Oh! how my mother dressed me up! Was there
ever such a page seen before! What with your father's
kind words and my dear mother's extra buttons, the
Speaker made me his own page the next day, and there I
served for four years. It was then that I was big enough
to go into the War Department, and Mr. Goodsell--he was
the next Speaker, if you remember--recommended me there.
"After that," said Bruce Kuypers, modestly, if I did
not see you so often, but I used to see you
sometimes, and I did not think"--this with a roguish
twinkling of the eye--"that you forgot your young friends
so soon."
"I remember you," said Tom. "I used to think you
were the grandest man in Washington. You gave me the
first ride on a sled I ever had, when there was some
exceptional fall of snow."
"I think we all remember Mr. Kuypers now," said
Matty, and she laughed while she blushed; "he always
bought things for our stockings. I have a Noah's Ark
upstairs now, that he gave me. In my youngest days I had
a queer mixture of the name Bruce and the name Santa
Claus. I believe I thought Santa Claus' name was
Nicholas Bruce. I am sure I did not know that Mr. Bruce
had any other name."
"If you had said you were Mr. Chappell," said Mr.
Molyneux, "I should have known you in a minute."
"But I was not," said the young man, laughing.
"Well, if you had said you were `Bruce,' I should
have known.
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