Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and, mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped.  At last the dishes were set on. and grace was said.  It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it into the breast; but when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried, “Hurrah!”

There never was such a goose.  Bob said he didn’t believe there ever was such a goose cooked.  Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal admiration.  Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn’t ate it all at last!  Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows!  But now, the plates being changed by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone—­too nervous to bear witnesses—­to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

Suppose it should not be done enough?  Suppose it should break in turning out?  Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the backyard and stolen it, while they were merry with the goose—­a supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid!  All sorts of horrors were supposed.

Hallo!  A great deal of steam!  The pudding was out of the copper.  A smell like a washing-day!  That was the cloth.  A smell like an eating house and a pastry-cook’s next door to each other, with a laundress’s next door to that!  That was the pudding!  In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered—­flushed, but smiling proudly—­with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

Oh, a wonderful pudding!  Bob Cratchit said, and calmly, too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage.  Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour.  Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody thought or said it was at all a small pudding for a large family.  It would have been flat heresy to do so.  Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up.  The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect, tipples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire.  Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and at Bob Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass—­two tumblers and a custard-cup without a handle.