Happy Halloween? Bah Humbug!

"Happy Halloween? Bah! Humbug!"

"Halloween a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's
nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"

"I do," said Scrooge. "Happy Halloween! What
right have you to be happy? What reason have you
to be happy? You're poor enough."

"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you
to be morose? You're rich enough."

Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur
of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up
with "Humbug."

"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.

"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I
live in such a world of fools as this? Trick or Treat!
Out upon Happy Halloween! What's Halloween time to
you but a time for buying candy on credit; a time for
dressing up in a goofy costume, pretending to be
Jack Sparrow, a ghost, a crayon, or a can of SPAM,
finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer;
a time for balancing your books and having every item
in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead
against you? If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly,
"every idiot who goes about with 'Happy Halloween' on his lips,
should founder on tootsie rolls, and be buried with a pixy stik
through his heart. He should!"

"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Halloween
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."

"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you
don't keep it."

"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done
you!"

"There are many things from which I might have
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare
say," returned the nephew. "Halloween among the
rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Halloween
time, when it has come round--apart from the
veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything
belonging to it can be apart from that--as a
good time; a kind, spooky, charitable, pleasant
time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent
to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think
of people below them as if they really were
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race
of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"

The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark
for ever.

"Let me hear another sound from you," said
Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Halloween by losing
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,
sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you
don't run for Governor."