“I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it—I defy him—if he finds me going there in good temper, year after year, and saying, 'Uncle Scrooge, how are you?' If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, that's something.”

“Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?" "I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? what reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.”

“I am sorry for him; I couldn't beangry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself always.Here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dinewith us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner.""Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted Scrooge'sniece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to havebeen competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and, with thedessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamp-light.”

“Is that for me to do my work as the Chosen One, I need Bran to help me. So you must find a way to help him save his wings, or he stays here with us as a demon. If you force him to leave, I leaving with him. If he goes, I go, too.”

“I thought you said that after this many years nothing should embarrass him?" Leigh said with gentle amusement. Lucian grunted. "I guess he's more sensitive than I thought.""I am NOT sensitive," Cale snapped, irritated by the very suggestion. "It's probably his mother's fault," Lucian said, ignoring him. "Martine named him after Caliope, the muse of poetry. Between that and his father dying when he was only fifty, he's probably suffered under Martine's namby-pamby influence.”

“I am not going to let him win, Guillaume. Not this time. I could not keep him from making my mother pay the price for our failed rebellion. Fifteen years she has been his prisoner, fifteen years! And she is his prisoner, for all that she no longer wants for a queen’s comforts. I have had to submit to his demands and subject myself to his whims and endure the indignity of having him brandish the crown before me as he would tease a dog with a bone. But no more. I will not let him rob me of my birthright, and I will not let him keep me from honoring my vow to defend the Holy Land. I do think he is behind that very opportune rebellion in my duchy, and I would not put it past him to be conniving with the Count of Toulouse, either. And if by chance he did not, it is only because he did not think of it. No, a reckoning is long overdue, and we will have it at Bonsmoulins.”