Page:The haunted bookshop.djvu/95

 He reads them to me every year at this time," she said to Titania. "Still, 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