When Charles Dickens was a little boy he was unhappy and neglected, for he was working in a factory. During his dinner break he would walk the streets of London looking at everything.

Sometimes he would go to the coffee house on St. Martin's Lane. Years later he would tell how on one occasion he was sitting in this coffee house and looked up to see two words written on the glass door. These words created a great fear and panic within him. They were the words "Moor Eeffoc." He did not understand what they could mean. With his imagination he speculated that they might have something to do with the Moors. He knew what a Moor was. Could it be that something cruel and dangerous was behind those doors? Could it be some evil person who wanted to kill him? He simply sat there with his food growing cold wondering what it all meant.

Then it was time to leave. He knew that he would have to go through those ominous doors. With all of his courage he went through those potentially evil doors and when he looked back he discovered that the words on the door now read, "Coffee Room."

Apparently he had been reading the words backward on a glass door. Perhaps Martha had it backward, too.

Adapted by Stuart Robertson, Balanced Burdens (London: Hodder and Stoughton, Limited), p. 20.