George A. Baker, Jr.

“ But the old house has gone to ruin, and Santa Claus doesn’t live there any longer. You see he married about forty years ago; his wife was a Grundy, daughter of old Mrs. Grundy, of Fifth Avenue, of whom you’ve all heard. She married him for his money, and couldn’t put up with his plain way of living and his careless jollity. He is such an easy-going, good natured old soul, that she manages him without any trouble. So the first thing she did was to make him change his name to St. Nicholas; then she made him give up his old house, and move into town ”

“ Nicholas, and lives in a brown stone house on Fifth Avenue, a great deal handsomer than he can afford, and keeps a carriage, not because he wants it, but because Mrs. Shoddy, next door, keeps one; and love,s not to be jolly himself and to make everybody else so, but to please his wife’s mother. He has to give an awful pull, what with his wife’s extravagance, and the high prices of Parisian and Viennese toys, to make both ends meet, although he does speculate in stocks, and is very lucky. ”

“ The messengers do their work entirely as a matter of business, so there isn't a sign of a laugh, nor a symptom of a chuckle in the air next day. The little Crœsuses first cry, because they haven't received more, and then fight over what they have ”