joseph Ford’s house and became ‘Santa Claus’ to all of ’em.

“There’s much in a name,” said Teddy, “and more in that one than you may guess.  For I was mate of a ship so called once on a time and had some of my best voyages in her.”

The friendship tightened after that Christmas and it weren’t till many a long month later and the fall of another year that anything happened to strain it.