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SPAMCAPITAL OMEGA: THE REMAKE OF THE REMAKE OF THE SPAM

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back
came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by
his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while
Bob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were
capable of being made more shabby--compounded some hot
mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round
and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,
and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.
 
Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose
the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a
black swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was
something very like it in that house.
 
Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little
saucepan) hissing hot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes
with incredible vigour; Miss Belinda sweetened up the
apple-sauce; 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 in 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 back-yard, 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 pastrycook'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
had her doubts about the quantity of flour.
 
Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said
or thought 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.
 
The compound in the jug being tasted, and considered perfect,
apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovel-full
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.
 
These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with
beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:
 
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