He looked perplexed for a moment, but made no attempt to hear more than the babble permitted, and soon let his eyelids drop again. I was finally silenced by Inge's mother who asked me, with a fatuous (though unreturned) grin at her daughter, whether I thought those footprints might have been Father Christmas's. Mortified by this snub, I fell into a sulk from which I did not recover until I had flown back to my parents, who worked in a place where Christmas is not celebrated, and where snow has never been seen.