they're worth
it. I know good old Mrs. Lirriper better than I do most of my friends."

"What is it, the Christmas Carol?" said Titania. "We had to read that
in school."

"No," said Roger; "the other stories, infinitely better. Everybody
gets the Carol dinned into them until they're weary of it, but no one
nowadays seems to read the others. I tell you, Christmas wouldn't be
Christmas to me if I didn't read these tales over again every year.
How homesick they make one for the good old days of real inns and real
beefsteak and real ale drawn in pewter. My dears, sometimes when I am
reading Dickens I get a vision of rare sirloin with floury boiled
potatoes and plenty of horse-radish, set on a shining cloth not far
from a blaze of English coal----"

"He's an incorrigible visionary," said Mrs. Mifflin. "To hear him talk
you might think no one had had a square meal since Dickens died. You
might think that all landladies died with Mrs. Lirriper."

"Very ungrateful of him," said Titania. "I'm sure I couldn't ask for
better potatoes, or a nicer hostess, than I've found in Brooklyn."

"Well, well," said Roger. "You are right, of course. And yet
something went out of the world when Victorian England vanished,
something that will never come again. Take the stagecoach drivers, for
instance. What a racy, human type they were! And what have we now to
compare with them? Subway guards? Taxicab drivers? I have hung
around many an all-night lunchroom to hear the chauffeurs talk. But
they are too much on the move, you can't get the picture of them the
way Dickens could of his types. You can't catch that sort of thing in
a snapshot, you know: you have to have a time exposure. I'll grant
you, though, that lunchroom food is mighty good. The best place to eat
is always a counter where the chauffeurs congregate. They get awfully
hungry, you see, driving round in the cold, and when they want food
they want it hot and tasty. There's a little hash-alley called
Frank's, up on Broadway near 77th, where I guess the ham and eggs and
French fried is as good as any Mr. Pickwick ever ate."

"I must get Edwards to take me there," said Titania. "Edwards is our
chauffeur. I've been to the Ansonia for tea, that's near there."

"Better keep away," said Helen. "When Roger comes home from those
places he smells so strong of onions it brings tears to my eyes."

"We've just been talking about an assistant chef," said Roger; "that