By four o'clock the little cart on Maple Corner smelled like a coat pocket that had been warming all afternoon. A paper cone sat ready on the counter, and beside the brazier a stack of programs no bigger than stamps waited for the shells.
We asked at the kiosk. A man with a wool scarf said the chestnuts like an audience. Each shell took a program, bowed to the heat, and nodded to the cone before it split with a single polite pop. A girl in the queue wrote in the cart's notebook: Please do not clap early. The left one was still bowing.
The next evening the same cone came back a little crumpled, as if it had saved a seat.