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 up 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, and stood there; he would have made a
feint of endeavoring 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 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.[320-17] 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 very 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 favor, th