By eight the mantel had grown a little line. Wooden soldiers stood at ease beside the tea tin, and the walnuts arrived with their coats still on, as if they had walked upstairs for an appointment rather than a snack.
We asked at the kiosk by the corner bakery. "Neighbors said the nutcrackers had joined the army," a woman with a warm roll told us. "It was only hospitality. You show your shell, you take a foil napkin, and nobody hurries the kernel next door. It feels like a cloakroom for breakfast."
The housekeeper left a card against the candlestick: guests may be opened one at a time, and the neighbor kernel is not in a hurry. By dusk the last walnut had a tiny bow, the foil napkins were folded into a silver stack, and the fire gave the shelf a nod that meant closing time.
A day later the same walnuts came back as a pair of polite halves. They sat through one whole turn of the queue, then went home looking as if the mantel had invited them to stay for cocoa.