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 Scrooge's 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
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, charit