Sebastian laughed hilariously at Granpa’s joke; and continued laughing, even after the general mirth had died down. Letty thought she’d never seen him so lively; no, nor yet so handsome, dark eyes flaming in a dead-white face, lips wine-red and feverish, hair a ruffled auburn halo. “He’s like a god; he’s glorious,” thought Letty; and turned, girl-like, to Balaam Atkins on her other side, that she might compare him disparagingly with Sebastian.
Mr. Atkins murmured: “I don’t blame him either, Miss Letty,”—and suddenly she felt sorry for her discarded swain, who really was just the sort of man to have made her happy, with his neat normal ideas, and neat clothes, and neat bank-balance, and neat fair features. Sebastian might have resembled a god, but Balaam Atkins was simply a cut-out model of a good husband ... and did not contrast so very unfavourably after all.
With the entrance of the lit plum pudding, flanked on one side by the mince-pies, on the other by a very yellow trifle (not free from a faint suspicion of Bird’s custard powder), the last traces of restraint disappeared from the party. Jinny, quite forgetting such everyday things as manners, quite forgetting she wore her best pink dress with the Irish lace collar, sprang on to her chair, waved her spoon, and clamoured to be served first, before the leaping fires went out. Indulgently, because she was the youngest present, her wish was granted.
“Greedy pig!” cried Luke. And: “Jea-lous!” sang back Jinny, emulating the fire-eater’s celebrated act.
A few minutes later: “Mrs. Baker’s got the twins!” shrieked Tommy Cox, in an ecstasy of delight, snatching from that lady’s plate the linked china dolls, and dangling them aloft for the world to see.
“I believe she did it on purpose,” muttered Aunt Lou disgustedly. While Granpa chanted amorously to his giggling wriggling neighbour:
“Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, Baker’s twins!
It ain’t no use tryin’ to gobble up your sins!
We all can spot ’em,
And wonder how you got ’em!”
“Father!!!” Mrs. Johnson had overheard, and was shocked beyond measure at her wicked old parent.
Jinny had the wedding-ring; and would much have preferred the threepenny-bit, which fell to Mr. Johnson’s share; wiping and pocketing the coin, he remarked waggishly that it would help pay for this dinner, which, as it was, had left him a Ruined Man. And then Aunt Lou took offence, and said there were plenty of invitations just as good that she and her father might have accepted if they’d known Matthew grudged them a morsel of bird and a fragment of pudding; and even if he only said it in fun, it wasn’t at all funny to make one’s guests feel uncomfortable, especially at Yuletide, which ought to be a season of peace-on-earth goodwill-to-men. Then Mr. Johnson apologized; and Aunt Lou, softened, wept a little, was pressed to a second helping of plum-pudding, and all was harmony again.
Violet Baker had found the old maid’s thimble under her spoon, but managed to conceal it; Tommy Cox was being very attentive, and there was no sense in putting him off from the start, so to speak.