MOTHER GOOSE. No, no, Pocahontas. You are in good time. You must stay all the longer for being a little tardy.
DAME RUMOR. Santa, why are you not laughing and joking as usual? I never saw you so downcast.
MOTHER GOOSE. Really, Dame Rumor, Santa Claus is feeling quite sad this evening. He will tell you all about what is weighing on his spirits, and I hope the wisdom of this good company will help him to look at matters more cheerfully.
SANTA CLAUS. Yes, friends, I am sorry to appear so sad on an occasion that ought to be so happy—an occasion when we old friends meet after a long separation.
RIP VAN WINKLE. Yes, yes, I haf never so much joyness any more as in this house, Santa. Here only is the beoples that can remember mit me the happy times long ago.
DAME RUMOR. They say you used to be grumbled at a good deal in those happy days, Rip.
JENNIE. Oh, now, Dame Rumor, let bygones be bygones. Please all listen to what Santa Claus has to tell. I want very much to see what the Auld Lang Syne Club will advise him to do. Go on, dear Santa.
SANTA CLAUS. Well, my friends, I thought I would try the experiment this year of running a wireless line from the North Pole to most of the school yards in the country in order to hear the children telling what they would like to have for Christmas.
DAME RUMOR. Dear me, I’d like to have a wireless line connecting with every _home_ in the country! It was a fine idea, Santa.
ROBINSON CRUSOE. I wish we had had one down on the island, Friday.
SANTA CLAUS. Well, I have just got the connections made, and to-day I went to the Pole to spend the forenoon taking notes from school grounds in various parts of the country. And, to my utter astonishment, I heard children in each section of the nation all saying they did not believe in Santa Claus!
ALL. [_Laughing._] Not believe in Santa Claus! How ridiculous!
DAME RUMOR. Oh, Santa Claus, you don’t take that seriously, do you? Why, I have heard that gossip for years, and I have also heard people saying that they did not believe the story of George Washington chopping down the cherry-tree. And yet I used to know a lady who knew a lady whose cousin’s brother-in-law had a piece of cherry-pie made from cherries that grew on that tree before George ever had the hatchet,—yes, indeed!