I 'll raise your salary , and endeavour to assist your struggling family , and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon , over a Christmas bowl of smoking bishop , Bob ! Make up the fires and buy another coal-scuttle before you dot another i , Bob Cratchit ! '' * * * * * Scrooge was better than his word . He did it all , and infinitely more ; and to Tiny Tim , who did NOT die , he was a second father . He became as good a friend , as good a master , and as good a man as the good old City knew , or any other good old city , town , or borough in the good old world . Some people laughed to see the alteration in him , but he let them laugh , and little heeded them ; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe , for good , at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset ; and , knowing that such as these would be blind anyway , he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less attractive forms . His own heart laughed : and that was quite enough for him . He had no further intercourse with Spirits , but lived upon the Total-Abstinence Principle ever afterwards ; and it was always said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well , if any man alive possessed the knowledge . May that be truly said of us , and all of us ! THE CRICKET ON THE HEARTH A FAIRY TALE OF HOME CHIRP THE FIRST The kettle began it ! Do n't tell me what Mrs. Peerybingle said . I know better . Mrs. Peerybingle may leave it on record to the end of time that she could n't say which of them began it ; but I say the kettle did . I ought to know , I hope ? The kettle began it , full five minutes by the little waxy-faced Dutch clock in the corner , before the Cricket uttered a chirp . As if the clock had n't finished striking , and the convulsive little Hay-maker at the top of it , jerking away right and left with a scythe in front of a Moorish Palace , had n't mowed down half an acre of imaginary grass before the Cricket joined in at all ! Why , I am not naturally positive . Every one knows that I would n't set my own opinion against the opinion of Mrs. Peerybingle , unless I were quite sure , on any account whatever . Nothing should induce me . But , this is a question of fact .
And the fact is , that the kettle began it at least five XXXXX before the Cricket gave any sign of being in existence .
Cratchit Dutch Hay-maker Palace Peerybingle Principle Scrooge chirp minutes scythe