It was Santa—­Georgie made up his mind to that immediately.  There was the pack, the pack which the pictured Santa Claus always carried, to prove it, although in this instance the pack was but a small and rather dirty bundle.  There were other points of difference between the real Santa and the pictures; for instance, instead of being clothed entirely in furs, this one’s apparel seemed to be, for the most part, rags, and soaked and dripping rags at that.  But he did wear a fur cap, a mangy one which looked like a drowned cat, and his beard, though ragged like his garments, was all that might be desired.  Yes, it was Santa Claus who had come, just as they said he would, although—­and Georgie’s doubts were so far justified—­he had not come down the living-room chimney.

Santa was cold, it seemed, for his first move was to go to the stove and stand by it, shivering and warming his hands.  During this operation he kept looking fearfully about him and, apparently, listening.  Then, to Georgie’s chagrin and disappointment, he took up the lamp and tiptoed into the dining-room again.  However, he had not gone for good, for his pack was still upon the floor where he had dropped it.  And a few minutes later he reappeared, his pockets bulging and in his free hand the remains of half a ham, which Georgie himself had seen Aunt Thankful put away in the pantry.

He replaced the lamp on the table and from his pockets extracted the end of a loaf of bread, several doughnuts and a half-dozen molasses cookies.  Then he seated himself in a chair by the stove and proceeded to eat, hungrily, voraciously, first the ham and bread and then the doughnuts and cookies.  And as he ate he looked and listened, occasionally starting as if in alarm.

At last, when he had eaten everything but the ham bone, he rose to his feet and turned his attention to the pack upon the floor.  This was what Georgie had been waiting for, and as Santa fumbled with the pack, his back to the sofa, the boy parted the fringe and peered at him with eager expectation.

The pack, according to every story Georgie had been told, should have been bulging with presents; but if the latter were there they were under more old clothes, even worse than those the Christmas saint was wearing.  Santa Claus hurriedly pawed over the upper layer and then took out a little package wrapped in tissue paper.  Untying the string, he exposed a small pasteboard box and from this box he lifted some cotton and then—­a ring.

It was a magnificent ring, so Georgie thought.  It had a big green stone in the center and the rest was gold, or what looked like gold.  Santa seemed to think well of it, too, for he held it to the lamplight and moved it back and forth, watching the shine of the green stone.  Then he put the ring down, tore a corner from the piece of tissue paper, rummaged the stump of a pencil out of his rags, and, humping himself over the table, seemed to be writing.