But on this present Christmas festival all went swimmingly to the end. “Now, bear a hand, old girl,” was the harshest word he said to her; and he enjoyed himself like Duncan, shut up in measureless content. He had three guests with him on this auspicious day. There was his old friend Snengkeld, who had dined with him on every Christmas since his marriage; there was his wife’s brother, of whom we will say a word or two just now;—and there was our old friend, Mr. Kantwise. Mr. Kantwise was not exactly the man whom Moulder would have chosen as his guest, for they were opposed to each other in all their modes of thought and action; but he had come across the travelling agent of the Patent Metallic Steel Furniture Company on the previous day, and finding that he was to be alone in London on this general holiday, he had asked him out of sheer good nature. Moulder could be very good natured, and full of pity when the sorrow to be pitied arose from some such source as the want of a Christmas dinner. So Mr. Kantwise had been asked, and precisely at four o’clock he made his appearance at Great St. Helens.
But now, as to this brother-in-law. He was no other than that John Kenneby whom Miriam Usbech did not marry—whom Miriam Usbech might, perhaps, have done well to marry. John Kenneby, after one or two attempts in other spheres of life, had at last got into the house of Hubbles and Grease, and had risen to be their bookkeeper. He had once been tried by them as a traveller, but in that line he had failed. He did not possess that rough, ready, self-confident tone of mind which is almost necessary for a man who is destined to move about quickly from one circle of persons to another. After a six months’ trial he had given that up, but during the time, Mr. Moulder, the senior traveller of the house, had married his sister. John Kenneby was a good, honest, painstaking fellow, and was believed by his friends to have put a few pounds together in spite of the timidity of his character.
When Snengkeld and Kenneby were shown up into the room, they found nobody there but Kantwise. That Mrs. Moulder should be downstairs looking after the roast turkey was no more than natural; but why should not Moulder himself be there to receive his guests? He soon appeared, however, coming up without his coat.
“Well, Snengkeld, how are you, old fellow; many happy returns, and all that; the same to you, John. I’ll tell you what, my lads; it’s a prime ’un. I never saw such a bird in all my days.”
“What, the turkey?” said Snengkeld.
“You didn’t think it’d be a ostrich, did you?”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Snengkeld. “No, I didn’t expect nothing but a turkey here on Christmas-day.”
“And nothing but a turkey you’ll have, my boys. Can you eat turkey, Kantwise?”
Mr. Kantwise declared that his only passion in the way of eating was for a turkey.
“As for John, I’m sure of him. I’ve seen him at the work before.” Whereupon John grinned but said nothing.
“I never see such a bird in my life, certainly.”
“From Norfolk, I suppose,” said Snengkeld, with a great appearance of interest.
“Oh, you may swear to that. It weighed twenty-four pounds, for I put it into the scales myself, and old Gibbetts let me have it for a guinea. The price marked on it was five-and-twenty, for I saw it. He’s had it hanging for a fortnight, and I’ve been to see it wiped down with vinegar regular every morning. And now, my boys, it’s done to a turn. I’ve been in the kitchen most of the time myself; and either I or Mrs. M. has never left it for a single moment.”
“How did you manage about divine service?” said Kantwise; and then, when he had spoken, closed his eyes and sucked his lips.
Mr. Moulder looked at him for a minute, and then said, “Gammon.”
“Ha, ha, ha!” laughed Snengkeld. And then Mrs. Moulder appeared, bringing the turkey with her; for she would trust it to no hands less careful than her own.
“By George, it is a bird,” said Snengkeld, standing over it and eyeing it minutely.
“Uncommon nice it looks,” said Kantwise.
“All the same, I wouldn’t eat none, if I were you,” said Moulder, “seeing what sinners have been a basting it.” And then they all sat down to dinner, Moulder having first resumed his coat.
For the next three or four minutes Moulder did not speak a word. The turkey was on his mind, with the stuffing, the gravy, the liver, the breast, the wings, and the legs. He stood up to carve it, and while he was at the work he looked at it as though his two eyes were hardly sufficient. He did not help first one person and then another, so ending by himself; but he cut up artistically as much as might probably be consumed, and located the fragments in small heaps or shares in the hot gravy; and then, having made a partition of the spoils, he served it out with unerring impartiality. To have robbed anyone of his or her fair slice of the breast would, in his mind, have been gross dishonesty. In his heart he did not love Kantwise, but he dealt by him with the utmost justice in the great affair of the turkey’s breast. When
