II

It Blazes Higher


It was well that the Doctor had a way with boys, for there was a problem
to be solved here with infinite tact--a problem of protuberant eyes and
paralyzing self-consciousness, of unnatural silences and then unexpected
attempts at speech that died in painful rasps and gurgles, of stubbing
toes and nudging elbows, of a centipedal supply of arms and legs that
interfered with abortive and conscience-stricken attempts at courtesy,
and above all an interest in the weave of the carpet that was at once a
mania and an epidemic--but by the time supper was well under way,
things, in the language of Roger, had begun to hum, and by the time the
Doctor had mastered the identities of his guests, from Jim, the shy,
sullen boy who would not meet his eyes, to Mike's little brother, Muggs,
who consumed prodigious quantities of everything in staring silence, and
looked something like a girl save for a tardily-cast-off suit of Mike's,
somewhat oceanic in flow and fit, the hum had become celebrative and
distinctly a thing of Christmas.

Constraint in the mellowing halo of a Christmas eve supper where holly
and a Yule-log blazed and the winter wind frostily rattled the
checker-paned windows of the sitting-room in jealous spleen, fled to
join the Doctor's rheumatism.

By the time the grandfather's clock struck seven through a haze of
holly, the Doctor had pokered the Yule-log into a frenzied shower of