A Christmas Carol: stave quizzes with answers

B. Sensing the impropriety, he pokes the fire and puts out “the last frail spark for ever.” Scrooge threatens his job anyway.

“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.”

D. The narrator will not print the oath, but the common expression is “I'll see you in hell first,” and “that extremity” is the place it names. Going “the whole length” means Scrooge said the full curse, not a softened form.

“Scrooge said that he would see him--yes, indeed he did. He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.”

A. The narrator calls it a habit: he puts his hands in his breeches pockets, and does so now without lifting his eyes or getting off his knees.

“It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.”

C. Scrooge asks, “You see this toothpick?” and says that if he swallowed it he would be haunted by goblins of his own making. He is still trying to talk his fear down.

“said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.”

A. The fireplace is paved with Dutch tiles showing scenes from the Scriptures, “hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts,” and Marley's face crowds out every one of them.

“There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts;”

C. A bill of exchange payable “three days after sight” is worth nothing if there are no days, so Scrooge's first worry about endless night is money.

“This was a great relief, because "three days after sight of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States' security if there were no days to count by.”

B. After the Fezziwigs shake every guest's hand, the lads go to beds that are under a counter in the back-shop.

“When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.”

“and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter in the back-shop.”

D. He thanks the gentleman but would rather not if it is “the same tap as he had tasted before.” Like the “curiously light wine” given to the children, the school's hospitality is thin.

“sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of "something" to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not.”

A. The comic image is of legs so lively they seem to give off light. The next lines say no one could predict what they would do next, and Fezziwig “cut” so neatly that he seemed to wink with his legs.

“You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would have become of them next.”

“Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.”

D. The baby was caught putting a doll's frying-pan in his mouth and was suspected of swallowing a toy turkey glued on a wooden platter. It proved a false alarm.

“The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!”

“The immense relief of finding this a false alarm!”

D. With the weight off her mind, she admits she had doubted the quantity of flour. Nobody says it is a small pudding for a large family.

“Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour.”

A. She says the lord “was much about as tall as Peter,” and Peter pulls up his collars so high that his head disappears.

“Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as Peter;" at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there.”

C. The poor carry their dinners to the bakers' shops to be cooked. Scrooge says that closing these places on Sundays would take away their means of dining, and the Spirit answers that such deeds, done in its name, belong to those who do them.

“You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,”

“You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?”

B. The narrator explains each smell in turn: the washing-day smell is the cloth, and the pudding itself smells like an eating-house and a pastrycook's with a laundress's next door. The laundress is part of a comparison, not a neighbor.

“A smell like a washing-day! That was the cloth.”

C. They object that the reply to “Is it a bear?” should have been “Yes,” since a “No” was enough to turn their thoughts away from Mr. Scrooge. The joke is at Scrooge's expense, and he has just been playing along unheard.

“Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way.”

A. After one line about the death they turn to the weather and skating, and say good morning. Their whole conversation runs to six short speeches.

“"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?"”

“"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I suppose?"”

C. Joe chalks a price for each item on the wall and totals it, and Mrs. Dilber's account is “stated on the wall in the same manner.” The money comes out of a flannel bag only at the end.

“They were severally examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come.”

B. He rakes the fire with an old stair-rod and trims the lamp with the stem of his pipe, which he then puts back in his mouth.

“The old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.”

D. He had gone to ask for a week's delay and never got to see the man. He now knows the man was dying at the time, so the woman's account of his illness was the truth and no excuse.

“What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true.”

“He was not only very ill, but dying, then.”

B. The narrator ties the word “colour” straight to Tim. Bob later says the work will be done long before Sunday, and he has been that day to a green place he promised Tim he would walk to on a Sunday.

“The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!”

“They would be done long before Sunday, he said.”

C. Whispering and rubbing his hands, Scrooge says Bob “sha'n't know who sends it” and that “Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!”

“"He sha'n't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be!"”

D. The sentence before says “He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird.” The “'em” are its legs, which would have broken under its weight like sealing-wax.

“He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird.”

A. They are looking at the table, spread out in great array; the narrator says young housekeepers are always nervous about such things.

“They were looking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see that everything is right.”

B. “Walk-ER!” is street slang for disbelief, and Scrooge's reply shows how he took it: “No, no,” he says, “I am in earnest.”

“"Walk-ER!" exclaimed the boy.”

“"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the direction where to take it.”

A. Out in his best clothes, he looks so pleasant that three or four good-humored fellows say “Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!” Those greetings were the blithest sounds of all.

“He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!"”

“And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.”