"Yes, yes; laugh if you will. It is nevertheless true that the pretty memories of your childhood are lost."
"Come, my pet, would you like me to stand my boots in the fireplace to-night before I go to bed? Would you like me to stop the magic-lantern man and go and get him a sheet and a candle-end, as my mother used to do? I can almost see her as she handed him the sheet. 'Be careful you don't tear it, now,' she would say; and we all clapped our hands in the mysterious obscurity. I remember all those joys, dear; but, you see, so many things have happened since. Other pleasures have obliterated those."
"Yes, I understand,—the pleasures of your bachelorhood! Come, now, I am sure this is the first Christmas Eve that has ever found you by your own fireside, in your dressing-gown and without a supper, because you always had supper; that goes without saying—"
"Why, I don't know—"
"Yes, yes; I wager you always had a supper."
"Well, perhaps I did, once or twice, although I scarcely remember; I may have had supper with a few old friends. And what did it all amount to? Two pennies' worth of chestnuts and—"
"And a glass of sugar and water."
"Well, just about. Oh, it was nothing much, I can assure you! It sounds great at a distance. We talked awhile, and then we went to bed."
"And he says all that with the straightest face! You have never breathed a word of these simple pleasures to me."
"But, my dear, what I tell you is the absolute truth. I remember once, however, at Ernest's, when I was in rather high spirits, we had a little music afterwards—Will you push me that log? Well, never mind; it is almost midnight, and time for all reasonable people to—"