At sight of an old
gentleman in a Welch wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two
inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in
great excitement:
‘Why, it’s old Fezziwig!
Bless his heart; it’s Fezziwig alive again!’
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and
looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself,
from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily,
rich, fat, jovial voice:
‘Yo ho, there! Ebenezer!
Dick!’
Scrooge’s former self, now grown a
young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-’prentice.
‘Dick Wilkins, to be sure!’
said Scrooge to the Ghost. ‘Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much
attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!’
‘Yo ho, my boys!’ said
Fezziwig. ‘No more work, tonight. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer!
Let’s have the shutters up,’ cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of
his hands, ‘before a man can say, Jack Robinson!’
You wouldn’t believe how those two
fellows went at it! They charged into the street with the shutters — one, two,
three — had ’em up in their places — four, five, six —
barred ’em and pinned ’em — seven, eight, nine — and came
back before you could have got to twelve, panting like racehorses.
‘Hilli-ho!’ cried old
Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk, with wonderful agility. ‘Clear
away, my lads, and let’s have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup,
Ebenezer!’
Clear away! There was nothing they
wouldn’t have cleared away, or couldn’t have cleared away, with old
Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it
were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was swept
and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the
warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room, as you would
desire to see upon a winter’s night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and
went up to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty
stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three
Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts
they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the
business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the baker. In came the cook, with
her brother’s particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from over the
way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying to hide
himself behind the girl from next door but one, who was proved to have had her ears
pulled by her Mistress. In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some
boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all
came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at once, hands half
round and back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and round in
various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always turning up in the
wrong place; new top couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top
couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When this result was brought
about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, ‘Well
done!’ and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially
provided for that purpose. But scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly
began again, though there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been
carried home, exhausted, on a shutter; and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat
him out of sight, or perish.
There were more dances, and there were
forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there was a
great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece of Cold
Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the
evening came after the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The
sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told it him!)
struck up ‘Sir Roger de Coverley’. Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance
with Mrs Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for
them; three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were not to be trifled
with; people who woulddance, and had no notion of walking.