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 Rh measured ticking of a clock somewhere in the silent house.

Then I remembered what he had said.

“How do you know that I am wrong?” I asked. “And how can you tell what I was thinking?”

“You said it out loud,” answered Father Time. “But it wouldn’t have mattered, anyway. You said that Christmas was all played out and done with.”

“Yes,” I admitted, “that’s what I said.”

“And what makes you think that?” he questioned, stooping, so it seemed to me, still further over my shoulder.

“Why,” I answered, “the trouble is this. I’ve been sitting here for hours, sitting till goodness only knows how far into the night, trying to think out something to write for a Christmas story. And it won’t go. It can’t be done—not in these awful days.”

“A Christmas Story?”

“Yes. You see, Father Time,” I explained, glad with a foolish little vanity of my trade to be able to tell him something that I thought enlightening, “all the Christmas stuff—stories and jokes and pictures—is all done, you know, in October.”

I thought it would have surprised him, but I was mistaken.

“Dear me,” he said, “not till October!