32 Make-Beleve

of embarrassment, ‘‘] suppose I am almost
as quick. . ... By-the-bye, Doris, is there
anything you want very badly?”

“ Presents?” asked Doris.

“Ves,” said the artist.

“T can’t tell you how many things I
want, and I want them all badly. It’s
like a box of building bricks: if one
were away the others would be of little
good.”

“Do you expect to get them?” asked
the stranger.

“Well,” said Doris, confidentially, “1
don't know. I generally get what I want
when Christmas comes if I have told them,
and of course I have done that. But, then,
I have never wanted such nice things
before, or so many.”

The painter began to fumble among his
brushes.

“For example,” he said, “what do you
want most of all?”

Doris meditated.

“There's a red leather music-case,” she