Roger caught his breath.  With a Christmas intrigue as surely in the air as the smell of spice, here was dangerous ground.

“Aunt Ellen,” he faltered, “Aunt Ellen said she couldn’t pos’bly be bothered with—­with any men folks in the kitchen—­not even me.”

“Pooh!” rebelled the Doctor largely, “that’s merely a ruse of hers to protect the cookies.  And what I’d like to know is just this—­what’s Aunt Ellen doing in the kitchen anyway?  Certainly old Annie’s able to do the Christmas fussing for three people.  Aunt Ellen ought to be in here with us.  That was part of my lonesome grievance but I forgot to mention it.”

Roger, shivering apprehensively, visioned suspicious stores of Christmas delicacies—­holly and evergreen—­and a supper table set for ten!  And off somewhere among those purple spears of twilight old Asher, the hired man, was waiting at the station with the big farm sleigh.

He must keep his eye upon the Doctor until six o’clock, and lure him away from the window.

“Tell me a story,” begged Roger—­“over here by the fire.”  And his voice was so very tremulous and urgent that the hungry Doctor abandoned his notion of a Christmas cookie, and complied.

To Roger, in a nervous ecstasy of anticipation, the story was a blurred hodge-podge of phrases and crackling fire, distant noises of clinking china and hurrying feet, and wild flights of imagination....  Old Asher must be coming past the red barn now ... and now down the hill ... and now past the Deacon’s pond ... and now—­

Sleigh-bells fairly leaped out of the quiet, and Roger jumped and gulped, aquiver with excitement.  The Doctor regarded him with mild disfavor.

“Bless my soul,” he said in surprise, “that was the quietest part of my story.  You’re restless.”

“Go on!” said Roger hoarsely, and the obliging Doctor, mistaking his agitation for interest, went on with his tale.

But Roger had heard old Asher driving along by the picket fence and turning in at the gate-posts, and the story was no more to him than the noisy crackle of the log.  Off somewhere in the region of the kitchen door he detected a subdued scuffle of many feet.

The grandfather’s clock struck six....  Roger’s cheeks were blazing—­the fire and the Doctor still duetting....  Why, oh, why didn’t somebody come and call them to supper?...  There had been plenty of time now for everything.  Why—­

The door swung back and Roger jumped.  Old Annie, Asher’s wife, stood in the doorway, her wrinkled face inscrutable.

“Supper, sir!” she said and vanished.  Hand in hand, the Doctor and Roger went out to supper.