Stave One – Byrd’s Ghost

Byrd was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the secretary, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Ebenezer Biden signed it. And Biden’s name was good upon ‘Change for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Biden knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Biden and he were partners in the Senate for I don’t know how many years. Biden was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, his sole mourner.

Oh! But he was as corrupt as the day is long, was Biden! a squeezing, wrenching grasping, scraping, clutching, sniffing, lying, grifting, covetous old sinner! Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Biden, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him to smell their hair, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of Biden.

But what did Biden care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, was what the knowing ones call “nuts” to Biden.

Once upon a time of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas eve, old Biden sat busy in his oval office. It was cold, bleak biting, foggy weather; and the city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already.

The door of Biden’s oval office was open, that he might keep his eye upon his press secretary, who, in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was writing press releases.

“A merry Christmas, Father! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Biden’s son, who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation Biden had of his approach. He was decked in a bright holiday scarf, red running shoes, and a jock strap complete with mistletoe; but nothing else.

“Bah!” said Biden; “humbug!”

“Christmas a humbug, father! You don’t mean that, I am sure?”

“Come on, man! What’s Christmas time but a time for MAGA rallies; a time for seething, torch-wielding white supremacists to emerge from fields, their eyes glowing with hate, pitchforks in hand; a time for election deniers to deny elections; a time for right wing extremists to spread disinformation and threaten democracy? If I had my will, everyone who ever voted Republican would be sent before the January 6 commission, buried in a DC jail cell with a stake of holly through his heart.”

“Father!”

“Son, keep Christmas in your own way, and I’ll do the, the thing.”

“Keep it! But you don’t keep it.”

“Let me leave it alone, then. What’s Christmas ever done for you?”

“I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a time of the finest crack; a time of the highest paid Asian hookers of questionable age; a time of spending millions of our ill-gotten gains on weekends lost to our memories. And therefore, father, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket — for that is better left to our Ukranian business dealings– I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!”

The secretary in the tank involuntarily applauded.

“One more sound from you,” said Biden, “and I’ll find another diversity hire! You’re a good speaker” he added, turning to his Son. “I wonder you don’t go into Congress.”

“Don’t be angry, father. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.”

“Good afternoon.”

His Son left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. The secretary, in letting Biden’s Son out, had let two other people in. They were a portly gentleman and a whisp of a woman greatly affected by age. They had books and papers in their hands, and bowed to him.

“At this festive season of the year, Mr Biden,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for the lobbyists, the pharmaceutical companies, the media, those with worthless degrees and a high amount of student debt.”

“Aren’t there any bills in Congress?”

“Plenty of bills. But with the present obstructionists within our party we must resort to executive orders. What shall I put you down for?”

“Nothing!”

“You wish to write a blank check?”

“I wish for three words, MAGA jails. That’s what I wish for.”

“Many have already gone there; and many will die.”

“If they are going to die, they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population, fat.”

At length the hour of shutting up the oval office arrived. With an ill-will Biden, dismounting from his chair, tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant secretary in the Tank.

“I guess you want the day off tomorrow?”

“If quite convenient, sir.”

“It’s convenient. We shall not rest as long as one MEGA MAGA walks free.”

“It’s only once a year, sir.”

“Then be here all the earlier next morning.”

The secretary promised that she would; and Biden walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a twinkling.

Biden took his melancholy pudding in his usual melancholy dining room; and having read all the newspapers and mainstream media web sites, and beguiled the rest of the evening with his signing pen, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to a deceased president. They were a gloomy suite of rooms. The building was old enough now, and dreary enough; for nobody lived in it but Biden, the other rooms being all let out as offices, except for the odd high paying Democrat donor.

Now it is a fact, that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door to his room, except that it was very large; also, that Biden had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence in that place; also, that Biden had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the city of DC. And yet Biden, having his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but Byrd’s face.

Byrd’s face, with a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but it looked at Biden as Byrd used to look, — with ghostly spectacles turned up upon its ghostly forehead.

As Biden looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again. He said, “Pooh, pooh!” and closed the door with a bang.

Up Biden went, not caring a button for its being very dark. Darkness hides all, and Biden liked it. But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that. Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room, all as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin ready; and the little saucepan of pudding upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.

Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his tie, put on his dressing-gown and slippers and his nightcap, and sat down before the very low fire to take his pudding.

As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber in the highest story of the building. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing. Soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

This was succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar.

Then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

It came on through the heavy door, and a spectre passed into the room before his eyes. And upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, “I know him! Byrd’s ghost!”

The same face, the very same. Byrd in his suit. His body was transparent; so that Biden, observing him, and looking through his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

Biden had often heard it said that Byrd had no bowels, but he had never believed it until now. No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him, — though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes, and noticed the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, — he was still incredulous.

“How now!” said Biden, caustic and cold as ever. “What do you want with me?”

“Much!” — Byrd’s voice, no doubt about it.

“Who are you?”

“Ask me who I was.”

“Who were you then?”

“In life I was your fellow Senator, Jacob Byrd.”

“Can you — can you sit down?”

“I can.”

“Do it, then.”

“You don’t believe in me.”

“I don’t.”

“What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?”

“I don’t know. Can you cut my campaign a check from a crypto fund?”

“Why do you doubt your senses?”

“I don’t doubt my senses. They’re the best senses anyone ever had. Back in Scranton I used to hear the 5:00 train coming at 4:30.”

“It is required of every man, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. I cannot tell you all I would. A very little more is permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond the Oval Office — mark me! — in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of the Senate; and weary journeys lie before me!”

“Twelve years dead. And travelling all the time? You travel fast?”

“On the wings of the wind.”

“Can you travel to anyone’s house? And, say, watch them in the shower, without them knowing?”

“O blind man, blind man! not to know that ages of incessant labor by immortal creatures for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life’s opportunities misused! Yet I was like this man; I once was like this man!”

“But you were always a good man of politics, Jacob,” faltered Biden, who now began to apply this to himself. “Think of all the graft, the riches we instilled upon ourselves! The power we retained! The poor drug addicts we imprisoned!”

“Politics!” cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. “Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”

Biden was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake exceedingly.

“Spirit, you must tell me, is it whites only on the other side?”

“Hear me! My time is nearly gone.”

“When you are a spirit, can you sneak up behind and sniff anyone you want?”

“I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.”

“A good, long sniff. They wouldn’t even know you were there.”

“You will be haunted by Three Spirits.”

“And you could play with their hair. And nobody would say anything because you were an invisible spirit.”

The Ghost sighed. “So anyway, three spirits. Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow night, when the bell tolls One. Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon the next night, when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!”

It walked backward from him; and at every Step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that, when the apparition reached it, it was wide open.

Biden closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of repose, he went straight to bed, without undressing, and fell asleep on the instant.

Stave Two – The First of the Three Spirits

When Biden awoke, it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber, until suddenly the church clock tolled a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.

Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn aside by a strange figure, — like a woman: yet not so like a woman as like a man, viewed through some supernatural medium. Its head was shaved and had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. It held the handle of a bright green suitcase in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers.

“Are you the first Spirit, sir?”

“I am! And do use my proper pronouns.”

“Who and what are you?”

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long past?”

“No. Your past. The things that you will see with me are shadows of the things that have been; they will have no consciousness of us.”

Biden then made bold to inquire what business brought them there.

“Your welfare. Rise, and walk with me!”

“I am a mortal, and liable to fall. Especially on stairs.”

“Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this!”

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood in the busy thoroughfares of a city. It was made plain enough by the dressing of the shops that here, too, it was Christmas time.

The Ghost stopped at a certain door, and asked Biden if he knew it.

“Know it! Was this my Senate office?”

They went in. At sight of an old gentleman, sitting behind a high desk, Biden cried in great excitement: “Why, it’s old McCain! Bless his heart, it’s McCain, alive again!”

Old McCain moved his pen from his useful hand to his not userful hand, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his not useful hand, adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice: “Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Paul!”

A living and moving picture of Biden’s former self, a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-Senator.

“Paul Simon, to be sure! I would know it from the bow tie!” said Biden to the Ghost. “And who is the other man?”

“That is you Ebenezer, the shadow of your former self.”

“That’s not me, you lying dog faced pony boy! I had a full head of hair, and the physique of a Greek god. That guy’s skinny and almost bald.”

“It is most definitely you.”

“I should take you out behind the shed and beat you like I used to do to Charles Atlas.”

“That never happened.”

“Sure it did. Used to best him at arm wrestling too, every Saturday down at the pool hall.”

“Neither did that ever happen. My time grows short, as does my patience,” observed the Spirit. “Quick!”

This was not addressed to Biden, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again he saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life.

He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a black dress, in whose eyes there were tears.

“It matters little,” she said softly to Biden’s former self. “To you, very little. Another idol has displaced me; and if it can comfort you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.”

“What Idol has displaced you?”

“A golden one. You desire the world too much. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion, Gain, engrosses you Have I not?”

Current Biden asked, “Spirit, who is this girl?”

“That is the girl to whom you were betrothed.”

“No, no, you got it wrong. I had all the girls back in the day. They were lining up to have their hair sniffed and to feel my leg hair. No way I would settle for a horse face one like this.”

“Again, this is a vision of the past, it’s exactly as it happened.”

“Come on man, I only dated models back then.”

As he struggled with the Spirit he was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bed-room. He had barely time to reel to bed before he sank into a heavy sleep.

Stave Three – The Second of the Three Spirits

Biden awoke in his bedroom. There was no doubt about that. But it and his own adjoining sitting-room, into which he shuffled in his slippers, attracted by a great light there, had undergone a surprising transformation. Against the walls up to the ceiling were piles of cash. Heaped upon the floor, to form a kind of throne, were missiles, tanks, solar panels, windmills, electric cars, and syringes full of vaccines. In easy state upon this couch there sat a Giant glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and who raised it high to shed its light on Biden, as he came peeping round the door. He wore a close-kept beard; a sweatshirt; and spoke with a Ukrainian accent.

“Come in, — come in! and know me better, man! I am the Ghost of Christmas Grift. Look upon me! You have never seen the like of me before!”

“Never.”

“Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these late years?” pursued the Phantom.

“I don’t think I have, I am afraid I have not. Do you have many brothers, Spirit?”

“More than eighteen hundred, all four thousand pages long and rife with earmarks.”

“A tremendous windfall! And now where do we go?”

“Touch my robe!”

Biden did as he was told, and held it fast.

The room and its contents all vanished instantly, and they stood at a beach side villa upon a warm sunny Christmas morning.

Biden and the Ghost passed on, invisible, straight to Biden’s predecessor’s; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Donald Cratchit’s dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think of that! Donald had but fifteen million himself; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present blessed his forty-roomed house!

Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit’s wife, dressed out in last year’s designer gown, and she instructed to staff to make the table; while Master Barron Cratchit plunged a fork into the plate of caviar.

“What has ever got your precious father then?” said Mrs Cratchit. “And his Hair and your brother Tiny Hat! And Pie warn’t as late last Christmas day by half an hour!”

“Here’s Pie, mother!” said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

“Here’s Pie, mother!” cried Barron. “Hurrah! There’s such a goose, Pie!”

“Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!” said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, an taking off her shawl and bonnet for her.

“We’d a deal of work to finish up last night,” replied the girl, “and had to clear away this morning!”

“Well! Never mind so long as you are come,” said Mrs Cratchit. “Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!”

“No, no! There’s father coming,” cried Barron. “Hide, Pie, hide!”

So Pie hid herself, and in came Donald with his golf clothes darned up and brushed, to look seasonable; his Hair in a coiff; and a red MAGA hat upon his head. Alas for Tiny Hat, he bore a little crutch, and had his bill supported by an iron frame!

“Why, where’s our Pie?” cried Donald Cratchit, looking round.

“Not coming,” said Mrs Cratchit.

“Not coming!” said Donald, with a sudden declension in his high spirits; for he had been Tim’s blood-horse all the way from the golf course, and had come home rampant, — “not coming upon Christmas day!”

Pie didn’t like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while Barron hustled Tiny Hat, and bore him off to the wash-house that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

“And how did little Hat behave?” asked Mrs Cratchit, when she had rallied Donald on his credulity, and Donald had hugged Pie to his heart’s content.

“As good as gold,” said Donald, “and better. The best. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the clubhouse, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember to vote MAGA in 2024.”

Donald’s voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Hat was growing strong and hearty.

His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Hat before another word was spoken, escorted by the Hair and his brother to his stool beside the fire; and while Donald, turning up his cuffs, placed a two liter of Diet Coke into a bucket of ice..

Mrs Cratchit instructed the staff to make the goose, lobster, crab, and prime rib. The young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Hat, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife, and feebly cried, Hurrah!

There never was such a meal. Donald said it was a tremendous meal, the best meal ever made in history. People will be talking about this meal for years. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone, — too nervous to bear witnesses, — to take the pudding up, and bring it in.

In half a minute Mrs Cratchit entered, — flushed but smiling proudly, — with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

O, a wonderful pudding I Donald Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour that the cooks had used. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up. The Diet Coke being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire.

Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in what Donald Cratchit called a circle, and at Donald Cratchit’s elbow stood the family display of glass, — two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

These held the Diet Coke, however, as well as golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and crackled noisily. Then Bob proposed: —

“A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!”

Which all the family re-echoed.

“God bless us every one!” said Tiny Hat, the last of all.

He sat very close to his father’s side, upon his little stool. Trump held his withered little bill in his hand, as if he loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.

Biden raised his head speedily, on hearing his own name.

“Mr Biden,” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr Biden, the Founder of the Feast!”

“The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs Cratchit, reddening. “I wish I had him here I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

“My dear,” said Donald, “the children! Christmas day.”

“It should be Christmas day, I am sure,” said she, “on which one drinks the health of such a odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr Biden. You know he is, Donald! Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!”

“My dear,” was Donald’s mild answer, “Christmas day.”

“I’ll drink his health for your sake and the day’s,” said Mrs Cratchit, “not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy New Year! He’ll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!”

The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Hat drank it last of all, but he didn’t care twopence for it. Biden was the ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes.

After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Biden the Baleful being done with. All this time the chestnuts and the Diet Coke went round and round; and by and by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Hat, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.

There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family; they were only mostly well dressed; their clothes were of last season; their toilets were only partially gold plated. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit’s torch at parting, Biden had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Hat, until the last.

It was a great surprise to Biden, who had taken a spot behind Pie and was inhaling deeply, as this scene vanished, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Biden to recognize it as his own Son’s, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room, filled with acrid smoke and the smell of hookers, with the Spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same Son.

“He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!” cried Biden’s Son. “He believed it too!”

“More shame for him, Hunter!” said Biden’s granddaughter, indignantly. Bless those women! they never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest.

“He’s a comical old fellow,” said Biden’s Son, taking a puff from a pipe, “that’s the truth; and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won’t come and dine with us. What’s the consequence? He don’t lose much of a dinner.”

“Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,” interrupted Biden’s granddaughter. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the table, were passing a pipe, by lamplight.

“Well, I am very glad to hear it,” said Biden’s Son, “because I haven’t any great faith in these young housekeepers.”

After tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you.

But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his Son; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels. Suddenly, as they stood together in an open place, the bell struck twelve.

Biden looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it no more. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Byrd, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him.

Stave Four – The Last of the Spirits

The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, Biden bent down upon his knee; for in the air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.

It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.

“I suppose you’re the ghost of Christmas future or something.”

It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.

“Let’s get this over with, I have a pushup contest with Chuck Norris.”

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to spring up about them. But there they were in the heart of it; on ‘Change, amongst the politicians.

The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of them. Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Biden advanced to listen to their talk.

“No,” said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, “I don’t know much about it either way. I only know we’ve lost all our major cities, millions dead.”

“Who launched the first missiles?” inquired another.

“Putin, I believe.”

“Why, what was the matter with him? I thought he’d never do it.”

“God knows,” said the first, with a yawn.

“When do we get to leave the bunker?” asked a red-faced gentleman.

“I haven’t heard,” said the man with the large chin. “But we’re well supplied for years.”

“Blah blah blah,” said Biden. “Who cares?”

Biden was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversation apparently so trivial; but feeling assured that it must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. It could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this Ghost’s province was the Future.

The Ghost conducted him to poor Donald Cratchit’s house, — the dwelling he had visited before, — and found the mother and the children seated round the fire.

Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at the Hair, who had a book before him. The mother and her staff were engaged in needle-work. But surely they were very quiet!

“‘And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.'”

Where had Biden heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The Hair must have read them out, as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not go on?

The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her face.

“The color hurts my eyes,” she said.

“What does this have to do with anything?” asked Biden. “Does this have to do with that red ball cap? Who cares?”

The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come let out a sigh, then conveyed him to a dismal, wretched, ruinous campaign headquarters.

The Spirit stood among the tables, and pointed down to One.

“Now what are you showing me?”

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the table by which it stood.

Biden crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the finger, read upon a newspaper which sat upon the table: “Trump Wins! Biden Loses Re-Election Bid.”

“‘O no, no! Spirit! hear me! I am not the man I was. Tell me how this can be avoided!”

For the first time the kind hand faltered.

“I will honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach. O, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this newspaper! I’ll do anything!”

Holding up his hands in one last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom’s hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down to nothing, and he was surrounded by bright light. He raised his head, and wiped a string of drool from his cracked lips.

“What’s to-day?” cried Biden, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.

“EH?”

“What’s to-day, my fine fellow?”

“To-day! It’s Tuesday the same day we always hold press conferences.”

The other reporters shifted nervously.

“It’s not yet Christmas day! I haven’t missed it. Hallo, my fine fellow!”

The press secretary gently led Biden from the podium. To him she whispered, “You fell asleep again, sir.” And to the press gathered before her, she instructed, “As usual, this never happened.”

Biden was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; he gave more to lobbyists, censored his opponents, sent the FBI after every Republican, and fortified every election. He became as sleazy a politician the sleazy old city knew, or any other sleazy old city, town, or borough in the sleazy old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him; but his own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for him.

He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived in that respect upon the Total-Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Hat observed, God Bless Us, Every One!

The End

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all the Glibertariat!