"James Shaw was evicted from his rabbit stall for unspecified conduct"

. Well, being a rabbitter, he also fancied himself as a furrier. Most of the rabbits he selled in their fur, to save time - to tickle the palate, as he thought of it - but every one or two in a case looked special. He skinned them, and cured the pelts. Again, a lot of the fur he selled on - for collars, and trimmings, lucky charms, muffs, maybe even stoles if there were enough of a kind. It wasn't his business what colour or price they ended up. This was 1920 and every good lass liked a bit of fur about her.

"Rabbits have class," he used to say, when selling on. (Giving the lass a wink as though to say, if you dinnut care for Class, think of the fertility.) And summick to buck the spirits up - in a dour and humorless Age - was just what was needed, he thought. That was the idea behind his mini-rabbit fantasia.

Every now and then the best skins wouldn't cure properly, or he stretched them and they split in the drying. The scraps that he could save went into fashioning weany model rabbits to adorn the stall - about the size of a half-pint glass they were. You couldn't call him a taxidermist; it was a just a whim of his spare time. There were two hares boxing. A lad and lass rabbit like out of that children's book. And an old gardener rabbit with a miniature rake. His missus made them tiny clothes to suit, just like in the book. And these he would parade on his stall, one day this pair, one day that. It attracted the bairns, and the mums too - rare it was if a man bought his own supper in those days.

The little models did the trick. Up above, the chance hare dripped blood into a pot or braces of rabbits hung with slack ears and yawning gobs. No one connected the fantasy world with the cookpot reality. Except in being lured to buy. He had looked on it as a joke to start with, but it didn't hurt his trade none, and he began to get a name for his displays; people would even ask to buy the fake, inedible version, but he just said he kept them for his best customers, at Christmas. To encourage the others!

Fun it was. But it turned a tad sour one morning, as he was dragging a crate of criss-cross carcasses from the van and found the Market Inspector waiting for him, right by his stall. "Shaw!" he said to our rabbiter, "What d'ye caa' this?" And pointed to a pair of models. Shaw gulped. The lad model had his keks around his ankles and was snuggled right close to the lass model, and she... "God help me," he says, "Aa nivvor..." "Ye've a mangled sense of humour; nut at aal the type we appreciate roond heor, mind!" "Man, ye nivvor think Aa did that!" The Inspector looked hard at Shaw, then seemed to accept his protest. "Weel, Aa'll believe ye this once, but Aa'm warnin' ye... Jus keep them rabbits o' yours under control, will ye?"

Of course it was a prank. An unkind prank, and like to get him hoyed out of the market altogether. It set him thinking. About who would do summick like that. Why, his rabbits were hardly old enough to think about... He stopped himself short. They were only tufts of spare fur, after all, stuffed with coconut hair, and a bit wire for shape. Perhaps he overdid it when he pretended to speak to the bairns in rabbit-talk, rocking the little models with a bit a hidden fishing-line tied on. He'd better play down the cute rabbit bit, or more folk'ld be getting at him. Barry the fish-kid walked over. Grabbed the guilty pair, and started jigging them together. "Ye stop that now!" said Shaw, a bit tense. "Why man, it's on'y a bit fun. Rabbits'll be rabbits, ye knaa. Lookstha! they're at it again!"

Shaw got things decent before the public came in. In fact, he felt so nervous as he saw them coming towards his stall, he hid the models altogether. Time for a NEW image, he telled himself. (Polite but serious marketing.) But the public weren't having that. They expected entertainment along of their purchase, and he had to grudgingly bring the little rabbit-forms back onto the table. He tried impressing them with the craftmanship, the keen handiwork and the art-value, but the bairns just went "Coo!" (canna hev yen?) and the mams were almost as soppy.

At least the joker left him alone, for a while. But only a while. A week or two later, he came in and found the lass rabbit with a fistful of coconut hair stuffed up her dress into the abdomen. It looked blatant. There was a ring of marketeers admiring. "Yor rabbit's getten the smit then, marra!" cried one. "Aye, an ye nivvor had them married in chorch, like Christians!" called another. And so on. A pregnant lass rabbit! He couldn't believe it. Who would do such a thing? He sternly reduced her bulging womb and was about to thrust the coconut trash up the glass-button-man's nose, when the Inspector came over. "Stop that, Shaw!" he called out; and "Nae mair o this rowtin," (in a voice twice as loud as them). "Git back in yor ciages. Noo!"

Things didn't look good for our rabbitter. Two warnings and Christmas a week or two off. His best trade was then: for if rabbit fur could look like Amazon Leopard, rabbit meat could pass for Christmas chicken any time. Yet he felt trapped. The public had come to expect - nay demand - a show. But putting the models on display was only getting him into trouble. He spent the day thinking over some solution - summick to make Christmas memorable. Summick out of the ordinary. Summick seasonal. And tasteful - no more trouble on that score, please! A special pageant of rabbits - he'd have to ask his missus for some new clothes for them - a few props - and - yes- he'd give them a show them alright!

He was in extra early, one morning in the Christmas week, a beatific smile on his face. Billy and Molly were there as usual (his favourites despite their lapses of decorum), and a manger of tiny twigs with bits of hay, and some rabbits with shepherd crooks and some he just had to fit the crowns on - when - before he realised it - the public were on him. To his delight, among the first was a vicar, just the sort to applaud his heart-warming tableau. "What d'ye think o'it, sir?" he asked modestly, gesturing at the Nativity in its glory. But inexplicably, the reverend gentleman gasped, twisting his face into a grimace; Shaw spun round in time to see the suggestive blood drip from a careless hare, joggled (doubtless) by his sweeping gesture of but a moment since, shedding itself exactly down to the lap of the beatific Mother. Unable to get away far enough or quickly enough, the gentleman cleric vomited noisily on the floor before the stall, attracting exactly the wrong sort of attention, market-wide.

The Inpsector helped the reverend to a seat. Then he came back, his face black as a demon and his fists bulging with anger.

"Ye!" he shouted, "Ye an yor stall, ye can just sod off - we're not putting up wi that at Chrissamus! Ye an yor blasphemious ways! This is a Christian Market wor runnin' heor and ye - ye can jis HOP OFF!"