3
Ginger usually requested Pickles to serve them,
because he said it made his mouth water.
"I cannot bear," said he, "to see them going out at
the door carrying their little parcels."
"I have the same feeling about rats," replied
Pickles, "but it would never do to eat our own
customers; they would leave us and go to Tabitha
Twitchit's."
"On the contrary, they would go nowhere,"
replied Ginger gloomily.
(Tabitha Twitchit kept the only other shop in the
village. She did not give credit.)
Ginger and Pickles gave unlimited credit.
Now the meaning of "credit" is this—when a
customer buys a bar of soap, instead of the
customer pulling out a purse and paying for it—
she says she will pay another time.
And Pickles makes a low bow and says, "With
pleasure, madam," and it is written down in a
book.
