their own mincemeat because the article on the market was not palatable,
the tyrant of the family declared. Every one of them would be glad to be
saved trouble. Then, let Mrs. Day, for whom he had procured an excellent
receipt, make it for them. The sale would be enormous.

So they advertised the precious stuff from the beginning of December; and
from a fortnight before this time to the end of the second week in
January, the little family worked at stoning raisins (there were no
machines to make the task easy then), chopping almonds and suet and apples
and orange peel, late into the night, and sometimes on into the early
hours of the morning.

For the sale, as predicted, was great. It taxed the powers of the women to
their utmost to keep up the supply. Orders poured in, orders were
repeated; customers called to assure Mrs. Day that while she lived to do
it for them they would never be bothered to make the stuff again. Others
came with the intention to wheedle the receipt from the shop-woman. Such
was the unbusiness-like disposition of the poor creature, she would at
once have surrendered it, had the prescription been hers to give. But
George Boult, knowing with whom he had to deal, had laid an embargo on the
property.

It was during the stress of that first Christmas in Bridge Street that the
relations between the Days and their boarder, the Manchester man, hitherto
somewhat strained and distant, became easy and familiar.

Beside the comfortable chair in the chimney corner which had been
apportioned him, a small table was drawn up which held, always ready to
his use, his tobacco jar, his pipe, his book, his papers. To this, the
evening meal which he shared with the family over, he would retire,