“When I’m bad, you go on at me,” said William with exasperation, “an’ when I’m tryin’ to lead a holier life and cast aside hyp—hyp—what he said, you go on at me. I dunno what I can be. I don’t mind bein’ hung. I’d as soon be hung as keep havin’ Christmas over an’ over again simply every year the way we do....”
******
William accompanied the party to church after breakfast. He was slightly cheered by discovering a choir boy with a natural aptitude for grimaces and an instinctive knowledge of the rules of the game. The Vicar preached an unconvincing sermon on unselfishness and the curate gave full play to an ultra-Oxford accent and a voice that was almost as unmusical as William’s. Aunt Emma said it had been a “beautiful service.” The only bright spot to William was when the organist boxed the ears of the youngest choir boy who retaliated by putting out his tongue at the organist at the beginning of each verse of the last hymn....
William was very silent during lunch.... He simply didn’t know what people saw in Christmas. It was just like ten Sundays rolled into one.... An’ they didn’t even give people the sort of presents they’d like.... No one all his life had ever given him a water pistol or a catapult or a trumpet or bows and arrows or anything really useful.... And if they didn’t like truth an’ castin’ aside deceit an’—an’ the other thing they could do without ... but he was jolly well goin’ to go on with it. He’d made up his mind and he was jolly well goin’ to go on with it.... His silence was greatly welcomed by his family. He ate plentifully, however, of the turkey and plum pudding and felt strangely depressed afterwards ... so much that he followed the example of the rest of the family and went up to his bedroom....
There he brushed his hair with his new brush, but he had carved his initials so deeply and spaciously that the brush came in two with the first flourish. He brushed his shoes with the two halves with great gusto in the manner of the professional shoe black.... Then having nothing else to do, he turned to his Church History again. The desecrated pictures of the Saints met his gaze and realising suddenly the enormity of the crime in grown up eyes he took his penknife and cut them all out. He made paper boats of them, and deliberately and because he hated it he cut his new tie into strips to fasten some of the boats together. He organised a thrilling naval battle with them and was almost forgetting his grudge against life in general and Christmas in particular....
He was roused to the sense of the present by sounds of life and movement downstairs, and, thrusting his saintly paper fleet into his pyjama case, he went down to the drawing-room. As he entered there came the sound of a car drawing up at the front door and Uncle Frederick looked out of the window and groaned aloud.
“DON’T YOU THINK IT’S VERY LIKE ME?” ASKED LADY
ATKINSON.
“IT’S NOT AS FAT AS YOU ARE,” SAID WILLIAM, CRITICALLY.
“I’M NOT IMPOLITE. I’M BEING TRUTHFUL.”
“It’s Lady Atkinson,” he said, “Help! Help!”
“Now, Frederick dear,” said Aunt Emma hastily, “Don’t talk like that and do try to be nice to her. She’s one of the Atkinsons, you know,” she explained with empressement to Mrs. Brown in a whisper as the lady was shown in.