hw7: starting materials

diff --git a/hw7/07-folds-monoids.pdf b/hw7/07-folds-monoids.pdf
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diff --git a/hw7/Buffer.hs b/hw7/Buffer.hs
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+module Buffer where
+
+-- Type class for data structures that can represent the text buffer
+-- of an editor.
+
+class Buffer b where
+
+  -- | Convert a buffer to a String.
+  toString :: b -> String
+
+  -- | Create a buffer from a String.
+  fromString :: String -> b
+
+  -- | Extract the nth line (0-indexed) from a buffer.  Return Nothing
+  -- for out-of-bounds indices.
+  line :: Int -> b -> Maybe String
+
+  -- | @replaceLine n ln buf@ returns a modified version of @buf@,
+  --   with the @n@th line replaced by @ln@.  If the index is
+  --   out-of-bounds, the buffer should be returned unmodified.
+  replaceLine :: Int -> String -> b -> b
+
+  -- | Compute the number of lines in the buffer.
+  numLines :: b -> Int
+
+  -- | Compute the value of the buffer, i.e. the amount someone would
+  --   be paid for publishing the contents of the buffer.
+  value :: b -> Int

diff --git a/hw7/Editor.hs b/hw7/Editor.hs
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+{-# LANGUAGE GeneralizedNewtypeDeriving
+           , ScopedTypeVariables
+   #-}
+module Editor where
+
+import System.IO
+
+import Buffer
+
+import Control.Exception
+import Control.Monad.State
+
+import Control.Applicative
+import Control.Arrow       (first, second)
+
+import Data.Char
+import Data.List
+
+-- Editor commands
+
+data Command = View
+             | Edit
+             | Load String
+             | Line Int
+             | Next
+             | Prev
+             | Quit
+             | Help
+             | Noop
+  deriving (Eq, Show, Read)
+
+commands :: [String]
+commands = map show [View, Edit, Next, Prev, Quit]
+
+-- Editor monad
+
+newtype Editor b a = Editor (StateT (b,Int) IO a)
+  deriving (Functor, Monad, MonadIO, MonadState (b,Int))
+
+runEditor :: Buffer b => Editor b a -> b -> IO a
+runEditor (Editor e) b = evalStateT e (b,0)
+
+getCurLine :: Editor b Int
+getCurLine = gets snd
+
+setCurLine :: Int -> Editor b ()
+setCurLine = modify . second . const
+
+onBuffer :: (b -> a) -> Editor b a
+onBuffer f = gets (f . fst)
+
+getBuffer :: Editor b b
+getBuffer = onBuffer id
+
+modBuffer :: (b -> b) -> Editor b ()
+modBuffer = modify . first
+
+io :: MonadIO m => IO a -> m a
+io = liftIO
+
+-- Utility functions
+
+readMay :: Read a => String -> Maybe a
+readMay s = case reads s of
+              [(r,_)] -> Just r
+              _       -> Nothing
+
+-- Main editor loop
+
+editor :: Buffer b => Editor b ()
+editor = io (hSetBuffering stdout NoBuffering) >> loop
+    where loop = do prompt
+                    cmd <- getCommand
+                    when (cmd /= Quit) (doCommand cmd >> loop)
+
+prompt :: Buffer b => Editor b ()
+prompt = do
+  s <- onBuffer value
+  io $ putStr (show s ++ "> ")
+
+getCommand :: Editor b Command
+getCommand = io $ readCom <$> getLine
+  where
+    readCom ""        = Noop
+    readCom inp@(c:cs) | isDigit c = maybe Noop Line (readMay inp)
+                       | toUpper c == 'L' = Load (unwords $ words cs)
+                       | c == '?' = Help
+                       | otherwise = maybe Noop read $
+                                       find ((== toUpper c) . head) commands
+
+doCommand :: Buffer b => Command -> Editor b ()
+doCommand View = do
+  cur  <- getCurLine
+  let ls = [(cur - 2) .. (cur + 2)]
+  ss <- mapM (\l -> onBuffer $ line l) ls
+  zipWithM_ (showL cur) ls ss
+ where
+  showL _ _ Nothing  = return ()
+  showL l n (Just s) = io $ putStrLn (m ++ show n ++ ": " ++ s)
+    where m | n == l    = "*"
+            | otherwise = " "
+
+doCommand Edit = do
+  l <- getCurLine
+  io $ putStr $ "Replace line " ++ show l ++ ": "
+  new <- io getLine
+  modBuffer $ replaceLine l new
+
+doCommand (Load filename) = do
+  mstr <- io $ handle (\(_ :: IOException) -> 
+                         putStrLn "File not found." >> return Nothing
+                      ) $ do
+                 h <- openFile filename ReadMode
+                 hSetEncoding h utf8
+                 Just <$> hGetContents h
+  maybe (return ()) (modBuffer . const . fromString) mstr
+
+doCommand (Line n) = modCurLine (const n) >> doCommand View
+
+doCommand Next = modCurLine (+1) >> doCommand View
+doCommand Prev = modCurLine (subtract 1) >> doCommand View
+
+doCommand Quit = return ()  -- do nothing, main loop notices this and quits
+
+doCommand Help = io . putStr . unlines $
+  [ "v --- view the current location in the document"
+  , "n --- move to the next line"
+  , "p --- move to the previous line"
+  , "l --- load a file into the editor"
+  , "e --- edit the current line"
+  , "q --- quit"
+  , "? --- show this list of commands"
+  ]
+
+doCommand Noop = return ()
+
+inBuffer :: Buffer b => Int -> Editor b Bool
+inBuffer n = do
+  nl <- onBuffer numLines
+  return (n >= 0 && n < nl)
+
+modCurLine :: Buffer b => (Int -> Int) -> Editor b ()
+modCurLine f = do
+  l  <- getCurLine
+  nl <- onBuffer numLines
+  setCurLine . max 0 . min (nl - 1) $ f l

diff --git a/hw7/Sized.hs b/hw7/Sized.hs
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+{-# LANGUAGE GeneralizedNewtypeDeriving, FlexibleInstances #-}
+module Sized where
+
+import Data.Monoid
+
+newtype Size = Size Int
+  deriving (Eq, Ord, Show, Num)
+
+getSize :: Size -> Int
+getSize (Size i) = i
+
+class Sized a where
+  size :: a -> Size
+
+instance Sized Size where
+  size = id
+
+-- This instance means that things like
+--   (Foo, Size)
+--   (Foo, (Bar, Size))
+--   ...
+-- are all instances of Sized.
+instance Sized b => Sized (a,b) where
+  size = size . snd
+
+instance Monoid Size where
+  mempty  = Size 0
+  mappend = (+)

diff --git a/hw7/StringBufEditor.hs b/hw7/StringBufEditor.hs
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+++ b/hw7/StringBufEditor.hs
@@ -0,0 +1,11 @@
+module Main where
+
+import StringBuffer
+import Editor
+
+main = runEditor editor $ unlines
+         [ "This buffer is for notes you don't want to save, and for"
+         , "evaluation of steam valve coefficients."
+         , "To load a different file, type the character L followed"
+         , "by the name of the file."
+         ]

diff --git a/hw7/StringBuffer.hs b/hw7/StringBuffer.hs
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+++ b/hw7/StringBuffer.hs
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+{-# LANGUAGE FlexibleInstances, TypeSynonymInstances #-}
+module StringBuffer where
+
+import Data.Monoid
+
+import Buffer
+
+instance Buffer String where
+  toString     = id
+  fromString   = id
+  line n b     = safeIndex n (lines b)
+  replaceLine n l b = unlines . uncurry replaceLine' . splitAt n . lines $ b
+      where replaceLine' pre [] = pre
+            replaceLine' pre (_:ls) = pre ++ l:ls
+  numLines     = length . lines
+  value        = length . words
+
+safeIndex :: Int -> [a] -> Maybe a
+safeIndex n _ | n < 0 = Nothing
+safeIndex _ []        = Nothing
+safeIndex 0 (x:_)     = Just x
+safeIndex n (_:xs)    = safeIndex (n-1) xs
\ No newline at end of file

diff --git a/hw7/carol.txt b/hw7/carol.txt
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens\r
+\r
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with\r
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or\r
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included\r
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net\r
+\r
+\r
+Title: A Christmas Carol\r
+       A Ghost Story of Christmas\r
+\r
+Author: Charles Dickens\r
+\r
+Release Date: August 11, 2004 [EBook #46]\r
+\r
+Language: English\r
+\r
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL ***\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+Produced by Jose Menendez\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+A CHRISTMAS CAROL\r
+\r
+IN PROSE\r
+BEING\r
+A Ghost Story of Christmas\r
+\r
+by Charles Dickens\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+PREFACE\r
+\r
+I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little book,\r
+to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my\r
+readers out of humour with themselves, with each other,\r
+with the season, or with me.  May it haunt their houses\r
+pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.\r
+\r
+Their faithful Friend and Servant,\r
+                                   C. D.\r
+December, 1843.\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+CONTENTS\r
+\r
+Stave   I: Marley's Ghost\r
+Stave  II: The First of the Three Spirits\r
+Stave III: The Second of the Three Spirits\r
+Stave  IV: The Last of the Spirits\r
+Stave   V: The End of It\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+STAVE I:  MARLEY'S GHOST\r
+\r
+MARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt\r
+whatever about that. The register of his burial was\r
+signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,\r
+and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it: and\r
+Scrooge's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he\r
+chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a\r
+door-nail.\r
+\r
+Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my\r
+own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about\r
+a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to\r
+regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery\r
+in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors\r
+is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands\r
+shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You\r
+will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that\r
+Marley was as dead as a door-nail.\r
+\r
+Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.\r
+How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were\r
+partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge\r
+was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole\r
+assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and\r
+sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully\r
+cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent\r
+man of business on the very day of the funeral,\r
+and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.\r
+\r
+The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to\r
+the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley\r
+was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or\r
+nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going\r
+to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that\r
+Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there\r
+would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a\r
+stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,\r
+than there would be in any other middle-aged\r
+gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy\r
+spot--say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance--\r
+literally to astonish his son's weak mind.\r
+\r
+Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.\r
+There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse\r
+door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as\r
+Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the\r
+business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley,\r
+but he answered to both names. It was all the\r
+same to him.\r
+\r
+Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-stone,\r
+Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping,\r
+clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint,\r
+from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire;\r
+secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The\r
+cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed\r
+nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his\r
+eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his\r
+grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his\r
+eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low\r
+temperature always about with him; he iced his office in\r
+the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.\r
+\r
+External heat and cold had little influence on\r
+Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather\r
+chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he,\r
+no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no\r
+pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't\r
+know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and\r
+snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage\r
+over him in only one respect. They often "came down"\r
+handsomely, and Scrooge never did.\r
+\r
+Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with\r
+gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how are you?\r
+When will you come to see me?" No beggars implored\r
+him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him\r
+what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all\r
+his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of\r
+Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to\r
+know him; and when they saw him coming on, would\r
+tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and\r
+then would wag their tails as though they said, "No\r
+eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"\r
+\r
+But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing\r
+he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths\r
+of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance,\r
+was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.\r
+\r
+Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year,\r
+on Christmas Eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his\r
+counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy\r
+withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside,\r
+go wheezing up and down, beating their hands\r
+upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the\r
+pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had\r
+only just gone three, but it was quite dark already--\r
+it had not been light all day--and candles were flaring\r
+in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like\r
+ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog\r
+came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was\r
+so dense without, that although the court was of the\r
+narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.\r
+To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring\r
+everything, one might have thought that Nature\r
+lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.\r
+\r
+The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open\r
+that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a\r
+dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying\r
+letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's\r
+fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one\r
+coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept\r
+the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the\r
+clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted\r
+that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore\r
+the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to\r
+warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being\r
+a man of a strong imagination, he failed.\r
+\r
+"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried\r
+a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's\r
+nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was\r
+the first intimation he had of his approach.\r
+\r
+"Bah!" said Scrooge, "Humbug!"\r
+\r
+He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the\r
+fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was\r
+all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his\r
+eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.\r
+\r
+"Christmas a humbug, uncle!" said Scrooge's\r
+nephew. "You don't mean that, I am sure?"\r
+\r
+"I do," said Scrooge. "Merry Christmas! What\r
+right have you to be merry? What reason have you\r
+to be merry? You're poor enough."\r
+\r
+"Come, then," returned the nephew gaily. "What\r
+right have you to be dismal? What reason have you\r
+to be morose? You're rich enough."\r
+\r
+Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur\r
+of the moment, said, "Bah!" again; and followed it up\r
+with "Humbug."\r
+\r
+"Don't be cross, uncle!" said the nephew.\r
+\r
+"What else can I be," returned the uncle, "when I\r
+live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas!\r
+Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas\r
+time to you but a time for paying bills without\r
+money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but\r
+not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books\r
+and having every item in 'em through a round dozen\r
+of months presented dead against you? If I could\r
+work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot\r
+who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips,\r
+should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried\r
+with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!"\r
+\r
+"Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.\r
+\r
+"Nephew!" returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas\r
+in your own way, and let me keep it in mine."\r
+\r
+"Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew. "But you\r
+don't keep it."\r
+\r
+"Let me leave it alone, then," said Scrooge. "Much\r
+good may it do you! Much good it has ever done\r
+you!"\r
+\r
+"There are many things from which I might have\r
+derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare\r
+say," returned the nephew. "Christmas among the\r
+rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas\r
+time, when it has come round--apart from the\r
+veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything\r
+belonging to it can be apart from that--as a\r
+good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant\r
+time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar\r
+of the year, when men and women seem by one consent\r
+to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think\r
+of people below them as if they really were\r
+fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race\r
+of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,\r
+uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or\r
+silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me\r
+good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!"\r
+\r
+The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.\r
+Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,\r
+he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark\r
+for ever.\r
+\r
+"Let me hear another sound from you," said\r
+Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas by losing\r
+your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,\r
+sir," he added, turning to his nephew. "I wonder you\r
+don't go into Parliament."\r
+\r
+"Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow."\r
+\r
+Scrooge said that he would see him--yes, indeed he\r
+did. He went the whole length of the expression,\r
+and said that he would see him in that extremity first.\r
+\r
+"But why?" cried Scrooge's nephew. "Why?"\r
+\r
+"Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Because I fell in love."\r
+\r
+"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if\r
+that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous\r
+than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!"\r
+\r
+"Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before\r
+that happened. Why give it as a reason for not\r
+coming now?"\r
+\r
+"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you;\r
+why cannot we be friends?"\r
+\r
+"Good afternoon," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so\r
+resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I\r
+have been a party. But I have made the trial in\r
+homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas\r
+humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!"\r
+\r
+"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"And A Happy New Year!"\r
+\r
+"Good afternoon!" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+His nephew left the room without an angry word,\r
+notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to\r
+bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who,\r
+cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned\r
+them cordially.\r
+\r
+"There's another fellow," muttered Scrooge; who\r
+overheard him: "my clerk, with fifteen shillings a\r
+week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry\r
+Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam."\r
+\r
+This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had\r
+let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen,\r
+pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,\r
+in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in\r
+their hands, and bowed to him.\r
+\r
+"Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the\r
+gentlemen, referring to his list. "Have I the pleasure\r
+of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,"\r
+Scrooge replied. "He died seven years ago, this very\r
+night."\r
+\r
+"We have no doubt his liberality is well represented\r
+by his surviving partner," said the gentleman, presenting\r
+his credentials.\r
+\r
+It certainly was; for they had been two kindred\r
+spirits. At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge\r
+frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials\r
+back.\r
+\r
+"At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,"\r
+said the gentleman, taking up a pen, "it is more than\r
+usually desirable that we should make some slight\r
+provision for the Poor and destitute, who suffer\r
+greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in\r
+want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands\r
+are in want of common comforts, sir."\r
+\r
+"Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down\r
+the pen again.\r
+\r
+"And the Union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge.\r
+"Are they still in operation?"\r
+\r
+"They are. Still," returned the gentleman, "I wish\r
+I could say they were not."\r
+\r
+"The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,\r
+then?" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Both very busy, sir."\r
+\r
+"Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first,\r
+that something had occurred to stop them in their\r
+useful course," said Scrooge. "I'm very glad to\r
+hear it."\r
+\r
+"Under the impression that they scarcely furnish\r
+Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,"\r
+returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring\r
+to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink,\r
+and means of warmth. We choose this time, because\r
+it is a time, of all others, when Want is keenly felt,\r
+and Abundance rejoices. What shall I put you down\r
+for?"\r
+\r
+"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.\r
+\r
+"You wish to be anonymous?"\r
+\r
+"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you\r
+ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.\r
+I don't make merry myself at Christmas and I can't\r
+afford to make idle people merry. I help to support\r
+the establishments I have mentioned--they cost\r
+enough; and those who are badly off must go there."\r
+\r
+"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."\r
+\r
+"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had\r
+better do it, and decrease the surplus population.\r
+Besides--excuse me--I don't know that."\r
+\r
+"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.\r
+\r
+"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's\r
+enough for a man to understand his own business, and\r
+not to interfere with other people's. Mine occupies\r
+me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"\r
+\r
+Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue\r
+their point, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed\r
+his labours with an improved opinion of himself,\r
+and in a more facetious temper than was usual\r
+with him.\r
+\r
+Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that\r
+people ran about with flaring links, proffering their\r
+services to go before horses in carriages, and conduct\r
+them on their way. The ancient tower of a church,\r
+whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down\r
+at Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became\r
+invisible, and struck the hours and quarters in the\r
+clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if\r
+its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there.\r
+The cold became intense. In the main street, at the\r
+corner of the court, some labourers were repairing\r
+the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,\r
+round which a party of ragged men and boys were\r
+gathered: warming their hands and winking their\r
+eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug\r
+being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed,\r
+and turned to misanthropic ice. The brightness\r
+of the shops where holly sprigs and berries\r
+crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale\r
+faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers' and grocers'\r
+trades became a splendid joke: a glorious pageant,\r
+with which it was next to impossible to believe that\r
+such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything\r
+to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the\r
+mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks\r
+and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's\r
+household should; and even the little tailor, whom he\r
+had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for\r
+being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up\r
+to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean\r
+wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.\r
+\r
+Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searching, biting\r
+cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped\r
+the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather\r
+as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then\r
+indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The\r
+owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled\r
+by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,\r
+stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with\r
+a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of\r
+\r
+        "God bless you, merry gentleman!\r
+         May nothing you dismay!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action,\r
+that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to\r
+the fog and even more congenial frost.\r
+\r
+At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house\r
+arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his\r
+stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the expectant\r
+clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out,\r
+and put on his hat.\r
+\r
+"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said\r
+Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"If quite convenient, sir."\r
+\r
+"It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not\r
+fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd\r
+think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"\r
+\r
+The clerk smiled faintly.\r
+\r
+"And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used,\r
+when I pay a day's wages for no work."\r
+\r
+The clerk observed that it was only once a year.\r
+\r
+"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every\r
+twenty-fifth of December!" said Scrooge, buttoning\r
+his great-coat to the chin. "But I suppose you must\r
+have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next\r
+morning."\r
+\r
+The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge\r
+walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a\r
+twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his\r
+white comforter dangling below his waist (for he\r
+boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill,\r
+at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in\r
+honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home\r
+to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play\r
+at blindman's-buff.\r
+\r
+Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual\r
+melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and\r
+beguiled the rest of the evening with his\r
+banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in\r
+chambers which had once belonged to his deceased\r
+partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a\r
+lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so\r
+little business to be, that one could scarcely help\r
+fancying it must have run there when it was a young\r
+house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses,\r
+and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough\r
+now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but\r
+Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.\r
+The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew\r
+its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.\r
+The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway\r
+of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of\r
+the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the\r
+threshold.\r
+\r
+Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all\r
+particular about the knocker on the door, except that it\r
+was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had\r
+seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence\r
+in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what\r
+is called fancy about him as any man in the city of\r
+London, even including--which is a bold word--the\r
+corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be\r
+borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one\r
+thought on Marley, since his last mention of his\r
+seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then\r
+let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened\r
+that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door,\r
+saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate\r
+process of change--not a knocker, but Marley's face.\r
+\r
+Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow\r
+as the other objects in the yard were, but had a\r
+dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark\r
+cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked\r
+at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly\r
+spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The\r
+hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air;\r
+and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly\r
+motionless. That, and its livid colour, made it\r
+horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the\r
+face and beyond its control, rather than a part of\r
+its own expression.\r
+\r
+As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it\r
+was a knocker again.\r
+\r
+To say that he was not startled, or that his blood\r
+was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it\r
+had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.\r
+But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished,\r
+turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.\r
+\r
+He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before\r
+he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind\r
+it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the\r
+sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.\r
+But there was nothing on the back of the door, except\r
+the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he\r
+said "Pooh, pooh!" and closed it with a bang.\r
+\r
+The sound resounded through the house like thunder.\r
+Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's\r
+cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal\r
+of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to\r
+be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and\r
+walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too:\r
+trimming his candle as he went.\r
+\r
+You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six\r
+up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad\r
+young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you\r
+might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken\r
+it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall\r
+and the door towards the balustrades: and done it\r
+easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room\r
+to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge\r
+thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before\r
+him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen gas-lamps out of\r
+the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well,\r
+so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with\r
+Scrooge's dip.\r
+\r
+Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.\r
+Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before\r
+he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms\r
+to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection\r
+of the face to desire to do that.\r
+\r
+Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they\r
+should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under\r
+the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin\r
+ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had\r
+a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the\r
+bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,\r
+which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude\r
+against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard,\r
+old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three\r
+legs, and a poker.\r
+\r
+Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked\r
+himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his\r
+custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off\r
+his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and\r
+his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take\r
+his gruel.\r
+\r
+It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a\r
+bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and\r
+brood over it, before he could extract the least\r
+sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.\r
+The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch\r
+merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint\r
+Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.\r
+There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters;\r
+Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending\r
+through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams,\r
+Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats,\r
+hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts;\r
+and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came\r
+like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the\r
+whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,\r
+with power to shape some picture on its surface from\r
+the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would\r
+have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.\r
+\r
+"Humbug!" said Scrooge; and walked across the\r
+room.\r
+\r
+After several turns, he sat down again. As he\r
+threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened\r
+to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the\r
+room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten\r
+with a chamber in the highest story of the\r
+building. It was with great astonishment, and with\r
+a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he\r
+saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in\r
+the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it\r
+rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.\r
+\r
+This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,\r
+but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had\r
+begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking\r
+noise, deep down below; as if some person were\r
+dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the\r
+wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have\r
+heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as\r
+dragging chains.\r
+\r
+The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,\r
+and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors\r
+below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight\r
+towards his door.\r
+\r
+"It's humbug still!" said Scrooge. "I won't believe it."\r
+\r
+His colour changed though, when, without a pause,\r
+it came on through the heavy door, and passed into\r
+the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the\r
+dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, "I know\r
+him; Marley's Ghost!" and fell again.\r
+\r
+The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail,\r
+usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on\r
+the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts,\r
+and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was\r
+clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound\r
+about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge\r
+observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks,\r
+ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.\r
+His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him,\r
+and looking through his waistcoat, could see\r
+the two buttons on his coat behind.\r
+\r
+Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no\r
+bowels, but he had never believed it until now.\r
+\r
+No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he\r
+looked the phantom through and through, and saw\r
+it standing before him; though he felt the chilling\r
+influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very\r
+texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head\r
+and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before;\r
+he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.\r
+\r
+"How now!" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.\r
+"What do you want with me?"\r
+\r
+"Much!"--Marley's voice, no doubt about it.\r
+\r
+"Who are you?"\r
+\r
+"Ask me who I was."\r
+\r
+"Who were you then?" said Scrooge, raising his\r
+voice. "You're particular, for a shade." He was going\r
+to say "to a shade," but substituted this, as more\r
+appropriate.\r
+\r
+"In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."\r
+\r
+"Can you--can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking\r
+doubtfully at him.\r
+\r
+"I can."\r
+\r
+"Do it, then."\r
+\r
+Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know\r
+whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in\r
+a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event\r
+of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity\r
+of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat\r
+down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he\r
+were quite used to it.\r
+\r
+"You don't believe in me," observed the Ghost.\r
+\r
+"I don't," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of\r
+your senses?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Why do you doubt your senses?"\r
+\r
+"Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them.\r
+A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may\r
+be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of\r
+cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of\r
+gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking\r
+jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means\r
+waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be\r
+smart, as a means of distracting his own attention,\r
+and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice\r
+disturbed the very marrow in his bones.\r
+\r
+To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence\r
+for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very\r
+deuce with him. There was something very awful,\r
+too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal\r
+atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it\r
+himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the\r
+Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,\r
+and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour\r
+from an oven.\r
+\r
+"You see this toothpick?" said Scrooge, returning\r
+quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned;\r
+and wishing, though it were only for a second, to\r
+divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.\r
+\r
+"I do," replied the Ghost.\r
+\r
+"You are not looking at it," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"But I see it," said the Ghost, "notwithstanding."\r
+\r
+"Well!" returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow\r
+this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a\r
+legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug,\r
+I tell you! humbug!"\r
+\r
+At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook\r
+its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that\r
+Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself\r
+from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was\r
+his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage\r
+round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors,\r
+its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!\r
+\r
+Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands\r
+before his face.\r
+\r
+"Mercy!" he said. "Dreadful apparition, why do\r
+you trouble me?"\r
+\r
+"Man of the worldly mind!" replied the Ghost, "do\r
+you believe in me or not?"\r
+\r
+"I do," said Scrooge. "I must. But why do spirits\r
+walk the earth, and why do they come to me?"\r
+\r
+"It is required of every man," the Ghost returned,\r
+"that the spirit within him should walk abroad among\r
+his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that\r
+spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so\r
+after death. It is doomed to wander through the\r
+world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot\r
+share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to\r
+happiness!"\r
+\r
+Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain\r
+and wrung its shadowy hands.\r
+\r
+"You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling. "Tell\r
+me why?"\r
+\r
+"I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the Ghost.\r
+"I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded\r
+it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I\r
+wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"\r
+\r
+Scrooge trembled more and more.\r
+\r
+"Or would you know," pursued the Ghost, "the\r
+weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself?\r
+It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven\r
+Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since.\r
+It is a ponderous chain!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the\r
+expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty\r
+or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see\r
+nothing.\r
+\r
+"Jacob," he said, imploringly. "Old Jacob Marley,\r
+tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!"\r
+\r
+"I have none to give," the Ghost replied. "It comes\r
+from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed\r
+by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor\r
+can I tell you what I would. A very little more is\r
+all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I\r
+cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked\r
+beyond our counting-house--mark me!--in life my\r
+spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our\r
+money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before\r
+me!"\r
+\r
+It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became\r
+thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.\r
+Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now,\r
+but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his\r
+knees.\r
+\r
+"You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,"\r
+Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though\r
+with humility and deference.\r
+\r
+"Slow!" the Ghost repeated.\r
+\r
+"Seven years dead," mused Scrooge. "And travelling\r
+all the time!"\r
+\r
+"The whole time," said the Ghost. "No rest, no\r
+peace. Incessant torture of remorse."\r
+\r
+"You travel fast?" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost.\r
+\r
+"You might have got over a great quantity of\r
+ground in seven years," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and\r
+clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of\r
+the night, that the Ward would have been justified in\r
+indicting it for a nuisance.\r
+\r
+"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the\r
+phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour\r
+by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into\r
+eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is\r
+all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit\r
+working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may\r
+be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast\r
+means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of\r
+regret can make amends for one life's opportunity\r
+misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"\r
+\r
+"But you were always a good man of business,\r
+Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this\r
+to himself.\r
+\r
+"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands\r
+again. "Mankind was my business. The common\r
+welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,\r
+and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings\r
+of my trade were but a drop of water in the\r
+comprehensive ocean of my business!"\r
+\r
+It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were\r
+the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it\r
+heavily upon the ground again.\r
+\r
+"At this time of the rolling year," the spectre said,\r
+"I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of\r
+fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never\r
+raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise\r
+Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to\r
+which its light would have conducted me!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the\r
+spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake\r
+exceedingly.\r
+\r
+"Hear me!" cried the Ghost. "My time is nearly\r
+gone."\r
+\r
+"I will," said Scrooge. "But don't be hard upon\r
+me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!"\r
+\r
+"How it is that I appear before you in a shape that\r
+you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible\r
+beside you many and many a day."\r
+\r
+It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered,\r
+and wiped the perspiration from his brow.\r
+\r
+"That is no light part of my penance," pursued\r
+the Ghost. "I am here to-night to warn you, that you\r
+have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A\r
+chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."\r
+\r
+"You were always a good friend to me," said\r
+Scrooge. "Thank'ee!"\r
+\r
+"You will be haunted," resumed the Ghost, "by\r
+Three Spirits."\r
+\r
+Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the\r
+Ghost's had done.\r
+\r
+"Is that the chance and hope you mentioned,\r
+Jacob?" he demanded, in a faltering voice.\r
+\r
+"It is."\r
+\r
+"I--I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Without their visits," said the Ghost, "you cannot\r
+hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first to-morrow,\r
+when the bell tolls One."\r
+\r
+"Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over,\r
+Jacob?" hinted Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Expect the second on the next night at the same\r
+hour. The third upon the next night when the last\r
+stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see\r
+me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you\r
+remember what has passed between us!"\r
+\r
+When it had said these words, the spectre took its\r
+wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head,\r
+as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its\r
+teeth made, when the jaws were brought together\r
+by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again,\r
+and found his supernatural visitor confronting him\r
+in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and\r
+about its arm.\r
+\r
+The apparition walked backward from him; and at\r
+every step it took, the window raised itself a little,\r
+so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.\r
+\r
+It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.\r
+When they were within two paces of each other,\r
+Marley's Ghost held up its hand, warning him to\r
+come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.\r
+\r
+Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear:\r
+for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible\r
+of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of\r
+lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and\r
+self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment,\r
+joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the\r
+bleak, dark night.\r
+\r
+Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his\r
+curiosity. He looked out.\r
+\r
+The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither\r
+and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they\r
+went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley's\r
+Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments)\r
+were linked together; none were free. Many had\r
+been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He\r
+had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white\r
+waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to\r
+its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist\r
+a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below,\r
+upon a door-step. The misery with them all was,\r
+clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in\r
+human matters, and had lost the power for ever.\r
+\r
+Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist\r
+enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and\r
+their spirit voices faded together; and the night became\r
+as it had been when he walked home.\r
+\r
+Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door\r
+by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked,\r
+as he had locked it with his own hands, and\r
+the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!"\r
+but stopped at the first syllable. And being,\r
+from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues\r
+of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or\r
+the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of\r
+the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to\r
+bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the\r
+instant.\r
+\r
+\r
+STAVE II:  THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS\r
+\r
+WHEN Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed,\r
+he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from\r
+the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to\r
+pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a\r
+neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened\r
+for the hour.\r
+\r
+To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from\r
+six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to\r
+twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It was past two when he\r
+went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have\r
+got into the works. Twelve!\r
+\r
+He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most\r
+preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve:\r
+and stopped.\r
+\r
+"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have\r
+slept through a whole day and far into another night. It\r
+isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and\r
+this is twelve at noon!"\r
+\r
+The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed,\r
+and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub\r
+the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he\r
+could see anything; and could see very little then. All he\r
+could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely\r
+cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and fro,\r
+and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been\r
+if night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the\r
+world.  This was a great relief, because "three days after sight\r
+of this First of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his\r
+order," and so forth, would have become a mere United States'\r
+security if there were no days to count by.\r
+\r
+Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought\r
+it over and over and over, and could make nothing of it.  The more he\r
+thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he endeavoured\r
+not to think, the more he thought.\r
+\r
+Marley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved\r
+within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his\r
+mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first\r
+position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through,\r
+"Was it a dream or not?"\r
+\r
+Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three quarters\r
+more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned\r
+him of a visitation when the bell tolled one.  He resolved to lie\r
+awake until the hour was passed; and, considering that he could\r
+no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the\r
+wisest resolution in his power.\r
+\r
+The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he\r
+must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock.\r
+At length it broke upon his listening ear.\r
+\r
+"Ding, dong!"\r
+\r
+"A quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.\r
+\r
+"Ding, dong!"\r
+\r
+"Half-past!" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Ding, dong!"\r
+\r
+"A quarter to it," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Ding, dong!"\r
+\r
+"The hour itself," said Scrooge, triumphantly, "and nothing else!"\r
+\r
+He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a\r
+deep, dull, hollow, melancholy ONE.  Light flashed up in the room\r
+upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.\r
+\r
+The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a\r
+hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his\r
+back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains\r
+of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a\r
+half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the\r
+unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now\r
+to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.\r
+\r
+It was a strange figure--like a child: yet not so like a\r
+child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural\r
+medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded\r
+from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.\r
+Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was\r
+white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in\r
+it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were\r
+very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold\r
+were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately\r
+formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic\r
+of the purest white; and round its waist was bound\r
+a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held\r
+a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular\r
+contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed\r
+with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was,\r
+that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear\r
+jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was\r
+doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a\r
+great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.\r
+\r
+Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing\r
+steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt\r
+sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,\r
+and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so\r
+the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a\r
+thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs,\r
+now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a\r
+body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible\r
+in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the\r
+very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and\r
+clear as ever.\r
+\r
+"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to\r
+me?" asked Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"I am!"\r
+\r
+The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if\r
+instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.\r
+\r
+"Who, and what are you?" Scrooge demanded.\r
+\r
+"I am the Ghost of Christmas Past."\r
+\r
+"Long Past?" inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish\r
+stature.\r
+\r
+"No. Your past."\r
+\r
+Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if\r
+anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire\r
+to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.\r
+\r
+"What!" exclaimed the Ghost, "would you so soon put out,\r
+with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough\r
+that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and\r
+force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon\r
+my brow!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend\r
+or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at\r
+any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what\r
+business brought him there.\r
+\r
+"Your welfare!" said the Ghost.\r
+\r
+Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not\r
+help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been\r
+more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard\r
+him thinking, for it said immediately:\r
+\r
+"Your reclamation, then. Take heed!"\r
+\r
+It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him\r
+gently by the arm.\r
+\r
+"Rise! and walk with me!"\r
+\r
+It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the\r
+weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes;\r
+that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below\r
+freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,\r
+dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at\r
+that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand,\r
+was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit\r
+made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.\r
+\r
+"I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall."\r
+\r
+"Bear but a touch of my hand there," said the Spirit,\r
+laying it upon his heart, "and you shall be upheld in more\r
+than this!"\r
+\r
+As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall,\r
+and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either\r
+hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it\r
+was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished\r
+with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon\r
+the ground.\r
+\r
+"Good Heaven!" said Scrooge, clasping his hands together,\r
+as he looked about him. "I was bred in this place. I was\r
+a boy here!"\r
+\r
+The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch,\r
+though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still\r
+present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious\r
+of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected\r
+with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares\r
+long, long, forgotten!\r
+\r
+"Your lip is trembling," said the Ghost. "And what is\r
+that upon your cheek?"\r
+\r
+Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice,\r
+that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him\r
+where he would.\r
+\r
+"You recollect the way?" inquired the Spirit.\r
+\r
+"Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervour; "I could\r
+walk it blindfold."\r
+\r
+"Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!" observed\r
+the Ghost. "Let us go on."\r
+\r
+They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every\r
+gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared\r
+in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.\r
+Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them\r
+with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in\r
+country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys\r
+were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the\r
+broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air\r
+laughed to hear it!\r
+\r
+"These are but shadows of the things that have been," said\r
+the Ghost. "They have no consciousness of us."\r
+\r
+The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge\r
+knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond\r
+all bounds to see them! Why did his cold eye glisten, and\r
+his heart leap up as they went past! Why was he filled\r
+with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry\r
+Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for\r
+their several homes! What was merry Christmas to Scrooge?\r
+Out upon merry Christmas! What good had it ever done\r
+to him?\r
+\r
+"The school is not quite deserted," said the Ghost. "A\r
+solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."\r
+\r
+Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.\r
+\r
+They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and\r
+soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little\r
+weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell\r
+hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken\r
+fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls\r
+were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their\r
+gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;\r
+and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass.\r
+Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for\r
+entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open\r
+doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished,\r
+cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a\r
+chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow\r
+with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too\r
+much to eat.\r
+\r
+They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a\r
+door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and\r
+disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by\r
+lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely\r
+boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down\r
+upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he\r
+used to be.\r
+\r
+Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle\r
+from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the\r
+half-thawed water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among\r
+the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle\r
+swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in\r
+the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening\r
+influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.\r
+\r
+The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his\r
+younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in\r
+foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at:\r
+stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and\r
+leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.\r
+\r
+"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's\r
+dear old honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know! One Christmas\r
+time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone,\r
+he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy! And\r
+Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother, Orson; there\r
+they go! And what's his name, who was put down in his\r
+drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him!\r
+And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii;\r
+there he is upon his head! Serve him right. I'm glad of it.\r
+What business had he to be married to the Princess!"\r
+\r
+To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature\r
+on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between\r
+laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited\r
+face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in\r
+the city, indeed.\r
+\r
+"There's the Parrot!" cried Scrooge. "Green body and\r
+yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the\r
+top of his head; there he is! Poor Robin Crusoe, he called\r
+him, when he came home again after sailing round the\r
+island. 'Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin\r
+Crusoe?'  The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.\r
+It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running\r
+for his life to the little creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!"\r
+\r
+Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his\r
+usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, "Poor\r
+boy!" and cried again.\r
+\r
+"I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his\r
+pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his\r
+cuff: "but it's too late now."\r
+\r
+"What is the matter?" asked the Spirit.\r
+\r
+"Nothing," said Scrooge. "Nothing. There was a boy\r
+singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should\r
+like to have given him something: that's all."\r
+\r
+The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand:\r
+saying as it did so, "Let us see another Christmas!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the\r
+room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk,\r
+the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the\r
+ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how\r
+all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you\r
+do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything\r
+had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all\r
+the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.\r
+\r
+He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.\r
+Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful shaking of\r
+his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.\r
+\r
+It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy,\r
+came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and\r
+often kissing him, addressed him as her "Dear, dear\r
+brother."\r
+\r
+"I have come to bring you home, dear brother!" said the\r
+child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh.\r
+"To bring you home, home, home!"\r
+\r
+"Home, little Fan?" returned the boy.\r
+\r
+"Yes!" said the child, brimful of glee. "Home, for good\r
+and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder\r
+than he used to be, that home's like Heaven! He spoke so\r
+gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that\r
+I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come\r
+home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach\r
+to bring you. And you're to be a man!" said the child,\r
+opening her eyes, "and are never to come back here; but\r
+first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have\r
+the merriest time in all the world."\r
+\r
+"You are quite a woman, little Fan!" exclaimed the boy.\r
+\r
+She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his\r
+head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on\r
+tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her\r
+childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to\r
+go, accompanied her.\r
+\r
+A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master\r
+Scrooge's box, there!" and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster\r
+himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious\r
+condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind\r
+by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his\r
+sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that\r
+ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial\r
+and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.\r
+Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a\r
+block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments\r
+of those dainties to the young people: at the same time,\r
+sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of "something"\r
+to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman,\r
+but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had\r
+rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied\r
+on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster\r
+good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove\r
+gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the\r
+hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens\r
+like spray.\r
+\r
+"Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have\r
+withered," said the Ghost. "But she had a large heart!"\r
+\r
+"So she had," cried Scrooge. "You're right. I will not\r
+gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid!"\r
+\r
+"She died a woman," said the Ghost, "and had, as I think,\r
+children."\r
+\r
+"One child," Scrooge returned.\r
+\r
+"True," said the Ghost. "Your nephew!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly,\r
+"Yes."\r
+\r
+Although they had but that moment left the school behind\r
+them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city,\r
+where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy\r
+carts and coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and\r
+tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by\r
+the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas\r
+time again; but it was evening, and the streets were\r
+lighted up.\r
+\r
+The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked\r
+Scrooge if he knew it.\r
+\r
+"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed here!"\r
+\r
+They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh\r
+wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two\r
+inches taller he must have knocked his head against the\r
+ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:\r
+\r
+"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig\r
+alive again!"\r
+\r
+Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the\r
+clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his\r
+hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over\r
+himself, from his shoes to his organ of benevolence; and\r
+called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:\r
+\r
+"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly\r
+in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.\r
+\r
+"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the Ghost.\r
+"Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached\r
+to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear, dear!"\r
+\r
+"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work to-night.\r
+Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's\r
+have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap\r
+of his hands, "before a man can say Jack Robinson!"\r
+\r
+You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it!\r
+They charged into the street with the shutters--one, two,\r
+three--had 'em up in their places--four, five, six--barred\r
+'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight, nine--and came back\r
+before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.\r
+\r
+"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the\r
+high desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away, my lads,\r
+and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup,\r
+Ebenezer!"\r
+\r
+Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared\r
+away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking\r
+on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if\r
+it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was\r
+swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon\r
+the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and\r
+bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's\r
+night.\r
+\r
+In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the\r
+lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty\r
+stomach-aches. In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial\r
+smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and\r
+lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they\r
+broke. In came all the young men and women employed in\r
+the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the\r
+baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend,\r
+the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was\r
+suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying\r
+to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who\r
+was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.\r
+In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly,\r
+some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;\r
+in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went,\r
+twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again\r
+the other way; down the middle and up again; round\r
+and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old\r
+top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top\r
+couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top\r
+couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them! When\r
+this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his\r
+hands to stop the dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the\r
+fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially\r
+provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his\r
+reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no\r
+dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home,\r
+exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man\r
+resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.\r
+\r
+There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more\r
+dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there\r
+was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece\r
+of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.\r
+But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast\r
+and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The sort\r
+of man who knew his business better than you or I could\r
+have told it him!) struck up "Sir Roger de Coverley."  Then\r
+old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top\r
+couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them;\r
+three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were\r
+not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no\r
+notion of walking.\r
+\r
+But if they had been twice as many--ah, four times--old\r
+Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would\r
+Mrs. Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner\r
+in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me\r
+higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue\r
+from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the\r
+dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given\r
+time, what would have become of them next. And when old\r
+Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;\r
+advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and\r
+curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to\r
+your place; Fezziwig "cut"--cut so deftly, that he appeared\r
+to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without\r
+a stagger.\r
+\r
+When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.\r
+Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side\r
+of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually\r
+as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas.\r
+When everybody had retired but the two 'prentices, they did\r
+the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away,\r
+and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a\r
+counter in the back-shop.\r
+\r
+During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a\r
+man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene,\r
+and with his former self. He corroborated everything,\r
+remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent\r
+the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the\r
+bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from\r
+them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious\r
+that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its\r
+head burnt very clear.\r
+\r
+"A small matter," said the Ghost, "to make these silly\r
+folks so full of gratitude."\r
+\r
+"Small!" echoed Scrooge.\r
+\r
+The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,\r
+who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig:\r
+and when he had done so, said,\r
+\r
+"Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of\r
+your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so\r
+much that he deserves this praise?"\r
+\r
+"It isn't that," said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and\r
+speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self.\r
+"It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy\r
+or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a\r
+pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and\r
+looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is\r
+impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness\r
+he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."\r
+\r
+He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.\r
+\r
+"What is the matter?" asked the Ghost.\r
+\r
+"Nothing particular," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Something, I think?" the Ghost insisted.\r
+\r
+"No," said Scrooge, "No. I should like to be able to say\r
+a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all."\r
+\r
+His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance\r
+to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by\r
+side in the open air.\r
+\r
+"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!"\r
+\r
+This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he\r
+could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again\r
+Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime\r
+of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later\r
+years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.\r
+There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which\r
+showed the passion that had taken root, and where the\r
+shadow of the growing tree would fall.\r
+\r
+He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young\r
+girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears,\r
+which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of\r
+Christmas Past.\r
+\r
+"It matters little," she said, softly. "To you, very little.\r
+Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort\r
+you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have\r
+no just cause to grieve."\r
+\r
+"What Idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.\r
+\r
+"A golden one."\r
+\r
+"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said.\r
+"There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and\r
+there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity\r
+as the pursuit of wealth!"\r
+\r
+"You fear the world too much," she answered, gently.\r
+"All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being\r
+beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your\r
+nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,\r
+Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?"\r
+\r
+"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so\r
+much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you."\r
+\r
+She shook her head.\r
+\r
+"Am I?"\r
+\r
+"Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were\r
+both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could\r
+improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You\r
+are changed. When it was made, you were another man."\r
+\r
+"I was a boy," he said impatiently.\r
+\r
+"Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you\r
+are," she returned. "I am. That which promised happiness\r
+when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that\r
+we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of\r
+this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it,\r
+and can release you."\r
+\r
+"Have I ever sought release?"\r
+\r
+"In words. No. Never."\r
+\r
+"In what, then?"\r
+\r
+"In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another\r
+atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In\r
+everything that made my love of any worth or value in your\r
+sight. If this had never been between us," said the girl,\r
+looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; "tell me,\r
+would you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!"\r
+\r
+He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in\r
+spite of himself. But he said with a struggle, "You think\r
+not."\r
+\r
+"I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered,\r
+"Heaven knows! When I have learned a Truth like this,\r
+I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you\r
+were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe\r
+that you would choose a dowerless girl--you who, in your\r
+very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or,\r
+choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your\r
+one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your\r
+repentance and regret would surely follow? I do; and I\r
+release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you\r
+once were."\r
+\r
+He was about to speak; but with her head turned from\r
+him, she resumed.\r
+\r
+"You may--the memory of what is past half makes me\r
+hope you will--have pain in this. A very, very brief time,\r
+and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an\r
+unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you\r
+awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen!"\r
+\r
+She left him, and they parted.\r
+\r
+"Spirit!" said Scrooge, "show me no more! Conduct\r
+me home. Why do you delight to torture me?"\r
+\r
+"One shadow more!" exclaimed the Ghost.\r
+\r
+"No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more. I don't wish to\r
+see it. Show me no more!"\r
+\r
+But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,\r
+and forced him to observe what happened next.\r
+\r
+They were in another scene and place; a room, not very\r
+large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter\r
+fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge\r
+believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely\r
+matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this\r
+room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children\r
+there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;\r
+and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not\r
+forty children conducting themselves like one, but every\r
+child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences\r
+were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care;\r
+on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,\r
+and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to\r
+mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands\r
+most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of\r
+them! Though I never could have been so rude, no, no! I\r
+wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that\r
+braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little\r
+shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul! to\r
+save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they\r
+did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should\r
+have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,\r
+and never come straight again. And yet I should\r
+have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have\r
+questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have\r
+looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never\r
+raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of\r
+which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should\r
+have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence\r
+of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its\r
+value.\r
+\r
+But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a\r
+rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and\r
+plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed\r
+and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who\r
+came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys\r
+and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and\r
+the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter!\r
+The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his\r
+pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight\r
+by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back,\r
+and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The shouts of\r
+wonder and delight with which the development of every\r
+package was received! The terrible announcement that the\r
+baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan\r
+into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having\r
+swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter!\r
+The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy,\r
+and gratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike.\r
+It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions\r
+got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the\r
+top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.\r
+\r
+And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,\r
+when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning\r
+fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his\r
+own fireside; and when he thought that such another\r
+creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might\r
+have called him father, and been a spring-time in the\r
+haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.\r
+\r
+"Belle," said the husband, turning to his wife with a\r
+smile, "I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon."\r
+\r
+"Who was it?"\r
+\r
+"Guess!"\r
+\r
+"How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the\r
+same breath, laughing as he laughed. "Mr. Scrooge."\r
+\r
+"Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as\r
+it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could\r
+scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point\r
+of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in\r
+the world, I do believe."\r
+\r
+"Spirit!" said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me\r
+from this place."\r
+\r
+"I told you these were shadows of the things that have\r
+been," said the Ghost. "That they are what they are, do\r
+not blame me!"\r
+\r
+"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed, "I cannot bear it!"\r
+\r
+He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon\r
+him with a face, in which in some strange way there were\r
+fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.\r
+\r
+"Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!"\r
+\r
+In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which\r
+the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was\r
+undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed\r
+that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly\r
+connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the\r
+extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down\r
+upon its head.\r
+\r
+The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher\r
+covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down\r
+with all his force, he could not hide the light: which streamed\r
+from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.\r
+\r
+He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an\r
+irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own\r
+bedroom.  He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand\r
+relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank\r
+into a heavy sleep.\r
+\r
+\r
+STAVE III:  THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS\r
+\r
+AWAKING in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and\r
+sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had\r
+no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the\r
+stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness\r
+in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding\r
+a conference with the second messenger despatched to him\r
+through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he\r
+turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which\r
+of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put\r
+them every one aside with his own hands; and lying down\r
+again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For\r
+he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its\r
+appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and\r
+made nervous.\r
+\r
+Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves\r
+on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually\r
+equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their\r
+capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for\r
+anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which\r
+opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and\r
+comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for\r
+Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you\r
+to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of\r
+strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and\r
+rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.\r
+\r
+Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by\r
+any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the\r
+Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a\r
+violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter\r
+of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay\r
+upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy\r
+light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the\r
+hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than\r
+a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it\r
+meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive\r
+that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of\r
+spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of\r
+knowing it. At last, however, he began to think--as you or\r
+I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not\r
+in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done\r
+in it, and would unquestionably have done it too--at last, I\r
+say, he began to think that the source and secret of this\r
+ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence,\r
+on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking\r
+full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in\r
+his slippers to the door.\r
+\r
+The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange\r
+voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He\r
+obeyed.\r
+\r
+It was his own room. There was no doubt about that.\r
+But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls\r
+and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a\r
+perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming\r
+berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and\r
+ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had\r
+been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring\r
+up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had\r
+never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and\r
+many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form\r
+a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,\r
+great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,\r
+mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts,\r
+cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears,\r
+immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that\r
+made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy\r
+state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to\r
+see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's\r
+horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge,\r
+as he came peeping round the door.\r
+\r
+"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghost. "Come in! and know\r
+me better, man!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this\r
+Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and\r
+though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like\r
+to meet them.\r
+\r
+"I am the Ghost of Christmas Present," said the Spirit.\r
+"Look upon me!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple\r
+green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment\r
+hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was\r
+bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any\r
+artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the\r
+garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other\r
+covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining\r
+icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its\r
+genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,\r
+its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded\r
+round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword\r
+was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.\r
+\r
+"You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed\r
+the Spirit.\r
+\r
+"Never," Scrooge made answer to it.\r
+\r
+"Have never walked forth with the younger members of\r
+my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers\r
+born in these later years?" pursued the Phantom.\r
+\r
+"I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I am afraid I have\r
+not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit?"\r
+\r
+"More than eighteen hundred," said the Ghost.\r
+\r
+"A tremendous family to provide for!" muttered Scrooge.\r
+\r
+The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.\r
+\r
+"Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where\r
+you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt\r
+a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught\r
+to teach me, let me profit by it."\r
+\r
+"Touch my robe!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.\r
+\r
+Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,\r
+poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,\r
+fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room,\r
+the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood\r
+in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the\r
+weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and\r
+not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the\r
+pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of\r
+their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see\r
+it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting\r
+into artificial little snow-storms.\r
+\r
+The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows\r
+blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow\r
+upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;\r
+which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by\r
+the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed\r
+and re-crossed each other hundreds of times where the great\r
+streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace\r
+in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy,\r
+and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,\r
+half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended\r
+in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great\r
+Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away\r
+to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful\r
+in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of\r
+cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest\r
+summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.\r
+\r
+For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops\r
+were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another\r
+from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious\r
+snowball--better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest--\r
+laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it\r
+went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and the\r
+fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great, round,\r
+pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats\r
+of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out\r
+into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were\r
+ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Onions, shining in\r
+the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars, and winking\r
+from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went\r
+by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were\r
+pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there\r
+were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence\r
+to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might\r
+water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy\r
+and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among\r
+the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered\r
+leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squat and swarthy, setting\r
+off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great\r
+compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and\r
+beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after\r
+dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among\r
+these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and\r
+stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was\r
+something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and\r
+round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.\r
+\r
+The Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps\r
+two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such\r
+glimpses! It was not alone that the scales descending on the\r
+counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller\r
+parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled\r
+up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended\r
+scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even\r
+that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so\r
+extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,\r
+the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and\r
+spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on\r
+feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs\r
+were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in\r
+modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that\r
+everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but\r
+the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful\r
+promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other\r
+at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left\r
+their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to\r
+fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in\r
+the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people\r
+were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which\r
+they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,\r
+worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws\r
+to peck at if they chose.\r
+\r
+But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and\r
+chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in\r
+their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the\r
+same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and\r
+nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners\r
+to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor revellers\r
+appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with\r
+Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the\r
+covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their\r
+dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind\r
+of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words\r
+between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he\r
+shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good\r
+humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame\r
+to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love\r
+it, so it was!\r
+\r
+In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and\r
+yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners\r
+and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of\r
+wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as\r
+if its stones were cooking too.\r
+\r
+"Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from\r
+your torch?" asked Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"There is. My own."\r
+\r
+"Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?"\r
+asked Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"To any kindly given. To a poor one most."\r
+\r
+"Why to a poor one most?" asked Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Because it needs it most."\r
+\r
+"Spirit," said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, "I wonder\r
+you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should\r
+desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent\r
+enjoyment."\r
+\r
+"I!" cried the Spirit.\r
+\r
+"You would deprive them of their means of dining every\r
+seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said\r
+to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?"\r
+\r
+"I!" cried the Spirit.\r
+\r
+"You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day?" said\r
+Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."\r
+\r
+"I seek!" exclaimed the Spirit.\r
+\r
+"Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your\r
+name, or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"There are some upon this earth of yours," returned the Spirit,\r
+"who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion,\r
+pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness\r
+in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and\r
+kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge\r
+their doings on themselves, not us."\r
+\r
+Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on,\r
+invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the\r
+town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which\r
+Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding\r
+his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place\r
+with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as\r
+gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible\r
+he could have done in any lofty hall.\r
+\r
+And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in\r
+showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,\r
+generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor\r
+men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he\r
+went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and\r
+on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped\r
+to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his\r
+torch. Think of that! Bob had but fifteen "Bob" a-week\r
+himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his\r
+Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present\r
+blessed his four-roomed house!\r
+\r
+Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out\r
+but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,\r
+which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and\r
+she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of\r
+her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter\r
+Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and\r
+getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private\r
+property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the\r
+day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly\r
+attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.\r
+And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing\r
+in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the\r
+goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious\r
+thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced\r
+about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the\r
+skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked\r
+him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up,\r
+knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and\r
+peeled.\r
+\r
+"What has ever got your precious father then?" said Mrs.\r
+Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny Tim! And Martha\r
+warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour?"\r
+\r
+"Here's Martha, mother!" said a girl, appearing as she\r
+spoke.\r
+\r
+"Here's Martha, mother!" cried the two young Cratchits.\r
+"Hurrah! There's such a goose, Martha!"\r
+\r
+"Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!"\r
+said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off\r
+her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.\r
+\r
+"We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the\r
+girl, "and had to clear away this morning, mother!"\r
+\r
+"Well! Never mind so long as you are come," said Mrs.\r
+Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have\r
+a warm, Lord bless ye!"\r
+\r
+"No, no! There's father coming," cried the two young\r
+Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. "Hide, Martha,\r
+hide!"\r
+\r
+So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,\r
+with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,\r
+hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned\r
+up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his\r
+shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and\r
+had his limbs supported by an iron frame!\r
+\r
+"Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking\r
+round.\r
+\r
+"Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.\r
+\r
+"Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his\r
+high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way\r
+from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming\r
+upon Christmas Day!"\r
+\r
+Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only\r
+in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet\r
+door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits\r
+hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house,\r
+that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.\r
+\r
+"And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit,\r
+when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had\r
+hugged his daughter to his heart's content.\r
+\r
+"As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he\r
+gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the\r
+strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home,\r
+that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he\r
+was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember\r
+upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind\r
+men see."\r
+\r
+Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and\r
+trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing\r
+strong and hearty.\r
+\r
+His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back\r
+came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by\r
+his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while\r
+Bob, turning up his cuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were\r
+capable of being made more shabby--compounded some hot\r
+mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round\r
+and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,\r
+and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the\r
+goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.\r
+\r
+Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose\r
+the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a\r
+black swan was a matter of course--and in truth it was\r
+something very like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made\r
+the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot;\r
+Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour;\r
+Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted\r
+the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny\r
+corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for\r
+everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard\r
+upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest\r
+they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be\r
+helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was\r
+said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs.\r
+Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared\r
+to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the\r
+long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of\r
+delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim,\r
+excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with\r
+the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah!\r
+\r
+There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe\r
+there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and\r
+flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal\r
+admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,\r
+it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as\r
+Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small\r
+atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at\r
+last! Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest\r
+Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to\r
+the eyebrows! But now, the plates being changed by Miss\r
+Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous to\r
+bear witnesses--to take the pudding up and bring it in.\r
+\r
+Suppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should\r
+break in turning out! Suppose somebody should have got\r
+over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they\r
+were merry with the goose--a supposition at which the two\r
+young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were\r
+supposed.\r
+\r
+Hallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of\r
+the copper. A smell like a washing-day! That was the\r
+cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next\r
+door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that!\r
+That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit\r
+entered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding,\r
+like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half\r
+of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with\r
+Christmas holly stuck into the top.\r
+\r
+Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly\r
+too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by\r
+Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that\r
+now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had\r
+had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had\r
+something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it\r
+was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have\r
+been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed\r
+to hint at such a thing.\r
+\r
+At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the\r
+hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the\r
+jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges\r
+were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the\r
+fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in\r
+what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and\r
+at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.\r
+Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.\r
+\r
+These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as\r
+golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with\r
+beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and\r
+cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:\r
+\r
+"A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!"\r
+\r
+Which all the family re-echoed.\r
+\r
+"God bless us every one!" said Tiny Tim, the last of all.\r
+\r
+He sat very close to his father's side upon his little\r
+stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he\r
+loved the child, and wished to keep him by his side, and\r
+dreaded that he might be taken from him.\r
+\r
+"Spirit," said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt\r
+before, "tell me if Tiny Tim will live."\r
+\r
+"I see a vacant seat," replied the Ghost, "in the poor\r
+chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully\r
+preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,\r
+the child will die."\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind Spirit! say he\r
+will be spared."\r
+\r
+"If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none\r
+other of my race," returned the Ghost, "will find him here.\r
+What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it, and\r
+decrease the surplus population."\r
+\r
+Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by\r
+the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.\r
+\r
+"Man," said the Ghost, "if man you be in heart, not\r
+adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered\r
+What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what\r
+men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the\r
+sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live\r
+than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear\r
+the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life\r
+among his hungry brothers in the dust!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast\r
+his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on\r
+hearing his own name.\r
+\r
+"Mr. Scrooge!" said Bob; "I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the\r
+Founder of the Feast!"\r
+\r
+"The Founder of the Feast indeed!" cried Mrs. Cratchit,\r
+reddening. "I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece\r
+of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good\r
+appetite for it."\r
+\r
+"My dear," said Bob, "the children! Christmas Day."\r
+\r
+"It should be Christmas Day, I am sure," said she, "on\r
+which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard,\r
+unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert!\r
+Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow!"\r
+\r
+"My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas Day."\r
+\r
+"I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's," said\r
+Mrs. Cratchit, "not for his. Long life to him! A merry\r
+Christmas and a happy new year! He'll be very merry and\r
+very happy, I have no doubt!"\r
+\r
+The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of\r
+their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank\r
+it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge\r
+was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast\r
+a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full\r
+five minutes.\r
+\r
+After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than\r
+before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done\r
+with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his\r
+eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full\r
+five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed\r
+tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business;\r
+and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from\r
+between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular\r
+investments he should favour when he came into the receipt\r
+of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor\r
+apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work\r
+she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,\r
+and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a\r
+good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at\r
+home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some\r
+days before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as\r
+Peter;" at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you\r
+couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this\r
+time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and\r
+by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in\r
+the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice,\r
+and sang it very well indeed.\r
+\r
+There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not\r
+a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes\r
+were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty;\r
+and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside\r
+of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased\r
+with one another, and contented with the time; and when\r
+they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings\r
+of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon\r
+them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.\r
+\r
+By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty\r
+heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,\r
+the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and\r
+all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of\r
+the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot\r
+plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep\r
+red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.\r
+There all the children of the house were running out\r
+into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,\r
+uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again,\r
+were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and\r
+there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,\r
+and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near\r
+neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw\r
+them enter--artful witches, well they knew it--in a glow!\r
+\r
+But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on\r
+their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought\r
+that no one was at home to give them welcome when they\r
+got there, instead of every house expecting company, and\r
+piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how\r
+the Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and\r
+opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with\r
+a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything\r
+within its reach! The very lamplighter, who ran on before,\r
+dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was\r
+dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly\r
+as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter\r
+that he had any company but Christmas!\r
+\r
+And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they\r
+stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses\r
+of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place\r
+of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed,\r
+or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner;\r
+and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.\r
+Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery\r
+red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a\r
+sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in\r
+the thick gloom of darkest night.\r
+\r
+"What place is this?" asked Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of\r
+the earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. See!"\r
+\r
+A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they\r
+advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and\r
+stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a\r
+glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their\r
+children and their children's children, and another generation\r
+beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.\r
+The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling\r
+of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a\r
+Christmas song--it had been a very old song when he was a\r
+boy--and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.\r
+So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite\r
+blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour\r
+sank again.\r
+\r
+The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his\r
+robe, and passing on above the moor, sped--whither? Not\r
+to sea? To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw\r
+the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them;\r
+and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it\r
+rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it\r
+had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.\r
+\r
+Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league\r
+or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,\r
+the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.\r
+Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds\r
+--born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the\r
+water--rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.\r
+\r
+But even here, two men who watched the light had made\r
+a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed\r
+out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their\r
+horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they\r
+wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and\r
+one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and\r
+scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship\r
+might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in\r
+itself.\r
+\r
+Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea\r
+--on, on--until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any\r
+shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman\r
+at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who\r
+had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations;\r
+but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or\r
+had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his\r
+companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward\r
+hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or\r
+sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another\r
+on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared\r
+to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those\r
+he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted\r
+to remember him.\r
+\r
+It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the\r
+moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it\r
+was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown\r
+abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it\r
+was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear\r
+a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge\r
+to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a\r
+bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling\r
+by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving\r
+affability!\r
+\r
+"Ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha!"\r
+\r
+If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a\r
+man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can\r
+say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me,\r
+and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.\r
+\r
+It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that\r
+while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing\r
+in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and\r
+good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding\r
+his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the\r
+most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage,\r
+laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being\r
+not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.\r
+\r
+"Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!"\r
+\r
+"He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!" cried\r
+Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it too!"\r
+\r
+"More shame for him, Fred!" said Scrooge's niece,\r
+indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by\r
+halves. They are always in earnest.\r
+\r
+She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,\r
+surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that\r
+seemed made to be kissed--as no doubt it was; all kinds of\r
+good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another\r
+when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever\r
+saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what\r
+you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory, too.\r
+Oh, perfectly satisfactory.\r
+\r
+"He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's nephew, "that's\r
+the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However,\r
+his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing\r
+to say against him."\r
+\r
+"I'm sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece.\r
+"At least you always tell me so."\r
+\r
+"What of that, my dear!" said Scrooge's nephew. "His\r
+wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it.\r
+He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the\r
+satisfaction of thinking--ha, ha, ha!--that he is ever going\r
+to benefit US with it."\r
+\r
+"I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece.\r
+Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed\r
+the same opinion.\r
+\r
+"Oh, I have!" said Scrooge's nephew. "I am sorry for\r
+him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers\r
+by his ill whims! Himself, always. Here, he takes it into\r
+his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.\r
+What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner."\r
+\r
+"Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted\r
+Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they\r
+must be allowed to have been competent judges, because\r
+they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the\r
+table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.\r
+\r
+"Well! I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew,\r
+"because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers.\r
+What do you say, Topper?"\r
+\r
+Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's\r
+sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast,\r
+who had no right to express an opinion on the subject.\r
+Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister--the plump one with the lace\r
+tucker: not the one with the roses--blushed.\r
+\r
+"Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands.\r
+"He never finishes what he begins to say! He is such a\r
+ridiculous fellow!"\r
+\r
+Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was\r
+impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister\r
+tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was\r
+unanimously followed.\r
+\r
+"I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that\r
+the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making\r
+merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant\r
+moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses\r
+pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,\r
+either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I\r
+mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he\r
+likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas\r
+till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it--I defy\r
+him--if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after\r
+year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only\r
+puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,\r
+that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday."\r
+\r
+It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking\r
+Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much\r
+caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any\r
+rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the\r
+bottle joyously.\r
+\r
+After tea, they had some music. For they were a musical\r
+family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a\r
+Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who\r
+could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never\r
+swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face\r
+over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and\r
+played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing:\r
+you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had\r
+been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the\r
+boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of\r
+Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the\r
+things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he\r
+softened more and more; and thought that if he could have\r
+listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the\r
+kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands,\r
+without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob\r
+Marley.\r
+\r
+But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After\r
+a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children\r
+sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its\r
+mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first\r
+a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I\r
+no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he\r
+had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done\r
+thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the\r
+Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after\r
+that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the\r
+credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,\r
+tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano,\r
+smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went,\r
+there went he! He always knew where the plump sister was.\r
+He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up\r
+against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would\r
+have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would\r
+have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly\r
+have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.\r
+She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not.\r
+But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her\r
+silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got\r
+her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his\r
+conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to\r
+know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her\r
+head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by\r
+pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain\r
+about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No doubt she told\r
+him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in\r
+office, they were so very confidential together, behind the\r
+curtains.\r
+\r
+Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party,\r
+but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool,\r
+in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close\r
+behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her\r
+love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.\r
+Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was\r
+very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat\r
+her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as Topper\r
+could have told you. There might have been twenty people there,\r
+young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge; for\r
+wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on, that\r
+his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with\r
+his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too;\r
+for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut\r
+in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in\r
+his head to be.\r
+\r
+The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood,\r
+and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like\r
+a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But\r
+this the Spirit said could not be done.\r
+\r
+"Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half hour,\r
+Spirit, only one!"\r
+\r
+It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew\r
+had to think of something, and the rest must find out what;\r
+he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case\r
+was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed,\r
+elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live\r
+animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an\r
+animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes,\r
+and lived in London, and walked about the streets,\r
+and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and\r
+didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market,\r
+and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a\r
+tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh\r
+question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a\r
+fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that\r
+he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last\r
+the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:\r
+\r
+"I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know\r
+what it is!"\r
+\r
+"What is it?" cried Fred.\r
+\r
+"It's your Uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge!"\r
+\r
+Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal\r
+sentiment, though some objected that the reply to "Is it a\r
+bear?" ought to have been "Yes;" inasmuch as an answer\r
+in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts\r
+from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency\r
+that way.\r
+\r
+"He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said\r
+Fred, "and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.\r
+Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the\r
+moment; and I say, 'Uncle Scrooge!'"\r
+\r
+"Well! Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.\r
+\r
+"A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old\r
+man, whatever he is!" said Scrooge's nephew. "He wouldn't\r
+take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle\r
+Scrooge!"\r
+\r
+Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light\r
+of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious\r
+company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech,\r
+if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene\r
+passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his\r
+nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.\r
+\r
+Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they\r
+visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood\r
+beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands,\r
+and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they\r
+were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was\r
+rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every\r
+refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not\r
+made fast the door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his\r
+blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.\r
+\r
+It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge\r
+had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared\r
+to be condensed into the space of time they passed\r
+together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained\r
+unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly\r
+older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of\r
+it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when,\r
+looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place,\r
+he noticed that its hair was grey.\r
+\r
+"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"My life upon this globe, is very brief," replied the Ghost.\r
+"It ends to-night."\r
+\r
+"To-night!" cried Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing\r
+near."\r
+\r
+The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at\r
+that moment.\r
+\r
+"Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said\r
+Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe, "but I see\r
+something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding\r
+from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"\r
+\r
+"It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was\r
+the Spirit's sorrowful reply. "Look here."\r
+\r
+From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;\r
+wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt\r
+down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.\r
+\r
+"Oh, Man! look here. Look, look, down here!" exclaimed\r
+the Ghost.\r
+\r
+They were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling,\r
+wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where\r
+graceful youth should have filled their features out, and\r
+touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled\r
+hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and\r
+pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat\r
+enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No\r
+change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any\r
+grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has\r
+monsters half so horrible and dread.\r
+\r
+Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to\r
+him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but\r
+the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie\r
+of such enormous magnitude.\r
+\r
+"Spirit! are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.\r
+\r
+"They are Man's," said the Spirit, looking down upon\r
+them. "And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.\r
+This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,\r
+and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for\r
+on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the\r
+writing be erased. Deny it!" cried the Spirit, stretching out\r
+its hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye!\r
+Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.\r
+And bide the end!"\r
+\r
+"Have they no refuge or resource?" cried Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"Are there no prisons?" said the Spirit, turning on him\r
+for the last time with his own words. "Are there no workhouses?"\r
+\r
+The bell struck twelve.\r
+\r
+Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not.\r
+As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the\r
+prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes,\r
+beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like\r
+a mist along the ground, towards him.\r
+\r
+\r
+STAVE IV:  THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS\r
+\r
+THE Phantom slowly, gravely, silently, approached. When\r
+it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in\r
+the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to\r
+scatter gloom and mystery.\r
+\r
+It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed\r
+its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible\r
+save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been\r
+difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it\r
+from the darkness by which it was surrounded.\r
+\r
+He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside\r
+him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a\r
+solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither\r
+spoke nor moved.\r
+\r
+"I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To\r
+Come?" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its\r
+hand.\r
+\r
+"You are about to show me shadows of the things that\r
+have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,"\r
+Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, Spirit?"\r
+\r
+The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an\r
+instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head.\r
+That was the only answer he received.\r
+\r
+Although well used to ghostly company by this time,\r
+Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled\r
+beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when\r
+he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as\r
+observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.\r
+\r
+But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him\r
+with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the\r
+dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon\r
+him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost,\r
+could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap\r
+of black.\r
+\r
+"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more\r
+than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose\r
+is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another\r
+man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company,\r
+and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak\r
+to me?"\r
+\r
+It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight\r
+before them.\r
+\r
+"Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is\r
+waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead\r
+on, Spirit!"\r
+\r
+The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.\r
+Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him\r
+up, he thought, and carried him along.\r
+\r
+They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather\r
+seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its\r
+own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on\r
+'Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down,\r
+and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in\r
+groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully\r
+with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had\r
+seen them often.\r
+\r
+The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men.\r
+Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge\r
+advanced to listen to their talk.\r
+\r
+"No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, "I\r
+don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's\r
+dead."\r
+\r
+"When did he die?" inquired another.\r
+\r
+"Last night, I believe."\r
+\r
+"Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third,\r
+taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box.\r
+"I thought he'd never die."\r
+\r
+"God knows," said the first, with a yawn.\r
+\r
+"What has he done with his money?" asked a red-faced\r
+gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his\r
+nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.\r
+\r
+"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin,\r
+yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't\r
+left it to me. That's all I know."\r
+\r
+This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.\r
+\r
+"It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same\r
+speaker; "for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go\r
+to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer?"\r
+\r
+"I don't mind going if a lunch is provided," observed the\r
+gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. "But I must\r
+be fed, if I make one."\r
+\r
+Another laugh.\r
+\r
+"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,"\r
+said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I\r
+never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will.\r
+When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't\r
+his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak\r
+whenever we met. Bye, bye!"\r
+\r
+Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with\r
+other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the\r
+Spirit for an explanation.\r
+\r
+The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed\r
+to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking\r
+that the explanation might lie here.\r
+\r
+He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business:\r
+very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point\r
+always of standing well in their esteem: in a business point\r
+of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.\r
+\r
+"How are you?" said one.\r
+\r
+"How are you?" returned the other.\r
+\r
+"Well!" said the first. "Old Scratch has got his own at\r
+last, hey?"\r
+\r
+"So I am told," returned the second. "Cold, isn't it?"\r
+\r
+"Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I\r
+suppose?"\r
+\r
+"No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning!"\r
+\r
+Not another word. That was their meeting, their\r
+conversation, and their parting.\r
+\r
+Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the\r
+Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so\r
+trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden\r
+purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be.\r
+They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the\r
+death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this\r
+Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any\r
+one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could\r
+apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever they\r
+applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement,\r
+he resolved to treasure up every word he heard,\r
+and everything he saw; and especially to observe the\r
+shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation\r
+that the conduct of his future self would give him\r
+the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these\r
+riddles easy.\r
+\r
+He looked about in that very place for his own image; but\r
+another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the\r
+clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he\r
+saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured\r
+in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however;\r
+for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and\r
+thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried\r
+out in this.\r
+\r
+Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its\r
+outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his\r
+thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and\r
+its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes\r
+were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel\r
+very cold.\r
+\r
+They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part\r
+of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before,\r
+although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The\r
+ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched;\r
+the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and\r
+archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of\r
+smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the\r
+whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.\r
+\r
+Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed,\r
+beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags,\r
+bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor\r
+within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges,\r
+files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets\r
+that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in\r
+mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and\r
+sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a\r
+charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal,\r
+nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the\r
+cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous\r
+tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury\r
+of calm retirement.\r
+\r
+Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this\r
+man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the\r
+shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman,\r
+similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by\r
+a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight\r
+of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each\r
+other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which\r
+the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three\r
+burst into a laugh.\r
+\r
+"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried she who\r
+had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the second;\r
+and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look\r
+here, old Joe, here's a chance! If we haven't all three met\r
+here without meaning it!"\r
+\r
+"You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe,\r
+removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come into the parlour.\r
+You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other\r
+two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop.\r
+Ah! How it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of metal\r
+in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's\r
+no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all suitable\r
+to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the\r
+parlour. Come into the parlour."\r
+\r
+The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The\r
+old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and\r
+having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the\r
+stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.\r
+\r
+While he did this, the woman who had already spoken\r
+threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting\r
+manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and\r
+looking with a bold defiance at the other two.\r
+\r
+"What odds then! What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said the\r
+woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves.\r
+He always did."\r
+\r
+"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man\r
+more so."\r
+\r
+"Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid,\r
+woman; who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in\r
+each other's coats, I suppose?"\r
+\r
+"No, indeed!" said Mrs. Dilber and the man together.\r
+"We should hope not."\r
+\r
+"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's enough.\r
+Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these?\r
+Not a dead man, I suppose."\r
+\r
+"No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.\r
+\r
+"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old\r
+screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his\r
+lifetime? If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look\r
+after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying\r
+gasping out his last there, alone by himself."\r
+\r
+"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs.\r
+Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."\r
+\r
+"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the\r
+woman; "and it should have been, you may depend upon it,\r
+if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that\r
+bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out\r
+plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to\r
+see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,\r
+before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle,\r
+Joe."\r
+\r
+But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this;\r
+and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first,\r
+produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two,\r
+a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no\r
+great value, were all. They were severally examined and\r
+appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed\r
+to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a\r
+total when he found there was nothing more to come.\r
+\r
+"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give\r
+another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it.\r
+Who's next?"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing\r
+apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of\r
+sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall\r
+in the same manner.\r
+\r
+"I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine,\r
+and that's the way I ruin myself," said old Joe. "That's\r
+your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made\r
+it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock\r
+off half-a-crown."\r
+\r
+"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman.\r
+\r
+Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience\r
+of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots,\r
+dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.\r
+\r
+"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains!"\r
+\r
+"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward\r
+on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!"\r
+\r
+"You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and\r
+all, with him lying there?" said Joe.\r
+\r
+"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"\r
+\r
+"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and\r
+you'll certainly do it."\r
+\r
+"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything\r
+in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as He\r
+was, I promise you, Joe," returned the woman coolly. "Don't\r
+drop that oil upon the blankets, now."\r
+\r
+"His blankets?" asked Joe.\r
+\r
+"Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He\r
+isn't likely to take cold without 'em, I dare say."\r
+\r
+"I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?" said\r
+old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.\r
+\r
+"Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I\r
+an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for\r
+such things, if he did. Ah! you may look through that\r
+shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor\r
+a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too.\r
+They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me."\r
+\r
+"What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.\r
+\r
+"Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure," replied\r
+the woman with a laugh. "Somebody was fool enough to\r
+do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for\r
+such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite\r
+as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did\r
+in that one."\r
+\r
+Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat\r
+grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by\r
+the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and\r
+disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they\r
+had been obscene demons, marketing the corpse itself.\r
+\r
+"Ha, ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe,\r
+producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their\r
+several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you\r
+see! He frightened every one away from him when he was\r
+alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!"\r
+\r
+"Spirit!" said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. "I\r
+see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own.\r
+My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is\r
+this!"\r
+\r
+He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now\r
+he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which,\r
+beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up,\r
+which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful\r
+language.\r
+\r
+The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with\r
+any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience\r
+to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it\r
+was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon\r
+the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept,\r
+uncared for, was the body of this man.\r
+\r
+Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand\r
+was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted\r
+that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon\r
+Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought\r
+of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it;\r
+but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss\r
+the spectre at his side.\r
+\r
+Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar\r
+here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy\r
+command: for this is thy dominion! But of the loved,\r
+revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair\r
+to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is\r
+not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released;\r
+it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the\r
+hand WAS open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm,\r
+and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike!\r
+And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow\r
+the world with life immortal!\r
+\r
+No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and\r
+yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He\r
+thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be\r
+his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares?\r
+They have brought him to a rich end, truly!\r
+\r
+He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a\r
+woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this\r
+or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be\r
+kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was\r
+a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What\r
+they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so\r
+restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.\r
+\r
+"Spirit!" he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it,\r
+I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!"\r
+\r
+Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the\r
+head.\r
+\r
+"I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would do\r
+it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have\r
+not the power."\r
+\r
+Again it seemed to look upon him.\r
+\r
+"If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion\r
+caused by this man's death," said Scrooge quite agonised,\r
+"show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you!"\r
+\r
+The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a\r
+moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room\r
+by daylight, where a mother and her children were.\r
+\r
+She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness;\r
+for she walked up and down the room; started at every\r
+sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock;\r
+tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly\r
+bear the voices of the children in their play.\r
+\r
+At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried\r
+to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was\r
+careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was\r
+a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight\r
+of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.\r
+\r
+He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for\r
+him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news\r
+(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared\r
+embarrassed how to answer.\r
+\r
+"Is it good?" she said, "or bad?"--to help him.\r
+\r
+"Bad," he answered.\r
+\r
+"We are quite ruined?"\r
+\r
+"No. There is hope yet, Caroline."\r
+\r
+"If he relents," she said, amazed, "there is! Nothing is\r
+past hope, if such a miracle has happened."\r
+\r
+"He is past relenting," said her husband. "He is dead."\r
+\r
+She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke\r
+truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she\r
+said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next\r
+moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of\r
+her heart.\r
+\r
+"What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last\r
+night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a\r
+week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid\r
+me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only\r
+very ill, but dying, then."\r
+\r
+"To whom will our debt be transferred?"\r
+\r
+"I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready\r
+with the money; and even though we were not, it would be\r
+a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his\r
+successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline!"\r
+\r
+Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter.\r
+The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what\r
+they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier\r
+house for this man's death! The only emotion that the\r
+Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of\r
+pleasure.\r
+\r
+"Let me see some tenderness connected with a death," said\r
+Scrooge; "or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just\r
+now, will be for ever present to me."\r
+\r
+The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar\r
+to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and\r
+there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They\r
+entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had\r
+visited before; and found the mother and the children seated\r
+round the fire.\r
+\r
+Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as\r
+still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter,\r
+who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters\r
+were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet!\r
+\r
+"'And He took a child, and set him in the midst of\r
+them.'"\r
+\r
+Where had Scrooge heard those words? He had not\r
+dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he\r
+and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not\r
+go on?\r
+\r
+The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her\r
+hand up to her face.\r
+\r
+"The colour hurts my eyes," she said.\r
+\r
+The colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!\r
+\r
+"They're better now again," said Cratchit's wife. "It\r
+makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak\r
+eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It\r
+must be near his time."\r
+\r
+"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book.\r
+"But I think he has walked a little slower than he used,\r
+these few last evenings, mother."\r
+\r
+They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a\r
+steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:\r
+\r
+"I have known him walk with--I have known him walk\r
+with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed."\r
+\r
+"And so have I," cried Peter. "Often."\r
+\r
+"And so have I," exclaimed another. So had all.\r
+\r
+"But he was very light to carry," she resumed, intent upon\r
+her work, "and his father loved him so, that it was no\r
+trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door!"\r
+\r
+She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter\r
+--he had need of it, poor fellow--came in. His tea\r
+was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should\r
+help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got\r
+upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against\r
+his face, as if they said, "Don't mind it, father. Don't be\r
+grieved!"\r
+\r
+Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to\r
+all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and\r
+praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls.\r
+They would be done long before Sunday, he said.\r
+\r
+"Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?" said his\r
+wife.\r
+\r
+"Yes, my dear," returned Bob. "I wish you could have\r
+gone. It would have done you good to see how green a\r
+place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I\r
+would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child!"\r
+cried Bob. "My little child!"\r
+\r
+He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he\r
+could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther\r
+apart perhaps than they were.\r
+\r
+He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above,\r
+which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas.\r
+There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were\r
+signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat\r
+down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed\r
+himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what\r
+had happened, and went down again quite happy.\r
+\r
+They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother\r
+working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness\r
+of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but\r
+once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing\r
+that he looked a little--"just a little down you know," said\r
+Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. "On\r
+which," said Bob, "for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman\r
+you ever heard, I told him. 'I am heartily sorry for it, Mr.\r
+Cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.'\r
+By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know."\r
+\r
+"Knew what, my dear?"\r
+\r
+"Why, that you were a good wife," replied Bob.\r
+\r
+"Everybody knows that!" said Peter.\r
+\r
+"Very well observed, my boy!" cried Bob. "I hope they\r
+do. 'Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If I\r
+can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me\r
+his card, 'that's where I live. Pray come to me.' Now, it\r
+wasn't," cried Bob, "for the sake of anything he might be\r
+able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was\r
+quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our\r
+Tiny Tim, and felt with us."\r
+\r
+"I'm sure he's a good soul!" said Mrs. Cratchit.\r
+\r
+"You would be surer of it, my dear," returned Bob, "if\r
+you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised--\r
+mark what I say!--if he got Peter a better situation."\r
+\r
+"Only hear that, Peter," said Mrs. Cratchit.\r
+\r
+"And then," cried one of the girls, "Peter will be keeping\r
+company with some one, and setting up for himself."\r
+\r
+"Get along with you!" retorted Peter, grinning.\r
+\r
+"It's just as likely as not," said Bob, "one of these days;\r
+though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however\r
+and whenever we part from one another, I am sure we\r
+shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim--shall we--or this\r
+first parting that there was among us?"\r
+\r
+"Never, father!" cried they all.\r
+\r
+"And I know," said Bob, "I know, my dears, that when\r
+we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he\r
+was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among\r
+ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it."\r
+\r
+"No, never, father!" they all cried again.\r
+\r
+"I am very happy," said little Bob, "I am very happy!"\r
+\r
+Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the\r
+two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook\r
+hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from\r
+God!\r
+\r
+"Spectre," said Scrooge, "something informs me that our\r
+parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not\r
+how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead?"\r
+\r
+The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as\r
+before--though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there\r
+seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were\r
+in the Future--into the resorts of business men, but showed\r
+him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything,\r
+but went straight on, as to the end just now desired,\r
+until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.\r
+\r
+"This court," said Scrooge, "through which we hurry now,\r
+is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length\r
+of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be,\r
+in days to come!"\r
+\r
+The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.\r
+\r
+"The house is yonder," Scrooge exclaimed. "Why do you\r
+point away?"\r
+\r
+The inexorable finger underwent no change.\r
+\r
+Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked\r
+in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was\r
+not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.\r
+The Phantom pointed as before.\r
+\r
+He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither\r
+he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate.\r
+He paused to look round before entering.\r
+\r
+A churchyard. Here, then; the wretched man whose name\r
+he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a\r
+worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and\r
+weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up\r
+with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A\r
+worthy place!\r
+\r
+The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to\r
+One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was\r
+exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new\r
+meaning in its solemn shape.\r
+\r
+"Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,"\r
+said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the\r
+shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of\r
+things that May be, only?"\r
+\r
+Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which\r
+it stood.\r
+\r
+"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if\r
+persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the\r
+courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is\r
+thus with what you show me!"\r
+\r
+The Spirit was immovable as ever.\r
+\r
+Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and\r
+following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected\r
+grave his own name, EBENEZER SCROOGE.\r
+\r
+"Am I that man who lay upon the bed?" he cried, upon\r
+his knees.\r
+\r
+The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.\r
+\r
+"No, Spirit! Oh no, no!"\r
+\r
+The finger still was there.\r
+\r
+"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me!\r
+I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must\r
+have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I\r
+am past all hope!"\r
+\r
+For the first time the hand appeared to shake.\r
+\r
+"Good Spirit," he pursued, as down upon the ground he\r
+fell before it: "Your nature intercedes for me, and pities\r
+me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you\r
+have shown me, by an altered life!"\r
+\r
+The kind hand trembled.\r
+\r
+"I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it\r
+all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the\r
+Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I\r
+will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I\r
+may sponge away the writing on this stone!"\r
+\r
+In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to\r
+free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it.\r
+The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.\r
+\r
+Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate\r
+reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.\r
+It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.\r
+\r
+\r
+STAVE V:  THE END OF IT\r
+\r
+YES! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own,\r
+the room was his own. Best and happiest of all, the Time\r
+before him was his own, to make amends in!\r
+\r
+"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!"\r
+Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits\r
+of all Three shall strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley!\r
+Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised for this! I say\r
+it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!"\r
+\r
+He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions,\r
+that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his\r
+call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the\r
+Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.\r
+\r
+"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of\r
+his bed-curtains in his arms, "they are not torn down, rings\r
+and all. They are here--I am here--the shadows of the\r
+things that would have been, may be dispelled. They will\r
+be. I know they will!"\r
+\r
+His hands were busy with his garments all this time;\r
+turning them inside out, putting them on upside down,\r
+tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every\r
+kind of extravagance.\r
+\r
+"I don't know what to do!" cried Scrooge, laughing and\r
+crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of\r
+himself with his stockings. "I am as light as a feather, I\r
+am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I\r
+am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to\r
+everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo\r
+here! Whoop! Hallo!"\r
+\r
+He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing\r
+there: perfectly winded.\r
+\r
+"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried\r
+Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace.\r
+"There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley\r
+entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas\r
+Present, sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering\r
+Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened.\r
+Ha ha ha!"\r
+\r
+Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so\r
+many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.\r
+The father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs!\r
+\r
+"I don't know what day of the month it is!" said\r
+Scrooge. "I don't know how long I've been among the\r
+Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never\r
+mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!\r
+Hallo here!"\r
+\r
+He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing\r
+out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang,\r
+hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang,\r
+clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!\r
+\r
+Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his\r
+head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold;\r
+cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight;\r
+Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious!\r
+Glorious!\r
+\r
+"What's to-day!" cried Scrooge, calling downward to a\r
+boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look\r
+about him.\r
+\r
+"EH?" returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.\r
+\r
+"What's to-day, my fine fellow?" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"To-day!" replied the boy. "Why, CHRISTMAS DAY."\r
+\r
+"It's Christmas Day!" said Scrooge to himself. "I\r
+haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night.\r
+They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of\r
+course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!"\r
+\r
+"Hallo!" returned the boy.\r
+\r
+"Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one,\r
+at the corner?" Scrooge inquired.\r
+\r
+"I should hope I did," replied the lad.\r
+\r
+"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy!\r
+Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that\r
+was hanging up there?--Not the little prize Turkey: the\r
+big one?"\r
+\r
+"What, the one as big as me?" returned the boy.\r
+\r
+"What a delightful boy!" said Scrooge. "It's a pleasure\r
+to talk to him. Yes, my buck!"\r
+\r
+"It's hanging there now," replied the boy.\r
+\r
+"Is it?" said Scrooge. "Go and buy it."\r
+\r
+"Walk-ER!" exclaimed the boy.\r
+\r
+"No, no," said Scrooge, "I am in earnest. Go and buy\r
+it, and tell 'em to bring it here, that I may give them the\r
+direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and\r
+I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than\r
+five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown!"\r
+\r
+The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady\r
+hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.\r
+\r
+"I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's!" whispered Scrooge,\r
+rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. "He sha'n't\r
+know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe\r
+Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's\r
+will be!"\r
+\r
+The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady\r
+one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to\r
+open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's\r
+man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker\r
+caught his eye.\r
+\r
+"I shall love it, as long as I live!" cried Scrooge, patting\r
+it with his hand. "I scarcely ever looked at it before.\r
+What an honest expression it has in its face! It's a\r
+wonderful knocker!--Here's the Turkey! Hallo! Whoop!\r
+How are you! Merry Christmas!"\r
+\r
+It was a Turkey! He never could have stood upon his\r
+legs, that bird. He would have snapped 'em short off in a\r
+minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.\r
+\r
+"Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,"\r
+said Scrooge. "You must have a cab."\r
+\r
+The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with\r
+which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which\r
+he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed\r
+the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle\r
+with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and\r
+chuckled till he cried.\r
+\r
+Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to\r
+shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when\r
+you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the\r
+end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of\r
+sticking-plaister over it, and been quite satisfied.\r
+\r
+He dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out\r
+into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth,\r
+as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present;\r
+and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded\r
+every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly\r
+pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows\r
+said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!"\r
+And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe\r
+sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.\r
+\r
+He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he\r
+beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his\r
+counting-house the day before, and said, "Scrooge and Marley's, I\r
+believe?"  It sent a pang across his heart to think how this\r
+old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he\r
+knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.\r
+\r
+"My dear sir," said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and\r
+taking the old gentleman by both his hands. "How do you\r
+do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of\r
+you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!"\r
+\r
+"Mr. Scrooge?"\r
+\r
+"Yes," said Scrooge. "That is my name, and I fear it\r
+may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon.\r
+And will you have the goodness"--here Scrooge whispered in\r
+his ear.\r
+\r
+"Lord bless me!" cried the gentleman, as if his breath\r
+were taken away. "My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?"\r
+\r
+"If you please," said Scrooge. "Not a farthing less. A\r
+great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you.\r
+Will you do me that favour?"\r
+\r
+"My dear sir," said the other, shaking hands with him.\r
+"I don't know what to say to such munifi--"\r
+\r
+"Don't say anything, please," retorted Scrooge. "Come\r
+and see me. Will you come and see me?"\r
+\r
+"I will!" cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he\r
+meant to do it.\r
+\r
+"Thank'ee," said Scrooge. "I am much obliged to you.\r
+I thank you fifty times. Bless you!"\r
+\r
+He went to church, and walked about the streets, and\r
+watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children\r
+on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into\r
+the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found\r
+that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never\r
+dreamed that any walk--that anything--could give him so\r
+much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps\r
+towards his nephew's house.\r
+\r
+He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the\r
+courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and\r
+did it:\r
+\r
+"Is your master at home, my dear?" said Scrooge to the\r
+girl. Nice girl! Very.\r
+\r
+"Yes, sir."\r
+\r
+"Where is he, my love?" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+"He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll\r
+show you up-stairs, if you please."\r
+\r
+"Thank'ee. He knows me," said Scrooge, with his hand\r
+already on the dining-room lock. "I'll go in here, my dear."\r
+\r
+He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door.\r
+They were looking at the table (which was spread out in\r
+great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous\r
+on such points, and like to see that everything is right.\r
+\r
+"Fred!" said Scrooge.\r
+\r
+Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started!\r
+Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting\r
+in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done\r
+it, on any account.\r
+\r
+"Why bless my soul!" cried Fred, "who's that?"\r
+\r
+"It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner.\r
+Will you let me in, Fred?"\r
+\r
+Let him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off.\r
+He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier.\r
+His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he\r
+came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did\r
+every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful\r
+games, wonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!\r
+\r
+But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was\r
+early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob\r
+Cratchit coming late! That was the thing he had set his\r
+heart upon.\r
+\r
+And he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No\r
+Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen\r
+minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his\r
+door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.\r
+\r
+His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter\r
+too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his\r
+pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.\r
+\r
+"Hallo!" growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as\r
+near as he could feign it. "What do you mean by coming\r
+here at this time of day?"\r
+\r
+"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I am behind my time."\r
+\r
+"You are?" repeated Scrooge. "Yes. I think you are.\r
+Step this way, sir, if you please."\r
+\r
+"It's only once a year, sir," pleaded Bob, appearing from\r
+the Tank. "It shall not be repeated. I was making rather\r
+merry yesterday, sir."\r
+\r
+"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend," said Scrooge, "I\r
+am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And\r
+therefore," he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving\r
+Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into\r
+the Tank again; "and therefore I am about to raise your\r
+salary!"\r
+\r
+Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He\r
+had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,\r
+holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help\r
+and a strait-waistcoat.\r
+\r
+"A merry Christmas, Bob!" said Scrooge, with an earnestness\r
+that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the\r
+back. "A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I\r
+have given you, for many a year! I'll raise your salary, and\r
+endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss\r
+your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of\r
+smoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires, and buy another\r
+coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!"\r
+\r
+\r
+Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and\r
+infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was\r
+a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a\r
+master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or\r
+any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old\r
+world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him,\r
+but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was\r
+wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this\r
+globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill\r
+of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these\r
+would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they\r
+should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in\r
+less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was\r
+quite enough for him.\r
+\r
+He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon\r
+the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was\r
+always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas\r
+well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that\r
+be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim\r
+observed, God bless Us, Every One!\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+\r
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens\r
+\r
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