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remember when I dined with you, some time ago, you promised to dine with me some day, if I could ever afford to give a dinner-party. Well, I’m going to have one — a Christmas party. Not on Christmas Day, because every one goes home then — but on the day after. Cold mutton and rice pudding. You’ll come? Eh! — what?’
We said we should be delighted, if Father had no objection, because that is the proper thing to say, and the poor Indian, I mean the Uncle, said, ‘No, your Father won’t object — he’s coming too, bless your soul!’
We all got Christmas presents for the Uncle. The girls made him a handkerchief case and a comb bag, out of some of the pieces of silk he had given them. I got him a knife with three blades; H. O. got a siren whistle, a very strong one, and Dicky joined with me in the knife, and Noel would give the Indian ivory box that Uncle’s friend had sent on the wonderful Fairy Cab day. He said it was the very nicest thing he had, and he was sure Uncle wouldn’t mind his not having bought it with his own money.
I think Father’s business must have got better — perhaps Uncle’s friend put money in it and that did it good, like feeding the starving. Anyway we all had new suits, and the girls had the green silk from India made into frocks, and on Boxing Day we went in two cabs — Father and the girls in one, and us boys in the other.
We wondered very much where the Indian Uncle lived, because we had not been told. And we thought when the cab began to go up the hill towards the Heath that perhaps the Uncle lived in one of the poky little houses up at the top of Greenwich. But the cab went right over the Heath and in at some big gates, and through a shrubbery all white with frost like a fairy forest, because it was Christmas time. And at last we stopped before one of those jolly, big, ugly red houses with a lot of windows, that are so comfortable inside, and on the steps was the Indian Uncle, looking very big and grand, in a blue cloth coat and yellow sealskin waistcoat, with a bunch of seals hanging from it.
‘I wonder whether he has taken a place as butler here?’ said Dicky.
‘A poor, broken-down man —’
Noel thought it was very likely, because he knew that in these big houses there were always thousands of stately butlers.
The Uncle came down the steps and opened the cab door himself, which I don’t think butlers would expect to have to do. And he took us in. It was a lovely hall, with bear and tiger skins on the floor, and a big clock with the faces of the sun and moon dodging out when it was day or night, and Father Time with a scythe coming out at the hours, and the name on it was ‘Flint. Ashford. 1776’; and there was a fox eating a stuffed duck in a glass case, and horns of stags and other animals over the doors.
‘We’ll just come into my study first,’ said the Uncle, ‘and wish each other a Merry Christmas.’ So then we knew he wasn’t the butler, but it must be his own house, for only the master of the house has a study.
His study was not much like Father’s. It had hardly any books, but swords and guns and newspapers and a great many boots, and boxes half unpacked, with more Indian things bulging out of them.
We gave him our presents and he was awfully pleased. Then he gave us his Christmas presents. You must be tired of hearing about presents, but I must remark that all the Uncle’s presents were watches; there was a watch for each of us, with our names engraved inside, all silver except H. O.‘s, and that was a Waterbury, ‘To match his boots,’ the Uncle said. I don’t know what he meant.
Then the Uncle looked at Father, and Father said, ‘You tell them, sir.’
So the Uncle coughed and stood up and made a speech. He said —
‘Ladies and gentlemen, we are met together to discuss an important subject which has for some weeks engrossed the attention of the honourable member opposite and myself.’
I said, ‘Hear, hear,’ and Alice whispered, ‘What happened to the guinea-pig?’ Of course you know the answer to that.
The Uncle went on —
‘I am going to live in this house, and as it’s rather big for me, your Father has agreed that he and you shall come and live with me. And so, if you’re agreeable, we’re all going to live here together, and, please God, it’ll be a happy home for us all. Eh! — what?’
He blew his nose and kissed us all round. As it was Christmas I did not mind, though I am much too old for it on other dates. Then he said, ‘Thank you all very much for your presents; but I’ve got a present here I value more than anything else I have.’
I thought it was not quite polite of him to say so, till I saw that what he valued so much was a threepenny-bit on his watch-chain, and, of course, I saw it must be the one we had given him.
He said, ‘You children gave me that when you thought I was the poor Indian, and I’ll keep it as long as I live. And I’ve asked some friends to help us to be jolly, for this is our house-warming. Eh! — what?’
Then he shook Father by the hand, and they blew their noses; and then Father said, ‘Your Uncle has been most kind — most —’
But Uncle interrupted by saying, ‘Now, Dick, no nonsense!’ Then H. O. said, ‘Then you’re not poor at all?’ as if he were very disappointed. The Uncle replied, ‘I have enough for my simple wants, thank you, H. O.; and your Father’s business will provide him with enough for yours. Eh! — what?’
Then we all went down and looked at the fox thoroughly, and made the Uncle take the glass off so that we could see it all round and then the Uncle took us all over the house, which is the most comfortable one I have ever been in. There is a beautiful portrait of Mother in Father’s sitting-room. The Uncle must be very rich indeed. This ending is like what happens in Dickens’s books; but I think it was much jollier to happen like a book, and it shows what a nice man the Uncle is, the way he did it all.
Think how flat it would have been if the Uncle had said, when we first offered him the one and threepence farthing, ‘Oh, I don’t want your dirty one and three-pence! I’m very rich indeed.’ Instead of which he saved up the news of his wealth till Christmas, and then told us all in one glorious burst. Besides, I can’t help it if it is like Dickens, because it happens this way. Real life is often something like books.
Presently, when we had seen the house, we were taken into the drawing-room, and there was Mrs Leslie, who gave us the shillings and wished us good hunting, and Lord Tottenham, and Albert-next-door’s Uncle — and Albert-next-door, and his Mother (I’m not very fond of her), and best of all our own Robber and his two kids, and our Robber had a new suit on. The Uncle told us he had asked the people who had been kind to us, and Noel said, ‘Where is my noble editor that I wrote the poetry to?’
The Uncle said he had not had the courage to ask a strange editor to dinner; but Lord Tottenham was an old friend of Uncle’s, and he had introduced Uncle to Mrs Leslie, and that was how he had the pride and pleasure of welcoming her to our house-warming. And he made her a bow like you see on a Christmas card.
Then Alice asked, ‘What about Mr Rosenbaum? He was kind; it would have been a pleasant surprise for him.’
But everybody laughed, and Uncle said —
‘Your father has paid him the sovereign he lent you. I don’t think he could have borne another pleasant surprise.’
And I said there was the butcher, and he was really kind; but they only laughed, and Father said you could not ask all your business friends to a private dinner.
Then it was dinner-time, and we thought of Uncle’s talk about cold mutton and rice. But it was a beautiful dinner, and I never saw such a dessert! We had ours on plates to take away into another sitting-room, which was much jollier than sitting round the table with the grown-ups. But the Robber’s kids stayed with their Father. They were very shy and frightened, and said hardly anything, but looked all about with very bright eyes. H. O. thought they were like white mice; but afterwards we got to know them very well, and in the end they were not so mousy. And there is a good deal of interesting stuff to tell about them; but