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outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The City clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already it had not been light all day and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale. The door of Scrooges counting-house was open, that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerks fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldnt replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed. A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you! cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooges nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach. Bah! said Scrooge. Humbug! He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooges, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again. Christmas a humbug, uncle! said Scrooges nephew. You dont mean that, I am sure? I do, said Scrooge. Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? Youre poor enough. Come, then, returned the nephew gaily. What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? Youre rich enough. Scrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said, Bah! again; and followed it up with Humbug! Dont be cross, uncle! said the nephew. What else can I be, returned the uncle, when I live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! Whats Christmastime to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books, and having every item in em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you? If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly, every idiot who goes about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. He should! Uncle! pleaded the nephew. Nephew! returned the uncle sternly, keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine. Keep it! repeated Scrooges nephew. But you dont keep it. Let me leave it alone, then, said Scrooge. Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you! There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, returned the nephew; Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmastime, when it has come round apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the |
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