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SPAMCAPITAL OMEGA: THE REMAKE OF THE REMAKE OF THE SPAM

"Well! I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew,
"because I haven't 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.
 
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 the notion of his shaking
Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much
caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any
rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the
bottle joyously.
 
After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical
family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a
Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who
could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never
swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face
over it.
 
Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and
played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing:
you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had
been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the
boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of
Christmas Past.
 
When this strain of music sounded, all the things that Ghost
had shown him, came upon his mind; he softened more and
more; and thought that if he could have listened to it often,
years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life
for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting
to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley.
 
But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After
a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children
sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its
mighty Founder was a child himself.
 
Stop! There was first a game at blind-man's buff. Of
course there was. And I no more believe Topper was
really blind 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 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), on purpose, he would
have made a feint of endeavouring 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 the 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.
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.
 
A CHRISTMAS CAROL by Charles Dickens

The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood,
and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like
a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed.
 
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