e don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable
with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking--ha, ha, ha!--that he is
ever going to benefit Us with it."

"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's
niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.

"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry for him; I couldn't be
angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself always.
Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine
with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner."

"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 lamp-light.

"Well! I am very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, "because I
haven't any 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 th