So Mr. Blenkinsop sat with the Shepherd while the widow went about her work. With his rumpled hair, clean shaven face, long nose and prominent ears, he was not a handsome man.
"This is the top notch an' no mistake," he remarked as he lighted his pipe. "Blenkinsop is happy. He feels like his Old Self. He has no fault to find with anything or anybody."
Mr. Blenkinsop delivered this report on the state of his feelings with a serious look in his gray eyes.
"It kind o' reminds me o' the time when I used to hang up my stockin' an' look for the reindeer tracks in the snow on Christmas mornin'," he went on. "Since then, my ol' socks have been full o' pain an' trouble every Christmas."
"Those I knit for ye left here full of good wishes," said the Shepherd.
"Say, when I put 'em on this mornin' with the b'iled shirt an' the suit that Mr. Bing sent me, my Old Self came an' asked me where I was goin', an' when I said I was goin' to spen' Christmas with a respectable fam'ly, he said, 'I guess I'll go with ye,' so here we be."
"The Old Selves of the village have all been kicked out-of-doors," said the Shepherd. "The other day you told me about the trouble you had had with yours. That night, all the Old Selves of Bingville got together down in the garden and talked and talked about their relatives so I couldn't sleep. It was a kind of Selfland. I told Judge Crooker about it and he said that that was exactly what was going on in the Town Hall the other night at the public meeting."
"The folks are drunk—as drunk as I was in Hazelmead last May," said Mr. Blenkinsop. "They have been drunk with gold and pleasure——"
"The fruit of the vine of plenty," said Judge Crooker, who had just come up the stairs. "Merry Christmas!" he exclaimed as he shook hands. "Mr. Blenkinsop, you look as if you were enjoying yourself."