“I am the reporter of the _Sunday Guff_. My papa has charge of the ‘What the Four Hundred are Doing’ column, but to-night he is obliged to attend a chromo-literary reception, where there will be nothing to eat but tea and cake. Papa has reported your balls and chowder excursions for the past five years, and we have always had ham for dessert for a week afterward. We had all been looking forward to your Christmas-eve ball, and when papa told us that he would have to go to the tea and cake place to-night mama felt so badly that I took papa’s ticket out of his pocket when he was asleep and came here myself. Papa has a thick ulster, full of nice big pockets, that he puts on when he goes out to report, but I have brought a basket.”
The child finished her simple and affecting narrative, and the members of the press committee looked at one another dumfounded. Jacob Scaffold was the first to break the silence.
“And what is your name, little child?” he inquired.
“Eva Swallowtail,” she answered, as she turned a pair of trusting, innocent blue eyes full upon him.
The old man grew pale and his lips trembled as he gathered his grandchild in his arms. The other members of the committee softly left the room, for they all knew the story of Susan Scaffold’s _mésalliance_ and her father’s bitter feelings toward her and her husband.
“What!” cried Jacob Scaffold, “my grandchild wanting bread? Come to me, little one, and we’ll see what can be done for you.”
And putting on his heavy ulster he took little Eva by the hand and led the way to the great thoroughfare, on which the stores were still open.
It was a happy family party that sat down to dinner in William Swallowtail’s humble home that bright Christmas day, and well did the little ones enjoy the treat which their generous new-found grandparent provided for them. They began with a soup made of wine jelly, and ended with a delicious dessert of corned-beef sandwiches and large German pickles; and then, when they could eat no more, and not even a pork pie could tempt their appetites, Grandpa Scaffold told his daughter that he was willing to lift his son-in-law from the hard and ill-paid labor of writing Society chronicles, and give him a chance to better himself with a whitewash brush. “And,” continued the old man, “if I see that he possesses true artistic talent, I will some day give him a chance at the side of a house.”