There was Mrs- Santa Claus standing like an ignited red firecracker ready to explode. Under one arm she cupped the end of a rifle, while propping the smoking barrel on top of her rounded belly.

She frantically waved the backfire from her rudy face. "Santa!" she wheezed, " I'm gonna make you dance prettier than a prancing Vixen if you don't tell me within the next hundredth of a Comet shooting-star second, what the dickens you're doing talking to that lady out here in your "Ho - Ho" shorts!"