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 blindman'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
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.

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. But this the Spirit said could not be done.

"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half-hour, Spirit, only one!"

It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of
something, and the rest must find out what; he only answering to their
questions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to
which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an
animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an
animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes, and
lived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show
of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was
never killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a
bull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every
fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar
of laughter; and was so i