A Christmas Carol in Prose; Being a Ghost Story of Christmas Page #2

								

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 Scrooge's, 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 Scrooge's
nephew. "You don't 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? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you
to be morose? You're rich enough."

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur
of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up
with "Humbug."

"Don't 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! What's Christmas
time to you but a time for paying bills without
money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but
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 Scrooge's nephew. "But you
don't 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 Christmas
time, 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 only time I know of, in the long calendar
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent
to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think
of people below them as if they really were
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race
of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark
for ever.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said
Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,
sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you
don't go into Parliament."
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