Scrooge raised his head speedily, on hearing his own name.

“Mr. Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”

“The Founder of the Feast, indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening.  “I wish I had him here.  I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

“My dear,” said Bob, “the children!  Christmas day.”

“It should be Christmas day, I am sure,” said she, “on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge.  You know he is, Robert!  Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!”

“My dear,” was Bob’s mild answer, “Christmas day.”

“I’ll drink his health for your sake and the day’s,” said Mrs. Cratchit, “not for his.  Long life to him.  A merry Christmas and a happy New Year!  He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!”

The children drank the toast after her.  It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it.  Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it.  Scrooge was the Ogre of the family.  The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with.  Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five and sixpence weekly.  The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter’s being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favor when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income.  Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner’s, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home.  Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord “was much about as tall as Peter”; at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn’t have seen his head if you had been there.  All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by and by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this.  They were not a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker’s.  But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.