"Ha-ha-ha-ha! ha-ha-ha!" laughed Shadrach--Shadrach Pratt, light porter at Teman, Sundry, and Sope's, the wholesale and retail grocers in the City. "Ha-ha-ha!" laughed Shadrach, stopping, with one foot on the wet pavement and the other in the snowy slush of the kennel, to slap his thigh, and say: "That's a good 'un, that is--`What do the Arabs of the desert live on? the sand which is there.' That _is_ a good one, rale grit. Ha-ha-ha!" laughed the little man. "I'll ask 'em that after dinner to-morrow." Who'd have thought, to see the little fellow go skipping along through the wet, splashy snow, that there were holes in the sides of his boots, and that one sole had given up the stitches that morning and gone off, being not buried, but suffering the fiery ordeal of burning, curling about upon its funereal pyre as though still alive? Who'd have thought that he had had no dinner this Christmas-eve, and was now off, post-haste, to his home in Bermondsey (_pronounced_ Bummonsey), to get dinner and tea together--a hot meal of bloater and bread-and-butter-- with orders to be back in an hour at the latest? for it was busy tide with the firm, and whatever Shadrach's duty may have been at other times, he was heavy porter now decidedly. Over the bridge, round the corner, down by Tooley Street warehouses, famed for suffering from an ailment that must amongst buildings answer to the Saint Anthony's fire of the human being; down past sacking, sailcloth, and rope warehouses; and down past marine stores, and miseries enough to give a man an ultramarine tint; and then home in the pleasant and unsalubrious locality of Snow's Fields. Snow there was in plenty--muddy, slushy snow; but the only field visible was a large field for improvement; but then, as Shadrach said, "How handy for business!" "Here's father!" was the cry, as the little man rushed in, hugged his wife, and had his legs hugged at the same time; and then he was in the warm place by the tea-tray, toasting his steaming boots, and watching the water being poured into the hissing, hot earthen teapot. "Now, then," said Mrs Pratt, "they've all had their teas; and you're not to touch them, or give them a scrap. But have you had your dinner?" "No," said Shadrach; "only stayed my stomach with half a pint of four ale and a hot tater, at one; but I've brought a bloat--There, bless my soul! I always did say the tail of your coat is not a safe place, and if I ain't been setting upon it. What a good job it was a hard-roed 'un. Not hurt a bit. Who'll toast it?" "Me--me--me!" chorussed some six or seven voices; and then the most substantial-looking of the family was picked out, and she began toasting till the fish began to curl its head and tail together, when the toaster happening to turn her head to watch the distribution of "dog's bits" (ie scraps of bread-and-butter), the bloater glided from the fork, and had to be picked from the ashes and wiped.