"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,"
interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the
same, and they must be allowed to have been
competent judges, because they had just had
dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were
clustered round the fire, by lamplight.
"Well! I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's
nephew, "because I haven't great faith in these
young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?"
Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of
Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a
bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right
to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat
Scrooge's niece's sister -- the plump one with the
lace tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed.
"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping
her hands. "He never finishes what he begins to say.
He is such a ridiculous fellow!"
Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and
as it was impossible to keep the infection off;
though the plump sister tried hard to do it with
aromatic vinegar; his example was unanimously
followed.
"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew,
"that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us,
and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he
loses some pleasant moments, which could do him
no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions
than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his
mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I mean to
give him the same chance every year, whether he
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at
Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking
better of it -- I defy him -- if he finds me going
there, in good temper, year after year, and saying
Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him in
the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's
something; and I think I shook him yesterday."
It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of
his shaking Scrooge. But being thoroughly
good-natured, and not much caring what they
laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he
encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the
bottle joyously.
After tea, they had some music. For they were a
musical family, and knew what they were about,
when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you:
especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass
like a good one, and never swell the large veins in
his forehead, or get red in the face over it.
Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and
played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere
nothing: you might learn to whistle it in two
minutes), which had been familiar to the child who
fetched Scrooge from the boarding-school, as he
had been reminded by the Ghost of Christmas Past.
When this strain of music sounded, all the things
that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he
softened more and more; and thought that if he
could have listened to it often, years ago, he might
have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own
happiness with his own hands, without resorting to
the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.
But they didn't devote the whole evening to
music. After a while they played at forfeits; for it is
good to be children sometimes, and never better
than at at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was
a child himself. Stop! There was first a game at
blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I no
more believe Topper was really blind than I believe
he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was
a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew;
and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it.
The way he went after that plump sister in the lace
tucker, was an outrage on the credulity of human
nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling over
the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering
himself among the curtains, wherever she went,
there went he. He always knew where the plump
sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you
had fallen up against him (as some of them did), on
purpose, he would have made a feint of
endeavouring to seize you, which would have been
an affront to your understanding, and would
instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump
sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it
really was not. But when at last, he caught her;
when, in spite of all her silken rustlings, and her
rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner
whence there was no escape; then his conduct was
the most execrable. For his pretending not to know
her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch
her head-dress, and further to assure himself of her
identity by pressing a certain ring upon her finger,
and a certain chain about her neck; was vile,
monstrous. No doubt she told him her opinion of it,
when, another blind-man being in office, they were
so very confidential together, behind the curtains.
Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's
buff party, but was made comfortable with a large
chair and a footstool, in a snug corner, where the
Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she
joined in the forfeits, and loved her love to
admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.
Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she
was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's
nephew, beat her sisters hollow: though they were
sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you.
There might have been twenty people there, young
and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge;
for, wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what
was going on, that his voice made no sound in their
ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite
loud, and vey often guessed quite right, too; for the
sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not
to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge;
blunt as he took it in his head to be.
The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this
mood, and looked upon him with such favour, that
he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the
guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not
be done.
"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half
hour, Spirit, only one!"
It was a Game called Yes and No, where
Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and
the rest must find out what; he only answering to
their questions yes or no, as the case was. The
brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed,
elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a
live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage
animal, an animal that growled and grunted
sometimes, and talked sometimes, and lived in
London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't
made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and
didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a
market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow,
or a bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a
bear. At every fresh question that was put to him,
this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter; and
was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to
get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump
sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:
"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I
know what it is!"
"What is it?" cried Fred.