“A merry Christmas! A merry Christmas.”
Bram took Nancy’s arm, and they hurried away back as fast as they could to Starboard Alley, where they found Letizia safe in her cot, one of Mrs. Pottage’s stockings hanging like a coal-sack over the foot of it.
“You never told me which stocking to put out,” said the landlady. “So I hung up one of my own. Of course, I hung up one of hers as well, pore mite, but hers wouldn’t hold more than a couple of acid-drops. Mine is a little more convenient.”
“How kind of you to sit up for us, Mrs. Pottage,” the two vagabonds exclaimed.
“Oh, I’ve been thinking over old times. You know. On and off the doze, as you might say. My friend Mrs. Bugbird didn’t hop it till past midnight. She generally comes in for a chat of a Monday evening, and being Christmas Eve she stayed on a bit extra. She’s a real comic, is Mrs. Bugbird; but she had to be a bit careful how she laughed to-night, because last week she ricked the plate of her teeth laughing over a story I told her. Yes, the soup’s lovely and hot. But I did let the fire out in your sitting-room. So if you wouldn’t mind coming into my kitchen....”
“Was Letizia good?” the mother asked.
“She hasn’t moved an inch since I put her to bye-bye. I’ve popped up to look at her several times. In fact, Mrs. Bugbird and me both popped up, and Mrs. B. said a more sweetly pretty infant she never did wish to see. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘Mrs. Bugbird,’ I said, ‘that’s something for you to say with the fourteen you’ve had.’ Fancy, fourteen! Tut-tut-tut! Still if I’d accepted half my proposals, I’d have had more like forty by now.”
A canary stirred upon his perch and chirped.
“Hear that?” said Mrs. Pottage. “That blessed bird understands every word I say. Don’t you, my beauty? Now come along, drink up your soup, and do eat a little bit of the nice cold supper I’ve put out for you.”
While her lodgers were enjoying the cold roast beef, Mrs. Pottage examined the purchases made for Letizia’s stocking.