The Misfit Christmas Puddings
Ninth Episode
HERR BAUMGÄRTNER'S ESTABLISHMENT CHRISTMAS DAY
HERR Baumgärtner's first impulse, on finding out what had become of his Christmas puddings, was to send at once to the Widow M'Carty's and have them returned to him. Had it not been for the lateness of the hour, doubtless this is what would have happened.
But the night brings counsel, even in the matter of plum puddings, and by morning the baker had concluded that it was wiser to let the unlucky gifts remain in their misfit quarters. Perhaps Katrina's remark, that his customers would be wroth if they found they had eaten puddings that had been stored for a night, even, in so well-inhabited an abode, influenced his decision.
However that may be, the baker said to Katrina as he sat down to his breakfast:
"Vell, Katrina, if we haf given somedings away in the wrong place, we will not now take it back. But Katrina, dose beautiful puddings, and dose M'Cartys! ach! ach!" and he shook his head sorrowfully at the thought that these culinary triumphs should have fallen to those so incapable of appreciating a wonderful Baumgärtner plum pudding.
In the eyes of the baker, to give twelve Christmas puddings to the M'Cartys was indeed to cast one's pearls before swine.