The Christmas dinner was entirely a small family affair, but only the more intensely enjoyed for that very reason. Mrs. Pottage was invited in to dessert, and also Mrs. Pottage’s assistant, a crippled girl, who was imported to help in the household work on occasions of ceremony. Quite what help Agatha Wilkinson was no one ever discovered, for she could only move with extreme slowness and difficulty on a pair of crutches. Perhaps her utility lay in being able to sit quietly in a corner of the kitchen and listen to Mrs. Pottage’s conversation, which increased in volubility, the more she had to do. There was a pineapple on the table, a slice of which the landlady emphatically declined. “No, thanks, not for me. That’s a thing I only eat from the tin. Raw, I’d sooner eat a pinecomb any day. Would you like to try a slice, Aggie?” Agatha was too shy to refuse when Bram put a slice on her plate, and Mrs. Pottage watched with obvious gratification her fearful attempts to manipulate it. “Ah, I thought she wouldn’t like it. You needn’t eat any more, Aggie, if it puts your teeth on the edge. Yes, it’s my opinion if pineapples cost twopence apiece instead of ten shillings people might buy a few just to throw at strange cats. To scrape your boots on? Yes. To eat? No. That’s my opinion about pineapples.” In the evening, when Letizia had been put to bed after a number of uproarious games in which Bram had surpassed even his own wonderful record as an animal impersonator, Mrs. Pottage came in as magnificent as a queen-dowager in black satin to ask if her lodgers would give her the pleasure of their company in the parlour. “I’ve got a few friends coming in to celebrate Christmas. Mrs. Bugbird’s here, and two of my unintendeds—Mr. Hopkins, the chandler—well, I thought I’d ask him, though he’s no more addition to anything than a nought, which is what he looks like—and then there’s Mr. Watcher. Yes, Watcher’s a good name for him, for he watches me like a dog watches a bone. He and Mr. Hopkins can’t bear the sight of one another. Well, I daresay there’s a bit of jealousy in it, if it comes to that, just because I happened to refuse him before I refused Hopkins. His business is coal. Sells it, I mean. I don’t think even Watcher would have had the nerve to propose to me if he’d have actually been a coalman. Oh, dear, oh, dear, who does marry coalmen, that’s what I ask myself. Or sweeps, if it comes to that? And then there’s Mr. and Mrs. Breadcutt, who’s an inspector of nuisances for the London County Council. So, if you’ll come in and join us, we shall be a very nice merry little party.” Though they were feeling rather tired, Bram and Nancy accepted the invitation, because Mrs. Pottage had been so kind to them and they knew she would be terribly disappointed if they refused. However, they stipulated that she must not persuade them to stay very late on account of the matinée, to which, they reminded her, she had promised to take Letizia to-morrow.