This is the annual busy day.--Packets and parcels are being delivered unceasingly by uncommonly civil butcher-boys, graceful grocers, and urbanic green-grocers, who are near enough to boxing-day to know that silver on the tongue is necessary to charm silver from the pocket. The Captain has sent to learn if any consignments are for him, to ask the loan of a pack of cards, and Victoria's company to spend the evening at the Albert--which invitation is graciously accepted. It is eve--Christmas-eve.--Mrs. Brown's candied mixture, the pudding, is simmering in the copper; the turkey, chine, and hundred etceteras are on their way from Plumpsworth; while Captain de Camp's baggage is at the very wildest verge of that gentleman's imagination, and its appearance would have surprised him more than any one else, so speculative was it. [Illustration: CHRISTMAS EVE. THE FOOD IN PERSPECTIVE.] Mr. Brown is in the City, homeward bound by the omnibus, intending to realize "a Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year." It is so foggy that he finds he is going at an invisible pace, obliging him to abandon the invisible vehicle in an invisible street, paying an invisible fare. [Illustration] He ties a handkerchief round his foot to prevent slipping; and has something "short" to keep out the cold; and a little brandy-punch to keep out the fog; and a little egg-flip to keep him warm; and a link that he may see the way, for his vision is not very distinct;--his head is delightfully buoyant, his optics inclined to multiply, and his legs very refractory, having a great desire to dance or go sideways, but obstinately refusing, in their eccentricity, to proceed in a straight line; for Mr. Brown is more merry than particular--taking Newgate Market in his way home to Mizzlington from the 'Change. Having a great veneration for old customs, he buys a boar's head there and boy to carry it; next, being taken with a crockery-shop-sign, "The Little Bason" (which, by-the-bye, was a very large one), he purchases that also, thinking it will do for a wassail-bowl; likewise some holly; and an old butcher's-block to serve as the yule-log; not forgetting the last new Christmas book of sympathy and sentiment, "The Black Beetle on the Hob," a faery tale of a register-stove, by the author of the "Old Hearth Broom and the Kettle-Holder:"--With these articles Mr. Brown and his retinue reach home in safety--a miracle, considering the toast and ale they have consumed,--the Holly being jolly, the Bason groggy, the Log stupid, and the Boar pig-headed. They find Victoria deaf; for Mr. Brown has made her little gothic door to shiver, and the bolts to chatter with the blows, yet none respond; for the servants are very jovial over boiled ale in the crypt--little thinking or caring about their master; who, after having rung all the bells singly, walked backwards, surveyed the windows, tumbled over the block, and endangered the wassail-bowl, tries