"I don't know what you have ever done to give ME any pleasure,"
said William, sulkily.

"Let me think," said the old man. "For how many Christmas times
running, have I sat in my warm place, and never had to come out in
the cold night air; and have made good cheer, without being
disturbed by any such uncomfortable, wretched sight as him there?
Is it twenty, William?"

"Nigher forty, it seems," he muttered. "Why, when I look at my
father, sir, and come to think of it," addressing Redlaw, with an
impatience and irritation that were quite new, "I'm whipped if I
can see anything in him but a calendar of ever so many years of
eating and drinking, and making himself comfortable, over and over
again."

"I--I'm eighty-seven," said the old man, rambling on, childishly
and weakly, "and I don't know as I ever was much put out by
anything. I'm not going to begin now, because of what he calls my
son. He's not my son. I've had a power of pleasant times. I
recollect once--no I don't--no, it's broken off. It was something
about a game of cricket and a friend of mine, but it's somehow
broken off. I wonder who he was--I suppose I liked him? And I
wonder what became of him--I suppose he died? But I don't know.
And I don't care, neither; I don't care a bit."

In his drowsy chuckling, and the shaking of his head, he put his
hands into his waistcoat pockets. In one of them he found a bit of
holly (left there, probably last night), which he now took out, and
looked at.