Cricket on the Hearth, The The. Charles Dickens

boots with mahogany-coloured tops.

      Still, Tackleton, the toy-merchant, was going to be married. In spite of all this, he was going to be married. And to a young wife too, a beautiful young wife.

      He didn’t look much like a bridegroom, as he stood in the Carrier’s kitchen, with a twist in his dry face, and a screw in his body, and his hat jerked over the bridge of his nose, and his hands tucked down into the bottoms of his pockets, and his whole sarcastic ill-conditioned self peering out of one little corner of one little eye, like the concentrated essence of any number of ravens. But, a Bridegroom he designed to be.

      ‘In three days’ time. Next Thursday. The last day of the first month in the year. That’s my wedding-day,’ said Tackleton.