But , even here , two men who watched the light had made a fire that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea . Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat , they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog ; and one of them , the elder too , with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather , as the figure-head of an old ship might be , struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself . Again the Ghost sped on , above the black and heaving sea -- on , on -- until , being far away , as he told Scrooge , from any shore , they lighted on a ship . They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel , the look-out in the bow , the officers who had the watch ; dark , ghostly figures in their several stations ; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune , or had a Christmas thought , or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas-day , with homeward hopes belonging to it . And every man on board , waking or sleeping , good or bad , had had a kinder word for one another on that day than on any day in the year ; and had shared to some extent in its festivities ; and had remembered those he cared for at a distance , and had known that they delighted to remember him . It was a great surprise to Scrooge , while listening to the moaning of the wind , and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss , whose depths were secrets as profound as death : it was a great surprise to Scrooge , while thus engaged , to hear a hearty laugh . It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognise it as his own nephew 's , and to find himself in a bright , dry , gleaming room , with the Spirit standing smiling by his side , and looking at that same nephew with approving affability ! `` Ha , ha ! '' laughed Scrooge 's nephew . `` Ha , ha , ha ! '' If you should happen , by any unlikely chance , to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge 's nephew , all I can say is , I should like to know him too . Introduce him to me , and I 'll cultivate his acquaintance . It is a fair , even-handed , noble adjustment of things , that , while there is infection in disease and sorrow , there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour . When Scrooge 's nephew laughed in this way , holding his sides , rolling his head , and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions , Scrooge 's niece , by marriage , laughed as heartily as he . And their assembled friends , being not a bit behindhand , roared out lustily . `` Ha , ha ! Ha , ha , ha , ha ! '' `` He said that Christmas was a humbug , as I live ! '' cried Scrooge 's nephew . `` He believed it , too ! ''
`` More shame XXXXX him , Fred ! ''
If beside for into like over than that to until