I could have hurled it, plate and all, into the yard below. I saw myself at once an object of profound pity and charity to the company above. Although I am extremely fond of that marvelous compound of good things eaten with brandy-sauce on Christmas Day, I could not have touched my landlady's proffered plateful for any consideration. I gave a medical reason for declining the dainty, and once more turned to my pipe and my tea. As the white smoke curled from my mouth a waking dream stole over me. I fancied that I was Robinson Crusoe: my parrot dead, and my dog run away. I cursed fate that had consigned me to a solitude. I recited a few verses from Keats aloud, and the sound of my voice seemed strange and harsh. I poked the fire, and whistled, and hummed--to restore myself to the full enjoyment, or rather to the misery, of my senses. The tea on that evening only was green tea. I felt its effects. I grew nervous and irritable. The servant once more invaded my seclusion--what could she want now? "Please, sir, have you done with the tea-things? I'm a-going to wash 'em for up-stairs." "Take them;" I replied, not very gracefully. The servant thanked me, as I thought, with impertinent good-nature, and cleared the table. About this time, sounds of merriment began to resound from the Christmas party. The shrill laughter of children was mingled with the hoarse guffaws of their parents; and the house shook at intervals with the romps of both parties. In the height of my desolate agony it gave me no little consolation to think that those children who were at their games, would probably dance to the tune of a tutor's cane at no distant interval. Such was my envy at the exuberant mirth that reached me in fitful gusts as the doors were opened or shut, that I felt all sorts of uncharitableness. Presently there was a lull in the laughter-storm. I began to hope that the party was about to break up. A gentle footstep was audible, descending the stairs. There was a smothered call for Mary. Mary obeyed the summons; and the following dialogue was whispered in the passage: "Did he eat the pudding?" "No, mum--he was afraid of it: and he was _so_ cross!" "Cross! I was going to ask him to join us: do you think he would, Mary?" "Bless you, no, mum! _He_ jine! I think I see him a-jining! Nothing pleases him. He's too high for any body. I never see the likes of him!" The feet then ascended the stairs, and after another pause of a few moments, the din of merriment was resumed. I was furious at the sympathy which my loneliness created. I could bear the laughter and shouting of the Christmas party no longer, and once, more with a determination of having my revenge, I went to bed. I lay there for several hours; and did not close my eyes before I had vowed solemnly that I would not pass another Christmas Day in solitude, and in lodgings--and I didn't.