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He carried his own low temperature always about with him. He iced his
office in the dog-days and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas."
In contrast to Scrooge who freezes the inside, we have Scrooge's
nephew who arrives out of the cold generating warmth and goodwill.
"He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost
that he was all in a glow, his face was ruddy and handsome, his eyes
sparkled, and his breath smoked again."
BEE NUMBER FOUR BUTTONS
Buttons in Dickens's days were obtrusive, garish, and (in the absence
of zip-fasteners)- in greater use than they are today. But surely
Dickens mentions buttons, and makes more of buttons, far more frequently
than other novelists of his time. Buttons gave him opportunities which
he eagerly seized, opportunities for satire, for example
You know dear me, what a very elegant button this is, Mr Bumble!
I never noticed it before."
Yes I think it is rather pretty," said the beadle, glancing proudly
downwards at the large brass buttons which embellished his coat.
The die is the same as the parochial seal the Good Samaritan
healing the sick and bruised man. The board presented it to me on New
Year's morning,Mr Sowerberry. I put it on, I remember for the first
time, to attend the inquest on that reduced tradesman who died in a
doorway at midnight."
Dickens found lots of genial comedy in buttons, too. In DOMBEY AND SON:
Mr Toots was one blaze of jewellery and buttons but appeared to
be involved in a good deal of uncertainty whether, on the whole, it was
judicious to button the bottom of his waistcoat.... The differences in
point of waistcoat buttoning, not only at the bottom, but at the top,
too, became so numerous and complicated as the arrivals thickened, that
Mr Toots was continually fingering that article of dress, as if he were
performing on some instrument; and appeared to find the incessant
execution it demanded, quite bewildering."
And somehow buttons came to buzz around Dickens's bonnet at the slightest
provocation, as, for instance when Captain Cuttle was expanding on the
sagacity of Captain Bunsby.
