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what is meant by this quote. "The clerk in his tank invouluntarily applauded"

It means the clerk applauded but didn't want to because he was afraid of what Scrooge might think. The 'tank' refers to the little cell or room that the clerk is sitting in. This comes from Stave 1, Marley's Ghost

I take that quote to mean that the clerk, Bob Cratchit, suddenly applauded the words of Scrooge's nephew, who was praising Christmas to his nasty-tempered uncle.  Bob was so pleased with what Fred said that he just suddenly clapped out loud without even thinking about what Scrooge might think of him for doing so:

"'But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas 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, forgiving, 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."