olten sugar as to make the
coldest lookers-on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it
that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in
modest tartness from their highly decorated boxes, or that everything
was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all
so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day that they
tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets
wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back
to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the best
humour possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh
that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind
might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection, and for
Christmas daws to peck at, if they chose.

But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and
away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and
with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from
scores of by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people,
carrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor
revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood, with
Scrooge beside him, in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as
their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch.
And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there
were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each
other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their
good-humour was restored directly. For they said it was a shame to
quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was
a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their
cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven, where the
pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?"
asked Scrooge.

"There is. My own."

"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?" asked Scrooge.

"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."

"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.

"Because it needs it most."

They went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of
the town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which Scrooge had