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 that he had already admitted far more than that to the Butterfly Man.

In the morning, while Bert ate, she sat across from him at the breakfast table. Mr. Quinby had already left the house.

"Were you expecting big things this month?" she asked.

The boy nodded.

"It couldn't be, Bert. Christmas shopping is very trying. People just go around in a sort of frenzy. Half the time they don't know what they want. They don't pay much attention to ads. They go from store to store, roaming through the aisles in the hope of finding something that will make a gift for somebody they've got to remember. A lot of people put off shopping until the last minute, and that makes it worse. They're in such a hurry to reach the city in the morning that there's no time to step into your place and look at newspapers, and when they come home in the afternoon they're too tired. Didn't you think of that?"

"Neither of us did," said Bert. There was no need to question his mother's reasoning. Hadn't he seen the restless stream passing and repassing the store day after day? Only a few months ago Sam, spouting second-hand opinions he had formed from a book, had seemed to him to be an oracle. That was past.

"You'll have to wait until after Christmas for