Читать книгу Charles Dickens: Christmas Books and Stories онлайн

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The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer’s man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker caught his eye.

‘I shall love it, as long as I live,’ cried Scrooge, patting it with his hand. ‘I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it has in its face! It’s a wonderful knocker! — Here’s the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop! How are you? Merry Christmas!’

It was a Turkey. He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird. He would have snapped them short off in a minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

‘Why, it’s impossible to carry that to Camden Town,’ said Scrooge. ‘You must have a cab.’

The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and chuckled till he cried.