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"content": "The Project Gutenberg eBook of A Christmas Carol\n \nThis ebook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and\nmost other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions\nwhatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms\nof the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online\nat www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States,\nyou will have to check the laws of the country where you are located\nbefore using this eBook.\n\nTitle: A Christmas Carol\n\nAuthor: Charles Dickens\n\nIllustrator: Arthur Rackham\n\nRelease date: December 24, 2007 [eBook #24022]\n\nLanguage: English\n\nOriginal publication: Philadelphia and New York: J. B. Lippincott Company,, 1915\n\nCredits: Produced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online\n Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL ***\n\n\n\n\nProduced by Suzanne Shell, Janet Blenkinship and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n A CHRISTMAS CAROL\n\n [Illustration: _\"How now?\" said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.\n \"What do you want with me?\"_]\n\n\n A CHRISTMAS CAROL\n\n [Illustration]\n\n BY\n\n CHARLES DICKENS\n\n [Illustration]\n\n ILLUSTRATED BY ARTHUR RACKHAM\n\n [Illustration]\n\n J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY PHILADELPHIA AND NEW YORK\n\n FIRST PUBLISHED 1915\n\n REPRINTED 1923, 1927, 1932, 1933, 1934, 1935, 1947, 1948, 1952, 1958,\n 1962, 1964, 1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1973\n\n ISBN: 0-397-00033-2\n\n PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN\n\n\n\n\n PREFACE\n\n I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book to raise the Ghost of an\n Idea which shall not put my readers out of humour with themselves, with\n each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their house\n pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.\n\n Their faithful Friend and Servant,\n\n C. D.\n\n _December, 1843._\n\n\n\n\n CHARACTERS\n\n Bob Cratchit, clerk to Ebenezer Scrooge.\n Peter Cratchit, a son of the preceding.\n Tim Cratchit (\"Tiny Tim\"), a cripple, youngest son of Bob Cratchit.\n Mr. Fezziwig, a kind-hearted, jovial old merchant.\n Fred, Scrooge's nephew.\n Ghost of Christmas Past, a phantom showing things past.\n Ghost of Christmas Present, a spirit of a kind, generous,\n and hearty nature.\n Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come, an apparition showing the shadows\n of things which yet may happen.\n Ghost of Jacob Marley, a spectre of Scrooge's former partner in business.\n Joe, a marine-store dealer and receiver of stolen goods.\n Ebenezer Scrooge, a grasping, covetous old man, the surviving partner\n of the firm of Scrooge and Marley.\n Mr. Topper, a bachelor.\n Dick Wilkins, a fellow apprentice of Scrooge's.\n\n Belle, a comely matron, an old sweetheart of Scrooge's.\n Caroline, wife of one of Scrooge's debtors.\n Mrs. Cratchit, wife of Bob Cratchit.\n Belinda and Martha Cratchit, daughters of the preceding.\n\n Mrs. Dilber, a laundress.\n Fan, the sister of Scrooge.\n Mrs. Fezziwig, the worthy partner of Mr. Fezziwig.\n\n\n\n\n CONTENTS\n\n STAVE ONE--MARLEY'S GHOST 3\n STAVE TWO--THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS 37\n STAVE THREE--THE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS 69\n STAVE FOUR--THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS 111\n STAVE FIVE--THE END OF IT 137\n\n\n LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS\n\n _IN COLOUR_\n\n\n \"How now?\" said Scrooge, caustic\n and cold as ever. \"What do you\n want with me?\" _Frontispiece_\n\n Bob Cratchit went down a slide on\n Cornhill, at the end of a lane of\n boys, twenty times, in honour of\n its being Christmas Eve 16\n\n Nobody under the bed; nobody in\n the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,\n which was hanging up\n in a suspicious attitude against\n the wall 20\n\n The air was filled with phantoms,\n wandering hither and thither in\n restless haste and moaning as\n they went 32\n\n Then old Fezziwig stood out to\n dance with Mrs. Fezziwig 54\n\n A flushed and boisterous group 62\n\n Laden with Christmas toys and\n presents 64\n\n The way he went after that plump\n sister in the lace tucker! 100\n\n \"How are you?\" said one.\n \"How are you?\"",
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"content": "restless haste and moaning as\n they went 32\n\n Then old Fezziwig stood out to\n dance with Mrs. Fezziwig 54\n\n A flushed and boisterous group 62\n\n Laden with Christmas toys and\n presents 64\n\n The way he went after that plump\n sister in the lace tucker! 100\n\n \"How are you?\" said one.\n \"How are you?\" returned the other.\n \"Well!\" said the first. \"Old\n Scratch has got his own at last,\n hey?\" 114\n\n \"What do you call this?\" said Joe.\n \"Bed-curtains!\" \"Ah!\" returned\n the woman, laughing....\n \"Bed-curtains!\"\n\n \"You don't mean to say you took\n 'em down, rings and all, with him\n lying there?\" said Joe.\n\n \"Yes, I do,\" replied the woman.\n \"Why not?\" 120\n\n \"It's I, your uncle Scrooge. I have\n come to dinner. Will you let\n me in, Fred?\" 144\n\n \"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,\"\n said Scrooge. \"I am not going\n to stand this sort of thing any\n longer.\" 146\n\n[Illustration]\n\n_IN BLACK AND WHITE_\n\n\n Tailpiece vi\n Tailpiece to List of Coloured Illustrations x\n Tailpiece to List of Black and White Illustrations xi\n Heading to Stave One 3\n They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold 12\n On the wings of the wind 28-29\n Tailpiece to Stave One 34\n Heading to Stave Two 37\n He produced a decanter of curiously\n light wine and a block of curiously heavy cake 50\n She left him, and they parted 60\n Tailpiece to Stave Two 65\n Heading to Stave Three 69\n There was nothing very cheerful in the climate 75\n He had been Tim's blood-horse all the way from church 84-85\n With the pudding 88\n Heading to Stave Four 111\n Heading to Stave Five 137\n Tailpiece to Stave Five 147\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nSTAVE ONE\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nMARLEY'S GHOST\n\n\nMarley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.\nThe register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the\nundertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name\nwas good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old\nMarley was as dead as a door-nail.\n\nMind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is\nparticularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself,\nto regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the\ntrade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my\nunhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You\nwill, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as\ndead as a door-nail.\n\nScrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?\nScrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge\nwas his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole\nresiduary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge\nwas not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event but that he was an\nexcellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised\nit with an undoubted bargain.\n\nThe mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started\nfrom. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly\nunderstood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to\nrelate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died\nbefore the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his\ntaking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,\nthan there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning\nout after dark in a breezy spot--say St. Paul's Churchyard, for\ninstance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind.\n\nScrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years\nafterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was\nknown as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called\nScrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It\nwas all the same to him.\n\nOh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a\nsqueezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old\nsinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out\ngenerous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.\nThe cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose,\nshrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin\nlips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime",
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"content": "clutching, covetous old\nsinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out\ngenerous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.\nThe cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose,\nshrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin\nlips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime\nwas on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his\nown low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the\ndog-days, and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.\n\nExternal heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could\nwarm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than\nhe, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain\nless open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The\nheaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet could boast of the\nadvantage over him in only one respect. They often 'came down'\nhandsomely, and Scrooge never did.\n\nNobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, 'My\ndear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?' No beggars\nimplored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was\no'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to\nsuch and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to\nknow him; and, when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into\ndoorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they\nsaid, 'No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'\n\nBut what did Scrooge care? It was the very thing he liked. To edge his\nway along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep\nits distance, was what the knowing ones call 'nuts' to Scrooge.\n\nOnce upon a time--of all the good days in the year, on Christmas\nEve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak,\nbiting weather; foggy withal; and he could hear the people in the court\noutside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts,\nand stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them. The City\nclocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already--it had\nnot been light all day--and candles were flaring in the windows of the\nneighbouring offices, like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The\nfog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense\nwithout, that, although the court was of the narrowest, the houses\nopposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud come drooping down,\nobscuring everything, one might have thought that nature lived hard by,\nand was brewing on a large scale.\n\nThe door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his\neye upon his clerk, who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank,\nwas copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire\nwas so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't\nreplenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so\nsurely as the clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that\nit would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his\nwhite comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which\neffort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.\n\n'A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried a cheerful voice. It was\nthe voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this\nwas the first intimation he had of his approach.\n\n'Bah!' said Scrooge. 'Humbug!'\n\nHe had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this\nnephew of Scrooge's, that he was all in a glow; his face was ruddy and\nhandsome; his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.\n\n'Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'You don't mean\nthat, I am sure?'\n\n'I do,' said Scrooge. 'Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry?\nWhat reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.'\n\n'Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. 'What right have you to be\ndismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.'\n\nScrooge, having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said,\n'Bah!' again; and followed it up with 'Humbug!'\n\n'Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew.\n\n'What else can I be,' returned the uncle, 'when I live in such a world\nof fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's\nChristmas-time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time\nfor finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for\nbalancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen\nof months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,' said\nScrooge indignantly, 'every idiot who goes",
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"content": "when I live in such a world\nof fools as this? Merry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas! What's\nChristmas-time to you but a time for paying bills without money; a time\nfor finding yourself a year older, and not an hour richer; a time for\nbalancing your books, and having every item in 'em through a round dozen\nof months presented dead against you? If I could work my will,' said\nScrooge indignantly, 'every idiot who goes about with \"Merry Christmas\"\non his lips should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried with a\nstake of holly through his heart. He should!'\n\n'Uncle!' pleaded the nephew.\n\n'Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, 'keep Christmas in your own way,\nand let me keep it in mine.'\n\n'Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. 'But you don't keep it.'\n\n'Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. 'Much good may it do you!\nMuch good it has ever done you!'\n\n'There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I\nhave not profited, I dare say,' returned the nephew; 'Christmas among\nthe rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas-time, when\nit has come round--apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and\norigin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that--as a good\ntime; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know\nof, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one\nconsent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people\nbelow them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and\nnot another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,\nuncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I\nbelieve that it _has_ done me good and _will_ do me good; and I say, God\nbless it!'\n\nThe clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded. Becoming immediately\nsensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire, and extinguished the\nlast frail spark for ever.\n\n'Let me hear another sound from _you_,' said Scrooge, 'and you'll keep\nyour Christmas by losing your situation! You're quite a powerful\nspeaker, sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. 'I wonder you don't go\ninto Parliament.'\n\n'Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.'\n\nScrooge said that he would see him----Yes, indeed he did. He went the\nwhole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that\nextremity first.\n\n'But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. 'Why?'\n\n'Why did you get married?' said Scrooge.\n\n'Because I fell in love.'\n\n'Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if that were the only\none thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. 'Good\nafternoon!'\n\n'Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give\nit as a reason for not coming now?'\n\n'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.\n\n'I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be\nfriends?'\n\n'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge.\n\n'I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so resolute. We have never\nhad any quarrel to which I have been a party. But I have made the trial\nin homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humour to the last.\nSo A Merry Christmas, uncle!'\n\n'Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.\n\n'And A Happy New Year!'\n\n'Good afternoon!' said Scrooge.\n\nHis nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He\nstopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the\nclerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned\nthem cordially.\n\n'There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge, who overheard him: 'my\nclerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking\nabout a merry Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.'\n\nThis lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had let two other people\nin. They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with\ntheir hats off, in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their\nhands, and bowed to him.\n\n'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the gentlemen, referring\nto his list. 'Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr.\nMarley?'\n\n'Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,' Scrooge replied. 'He died\nseven years ago, this very night.'\n\n'We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving\npartner,' said the gentleman, presenting his credentials.\n\n[Illustration: THEY WERE PORTLY GENTLEMEN, PLEASANT TO BEHOLD]\n\nIt certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous\nword 'liberality' Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the\ncredentials back.\n\n'At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' said the gentleman,\ntaking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make\nsome slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at\nthe present time. Many thousands are",
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"content": "It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous\nword 'liberality' Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the\ncredentials back.\n\n'At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,' said the gentleman,\ntaking up a pen, 'it is more than usually desirable that we should make\nsome slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at\nthe present time. Many thousands are in want of common necessaries;\nhundreds of thousands are in want of common comforts, sir.'\n\n'Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.\n\n'Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.\n\n'And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge. 'Are they still in\noperation?'\n\n'They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, 'I wish I could say they were\nnot.'\n\n'The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?' said Scrooge.\n\n'Both very busy, sir.'\n\n'Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had\noccurred to stop them in their useful course,' said Scrooge. 'I am very\nglad to hear it.'\n\n'Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind\nor body to the multitude,' returned the gentleman, 'a few of us are\nendeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and\nmeans of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all\nothers, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I\nput you down for?'\n\n'Nothing!' Scrooge replied.\n\n'You wish to be anonymous?'\n\n'I wish to be left alone,' said Scrooge. 'Since you ask me what I wish,\ngentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at Christmas,\nand I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the\nestablishments I have mentioned--they cost enough: and those who are\nbadly off must go there.'\n\n'Many can't go there; and many would rather die.'\n\n'If they would rather die,' said Scrooge, 'they had better do it, and\ndecrease the surplus population. Besides--excuse me--I don't know that.'\n\n'But you might know it,' observed the gentleman.\n\n'It's not my business,' Scrooge returned. 'It's enough for a man to\nunderstand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's.\nMine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!'\n\nSeeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the\ngentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved opinion\nof himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with him.\n\nMeanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about with\nflaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in\ncarriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a church,\nwhose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge out of a\nGothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and\nquarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its\nteeth were chattering in its frozen head up there. The cold became\nintense. In the main street, at the corner of the court, some labourers\nwere repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted a great fire in a brazier,\nround which a party of ragged men and boys were gathered: warming their\nhands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water-plug\nbeing left in solitude, its overflowings suddenly congealed, and turned\nto misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and\nberries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy\nas they passed. Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke:\na glorious pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe that\nsuch dull principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The Lord\nMayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his\nfifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household\nshould; and even the little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on\nthe previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets,\nstirred up to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife and\nthe baby sallied out to buy the beef.\n\nFoggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting cold. If the good\nSt. Dunstan had but nipped the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such\nweather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he\nwould have roared to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose,\ngnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,\nstooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol;\nbut, at the first sound of\n\n 'God bless you, merry gentleman,\n May nothing you dismay!'\n\nScrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled\nin terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, and even more congenial\nfrost.\n\nAt length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an\nill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the\nfact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his",
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"content": "God bless you, merry gentleman,\n May nothing you dismay!'\n\nScrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled\nin terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog, and even more congenial\nfrost.\n\nAt length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an\nill-will Scrooge dismounted from his stool, and tacitly admitted the\nfact to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his\ncandle out, and put on his hat.\n\n'You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?' said Scrooge.\n\n'If quite convenient, sir.'\n\n'It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, 'and it's not fair. If I was to\nstop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself ill used, I'll be bound?'\n\nThe clerk smiled faintly.\n\n'And yet,' said Scrooge, 'you don't think _me_ ill used when I pay a\nday's wages for no work.'\n\n[Illustration: _Bob Cratchit went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end\nof a lane of boys, twenty times, in honour of its being Christmas\nEve_]\n\nThe clerk observed that it was only once a year.\n\n'A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of\nDecember!' said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat to the chin. 'But I\nsuppose you must have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next\nmorning.'\n\nThe clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl.\nThe office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends\nof his white comforter dangling below his waist (for he boasted no\ngreatcoat), went down a slide on Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys,\ntwenty times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home to\nCamden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play at blind man's-buff.\n\nScrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and\nhaving read all the newspapers, and beguiled the rest of the evening\nwith his banker's book, went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had\nonce belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of\nrooms, in a lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so little\nbusiness to be, that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run\nthere when it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other\nhouses, and have forgotten the way out again. It was old enough now, and\ndreary enough; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms\nbeing all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that even Scrooge,\nwho knew its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and\nfrost so hung about the black old gateway of the house, that it seemed\nas if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the\nthreshold.\n\nNow, it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the\nknocker on the door, except that it was very large. It is also a fact\nthat Scrooge had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence\nin that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy\nabout him as any man in the City of London, even including--which is a\nbold word--the corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne\nin mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his\nlast mention of his seven-years'-dead partner that afternoon. And then\nlet any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge,\nhaving his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its\nundergoing any intermediate process of change--not a knocker, but\nMarley's face.\n\nMarley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow, as the other objects\nin the yard were, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in\na dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as\nMarley used to look; with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly\nforehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air;\nand, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless.\nThat, and its livid colour, made it horrible; but its horror seemed to\nbe in spite of the face, and beyond its control, rather than a part of\nits own expression.\n\nAs Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.\n\nTo say that he was not startled, or that his blood was not conscious of\na terrible sensation to which it had been a stranger from infancy, would\nbe untrue. But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished, turned\nit sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.\n\nHe _did_ pause, with a moment's irresolution, before he shut the door;\nand he _did_ look cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected to\nbe terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the\nhall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws\nand nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, 'Pooh, pooh!' and closed\nit with a bang.\n\nThe sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above,\nand every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below,",
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"content": "behind it first, as if he half expected to\nbe terrified with the sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the\nhall. But there was nothing on the back of the door, except the screws\nand nuts that held the knocker on, so he said, 'Pooh, pooh!' and closed\nit with a bang.\n\nThe sound resounded through the house like thunder. Every room above,\nand every cask in the wine-merchant's cellars below, appeared to have a\nseparate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to be\nfrightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across the hall,\nand up the stairs: slowly, too: trimming his candle as he went.\n\nYou may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight\nof stairs, or through a bad young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say\nyou might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken it broadwise,\nwith the splinter-bar towards the wall, and the door towards the\nbalustrades: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that, and\nroom to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge thought he saw a\nlocomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen\ngas-lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so\nyou may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.\n\nUp Scrooge went, not caring a button for that. Darkness is cheap, and\nScrooge liked it. But, before he shut his heavy door, he walked through\nhis rooms to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection of\nthe face to desire to do that.\n\nSitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they should be. Nobody under\nthe table, nobody under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and\nbasin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had a cold in his\nhead) upon the hob. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody\nin his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude\nagainst the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guard, old shoes, two\nfish baskets, washing-stand on three legs, and a poker.\n\n[Illustration: _Nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in\nhis dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against\nthe wall_]\n\nQuite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked himself in; double\nlocked himself in, which was not his custom. Thus secured against\nsurprise, he took off his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers,\nand his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.\n\nIt was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a bitter night. He was\nobliged to sit close to it, and brood over it, before he could extract\nthe least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. The fireplace\nwas an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all\nround with quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.\nThere were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba,\nAngelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like\nfeather-beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in\nbutter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that\nface of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod,\nand swallowed up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at\nfirst, with power to shape some picture on its surface from the\ndisjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of\nold Marley's head on every one.\n\n'Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the room.\n\nAfter several turns he sat down again. As he threw his head back in the\nchair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that\nhung in the room, and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with\na chamber in the highest storey of the building. It was with great\nastonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that, as he\nlooked, he saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the\noutset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out loudly, and\nso did every bell in the house.\n\nThis might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an\nhour. The bells ceased, as they had begun, together. They were succeeded\nby a clanking noise deep down below as if some person were dragging a\nheavy chain over the casks in the wine-merchant's cellar. Scrooge then\nremembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as\ndragging chains.\n\nThe cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the\nnoise much louder on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then\ncoming straight towards his door.\n\n'It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. 'I won't believe it.'\n\nHis colour changed, though, when, without a pause, it came on through\nthe heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming\nin, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, 'I know him! Marley's\nGhost!' and fell again.\n\nThe same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat,\ntights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling",
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"content": "I won't believe it.'\n\nHis colour changed, though, when, without a pause, it came on through\nthe heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming\nin, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried, 'I know him! Marley's\nGhost!' and fell again.\n\nThe same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat,\ntights, and boots; the tassels on the latter bristling, like his\npigtail, and his coat-skirts, and the hair upon his head. The chain he\ndrew was clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound about him like\na tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes,\nkeys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel. His\nbody was transparent: so that Scrooge, observing him, and looking\nthrough his waistcoat, could see the two buttons on his coat behind.\n\nScrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had\nnever believed it until now.\n\nNo, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through\nand through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling\ninfluence of its death-cold eyes, and marked the very texture of the\nfolded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not\nobserved before, he was still incredulous, and fought against his\nsenses.\n\n'How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. 'What do you want\nwith me?'\n\n'Much!'--Marley's voice; no doubt about it.\n\n'Who are you?'\n\n'Ask me who I _was_.'\n\n'Who _were_ you, then?' said Scrooge, raising his voice. 'You're\nparticular, for a shade.' He was going to say '_to_ a shade,' but\nsubstituted this, as more appropriate.\n\n'In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.'\n\n'Can you--can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.\n\n'I can.'\n\n'Do it, then.'\n\nScrooge asked the question, because he didn't know whether a ghost so\ntransparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt\nthat in the event of its being impossible, it might involve the\nnecessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the Ghost sat down on the\nopposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.\n\n'You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost.\n\n'I don't,' said Scrooge.\n\n'What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your own\nsenses?'\n\n'I don't know,' said Scrooge.\n\n'Why do you doubt your senses?'\n\n'Because,' said Scrooge, 'a little thing affects them. A slight disorder\nof the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested bit of beef,\na blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato.\nThere's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!'\n\nScrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in\nhis heart by any means waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be\nsmart, as a means of distracting his own attention, and keeping down his\nterror; for the spectre's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.\n\nTo sit staring at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence, for a moment,\nwould play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him. There was something\nvery awful, too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal\natmosphere of his own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was\nclearly the case; for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its\nhair, and skirts, and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour\nfrom an oven.\n\n'You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge,\nfor the reason just assigned; and wishing, though it were only for a\nsecond, to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.\n\n'I do,' replied the Ghost.\n\n'You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge.\n\n'But I see it,' said the Ghost, 'notwithstanding.'\n\n'Well!' returned Scrooge, 'I have but to swallow this, and be for the\nrest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own\ncreation. Humbug, I tell you: humbug!'\n\nAt this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook its chain with such\na dismal and appalling noise, that Scrooge held on tight to his chair,\nto save himself from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was his\nhorror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round his head, as if it\nwere too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its\nbreast!\n\nScrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.\n\n'Mercy!' he said. 'Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?'\n\n'Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, 'do you believe in me or\nnot?'\n\n'I do,' said Scrooge; 'I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and\nwhy do they come to me?'\n\n'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit\nwithin him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and\nwide",
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"content": "said. 'Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?'\n\n'Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, 'do you believe in me or\nnot?'\n\n'I do,' said Scrooge; 'I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and\nwhy do they come to me?'\n\n'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit\nwithin him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and\nwide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do\nso after death. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is\nme!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth,\nand turned to happiness!'\n\nAgain the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain and wrung its\nshadowy hands.\n\n'You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. 'Tell me why?'\n\n'I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost. 'I made it link\nby link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of\nmy own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to _you_?'\n\nScrooge trembled more and more.\n\n'Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, 'the weight and length of the\nstrong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this\nseven Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it since. It is a\nponderous chain!'\n\nScrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding\nhimself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable; but he\ncould see nothing.\n\n'Jacob!' he said imploringly. 'Old Jacob Marley, tell me more! Speak\ncomfort to me, Jacob!'\n\n'I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. 'It comes from other regions,\nEbenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed by other ministers, to other kinds of\nmen. Nor can I tell you what I would. A very little more is all\npermitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.\nMy spirit never walked beyond our counting-house--mark me;--in life my\nspirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole;\nand weary journeys lie before me!'\n\nIt was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his\nhands in his breeches pockets. Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he\ndid so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees.\n\n[Illustration: ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND]\n\n'You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,' Scrooge observed in a\nbusiness-like manner, though with humility and deference.\n\n'Slow!' the Ghost repeated.\n\n'Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. 'And travelling all the time?'\n\n'The whole time,' said the Ghost. 'No rest, no peace. Incessant torture\nof remorse.'\n\n'You travel fast?' said Scrooge.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n'On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost.\n\n'You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,'\nsaid Scrooge.\n\nThe Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so\nhideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have\nbeen justified in indicting it for a nuisance.\n\n'Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the phantom, 'not to know\nthat ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth\nmust pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is\nall developed! Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in\nits little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too\nshort for its vast means of usefulness! Not to know that no space of\nregret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such\nwas I! Oh, such was I!'\n\n'But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge,\nwho now began to apply this to himself.\n\n'Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. 'Mankind was my\nbusiness. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy,\nforbearance, and benevolence were, all, my business. The dealings of my\ntrade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my\nbusiness!'\n\nIt held up its chain at arm's-length, as if that were the cause of all\nits unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.\n\n'At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said, 'I suffer most.\nWhy did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down,\nand never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a\npoor abode? Were there no poor homes to which its light would have\nconducted _me_?'\n\nScrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this\nrate, and began to quake exceedingly.\n\n'Hear me!' cried the Ghost. 'My time is nearly gone.'\n\n'I will,' said Scrooge. 'But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery,\nJacob! Pray!'\n\n'How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may\nnot tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.'\n\nIt was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the\nperspiration from his brow.\n\n'That is no light part of my",
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"content": "'My time is nearly gone.'\n\n'I will,' said Scrooge. 'But don't be hard upon me! Don't be flowery,\nJacob! Pray!'\n\n'How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may\nnot tell. I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.'\n\nIt was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered, and wiped the\nperspiration from his brow.\n\n'That is no light part of my penance,' pursued the Ghost. 'I am here\nto-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my\nfate. A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.'\n\n'You were always a good friend to me,' said Scrooge. 'Thankee!'\n\n'You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, 'by Three Spirits.'\n\nScrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost's had done.\n\n'Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?' he demanded in a\nfaltering voice.\n\n'It is.'\n\n'I--I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge.\n\n'Without their visits,' said the Ghost, 'you cannot hope to shun the\npath I tread. Expect the first to-morrow when the bell tolls One.'\n\n'Couldn't I take 'em all at once, and have it over, Jacob?' hinted\nScrooge.\n\n'Expect the second on the next night at the same hour. The third, upon\nthe next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate.\nLook to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember\nwhat has passed between us!'\n\nWhen it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the\ntable, and bound it round its head as before. Scrooge knew this by the\nsmart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by the\nbandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural\nvisitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over\nand about its arm.\n\n[Illustration: _The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and\nthither in restless haste and moaning as they went_]\n\nThe apparition walked backward from him; and, at every step it took, the\nwindow raised itself a little, so that, when the spectre reached it, it\nwas wide open. It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they\nwere within two paces of each other, Marley's Ghost held up its hand,\nwarning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.\n\nNot so much in obedience as in surprise and fear; for, on the raising of\nthe hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent\nsounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and\nself-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in\nthe mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.\n\nScrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked\nout.\n\nThe air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in\nrestless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains\nlike Marley's Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were\nlinked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to\nScrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in\na white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who\ncried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an\ninfant, whom it saw below upon a doorstep. The misery with them all was\nclearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and\nhad lost the power for ever.\n\nWhether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he\ncould not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and\nthe night became as it had been when he walked home.\n\nScrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had\nentered. It was double locked, as he had locked it with his own hands,\nand the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say 'Humbug!' but stopped at\nthe first syllable. And being, from the emotions he had undergone, or\nthe fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the\ndull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in\nneed of repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep\nupon the instant.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nSTAVE TWO\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS\n\n\nWhen Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could\nscarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his\nchamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret\neyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters.\nSo he listened for the hour.\n\nTo his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and\nfrom seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve!\nIt was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must\nhave got into the works. Twelve!\n\nHe touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous\nclock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped.\n\n'Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, 'that I can have slept through a\nwhole day and far into",
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"content": "from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve!\nIt was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must\nhave got into the works. Twelve!\n\nHe touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous\nclock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped.\n\n'Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, 'that I can have slept through a\nwhole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything\nhas happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!'\n\nThe idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his\nway to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve\nof his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very\nlittle then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and\nextremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and\nfro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if\nnight had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world. This\nwas a great relief, because 'Three days after sight of this First of\nExchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order,' and so forth, would\nhave become a mere United States security if there were no days to count\nby.\n\nScrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over\nand over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more\nperplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he\nthought.\n\nMarley's Ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within\nhimself, after mature inquiry that it was all a dream, his mind flew\nback again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and\npresented the same problem to be worked all through, 'Was it a dream or\nnot?'\n\nScrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three-quarters more,\nwhen he remembered, on a sudden, that the Ghost had warned him of a\nvisitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the\nhour was passed; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than\ngo to heaven, this was, perhaps, the wisest resolution in his power.\n\nThe quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must\nhave sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it\nbroke upon his listening ear.\n\n'Ding, dong!'\n\n'A quarter past,' said Scrooge, counting.\n\n'Ding, dong!'\n\n'Half past,' said Scrooge.\n\n'Ding, dong!'\n\n'A quarter to it.' said Scrooge.\n\n'Ding, dong!'\n\n'The hour itself,' said Scrooge triumphantly, 'and nothing else!'\n\nHe spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep,\ndull, hollow, melancholy ONE. Light flashed up in the room upon the\ninstant, and the curtains of his bed were drawn.\n\nThe curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand. Not\nthe curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his back, but those to\nwhich his face was addressed. The curtains of his bed were drawn aside;\nand Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself\nface to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as\nI am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.\n\nIt was a strange figure--like a child; yet not so like a child as like\nan old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the\nappearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a\nchild's proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its\nback, was white, as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in\nit, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and\nmuscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength.\nIts legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper\nmembers, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white; and round its waist\nwas bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a\nbranch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction\nof that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But\nthe strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there\nsprang a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and\nwhich was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a\ngreat extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.\n\nEven this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness,\nwas _not_ its strangest quality. For, as its belt sparkled and\nglittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was light one\ninstant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its\ndistinctness; being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with\ntwenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a\nbody: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense\ngloom wherein they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it\nwould be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.",
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"content": "instant at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its\ndistinctness; being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with\ntwenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a\nbody: of which dissolving parts no outline would be visible in the dense\ngloom wherein they melted away. And, in the very wonder of this, it\nwould be itself again; distinct and clear as ever.\n\n'Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?' asked\nScrooge.\n\n'I am!'\n\nThe voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if, instead of being\nso close behind him, it were at a distance.\n\n'Who and what are you?' Scrooge demanded.\n\n'I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'\n\n'Long Past?' inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish stature.\n\n'No. Your past.'\n\nPerhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have\nasked him; but he had a special desire to see the Spirit in his cap,\nand begged him to be covered.\n\n'What!' exclaimed the Ghost, 'would you so soon put out, with worldly\nhands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those\nwhose passions made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years\nto wear it low upon my brow?'\n\nScrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge\nof having wilfully 'bonneted' the Spirit at any period of his life. He\nthen made bold to inquire what business brought him there.\n\n'Your welfare!' said the Ghost.\n\nScrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that\na night of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to that end. The\nSpirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately--\n\n'Your reclamation, then. Take heed!'\n\nIt put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the\narm.\n\n'Rise! and walk with me!'\n\nIt would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the\nhour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes; that bed was warm, and the\nthermometer a long way below freezing; that he was clad but lightly in\nhis slippers, dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon\nhim at that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not\nto be resisted. He rose; but, finding that the Spirit made towards the\nwindow, clasped its robe in supplication.\n\n'I am a mortal,' Scrooge remonstrated, 'and liable to fall.'\n\n'Bear but a touch of my hand _there_,' said the Spirit, laying it upon\nhis heart, 'and you shall be upheld in more than this!'\n\nAs the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon\nan open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely\nvanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist\nhad vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow\nupon the ground.\n\n'Good Heaven!' said Scrooge, clasping his hands together, as he looked\nabout him. 'I was bred in this place. I was a boy here!'\n\nThe Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been\nlight and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man's sense\nof feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air,\neach one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and\ncares long, long forgotten!\n\n'Your lip is trembling,' said the Ghost. 'And what is that upon your\ncheek?'\n\nScrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice, that it was a\npimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him where he would.\n\n'You recollect the way?' inquired the Spirit.\n\n'Remember it!' cried Scrooge with fervour; 'I could walk it blindfold.'\n\n'Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!' observed the Ghost.\n'Let us go on.'\n\nThey walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every gate, and post,\nand tree, until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its\nbridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen\ntrotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other\nboys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were\nin great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were\nso full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.\n\n'These are but shadows of the things that have been,' said the Ghost.\n'They have no consciousness of us.'\n\nThe jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge knew and named\nthem every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why\ndid his cold eye glisten, and his heart leap up as they went past? Why\nwas he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry\nChristmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several\nhomes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas!\nWhat good had it ever done to him?\n\n'The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. 'A solitary child,\nneglected by his friends, is left there still.'\n\nScrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.\n\nThey left the high-road by a well-remembered lane and soon approached",
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"content": "Merry\nChristmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several\nhomes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas!\nWhat good had it ever done to him?\n\n'The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. 'A solitary child,\nneglected by his friends, is left there still.'\n\nScrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.\n\nThey left the high-road by a well-remembered lane and soon approached a\nmansion of dull red brick, with a little weather-cock surmounted cupola\non the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of\nbroken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls\nwere damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed.\nFowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and\nsheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient\nstate within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the\nopen doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and\nvast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the\nplace, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by\ncandle light and not too much to eat.\n\nThey went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back\nof the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare,\nmelancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and\ndesks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and\nScrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as\nhe had used to be.\n\nNot a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice\nbehind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed waterspout in the\ndull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent\npoplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a\nclicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening\ninfluence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.\n\nThe Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self,\nintent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments, wonderfully\nreal and distinct to look at, stood outside the window, with an axe\nstuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.\n\n'Why, it's Ali Baba!' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. 'It's dear old\nhonest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas-time, when yonder\nsolitary child was left here all alone, he _did_ come, for the first\ntime, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,' said Scrooge, 'and his\nwild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was put\ndown in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you see him?\nAnd the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon\nhis head! Serve him right! I'm glad of it. What business had he to be\nmarried to the Princess?'\n\nTo hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such\nsubjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and\nto see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to\nhis business friends in the City, indeed.\n\n'There's the Parrot!' cried Scrooge. 'Green body and yellow tail, with a\nthing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is!\nPoor Robin Crusoe he called him, when he came home again after sailing\nround the island. \"Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin\nCrusoe?\" The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the\nParrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little\ncreek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!'\n\nThen, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character,\nhe said, in pity for his former self, 'Poor boy!' and cried again.\n\n'I wish,' Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking\nabout him, after drying his eyes with his cuff; 'but it's too late now.'\n\n'What is the matter?' asked the Spirit.\n\n'Nothing,' said Scrooge. 'Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas\ncarol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something:\nthat's all.'\n\nThe Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand, saying as it did so,\n'Let us see another Christmas!'\n\nScrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a\nlittle darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked;\nfragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were\nshown instead; but how all this was brought about Scrooge knew no more\nthan you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had\nhappened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had\ngone home for the jolly holidays.\n\nHe was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge\nlooked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced\nanxiously towards the door.\n\nIt opened; and a little girl, much",
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"content": "more\nthan you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had\nhappened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had\ngone home for the jolly holidays.\n\nHe was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge\nlooked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced\nanxiously towards the door.\n\nIt opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting\nin, and, putting her arms about his neck, and often kissing him,\naddressed him as her 'dear, dear brother.'\n\n'I have come to bring you home, dear brother!' said the child, clapping\nher tiny hands, and bending down to laugh. 'To bring you home, home,\nhome!'\n\n'Home, little Fan?' returned the boy.\n\n'Yes!' said the child, brimful of glee. 'Home for good and all. Home for\never and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home's\nlike heaven! He spoke so gently to me one dear night when I was going to\nbed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home;\nand he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And\nyou're to be a man!' said the child, opening her eyes; 'and are never to\ncome back here; but first we're to be together all the Christmas long,\nand have the merriest time in all the world.'\n\n'You are quite a woman, little Fan!' exclaimed the boy.\n\nShe clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head; but,\nbeing too little laughed again, and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then\nshe began to drag him, in her childish eagerness, towards the door; and\nhe, nothing loath to go, accompanied her.\n\nA terrible voice in the hall cried, 'Bring down Master Scrooge's box,\nthere!' and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on\nMaster Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a\ndreadful state of mind by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him\nand his sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best parlour\nthat ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial and\nterrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold. Here he produced\na decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake,\nand administered instalments of those dainties to the young people; at\nthe same time sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of\n'something' to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman,\nbut, if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not.\nMaster Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the\nchaise, the children bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly;\nand, getting into it, drove gaily down the garden sweep; the quick\nwheels dashing the hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the\nevergreens like spray.\n\n[Illustration: HE PRODUCED A DECANTER OF CURIOUSLY LIGHT WINE, AND A\nBLOCK OF CURIOUSLY HEAVY CAKE]\n\n'Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered,' said\nthe Ghost. 'But she had a large heart!'\n\n'So she had,' cried Scrooge. 'You're right. I will not gainsay it,\nSpirit. God forbid!'\n\n'She died a woman,' said the Ghost, 'and had, as I think, children.'\n\n'One child,' Scrooge returned.\n\n'True,' said the Ghost. 'Your nephew!'\n\nScrooge seemed uneasy in his mind, and answered briefly, 'Yes.'\n\nAlthough they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were\nnow in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed\nand re-passed; where shadowy carts and coaches battled for the way, and\nall the strife and tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough,\nby the dressing of the shops, that here, too, it was Christmas-time\nagain; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.\n\nThe Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he\nknew it.\n\n'Know it!' said Scrooge. 'Was I apprenticed here?'\n\nThey went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting\nbehind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller, he must\nhave knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great\nexcitement--\n\n'Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again!'\n\nOld Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which\npointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his hands; adjusted his\ncapacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shoes to his\norgan of benevolence; and called out, in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat,\njovial voice--\n\n'Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!'\n\nScrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in,\naccompanied by his fellow-'prentice.\n\n'Dick Wilkins, to be sure!' said Scrooge to the Ghost. 'Bless me, yes.\nThere he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick",
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"content": "benevolence; and called out, in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat,\njovial voice--\n\n'Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!'\n\nScrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in,\naccompanied by his fellow-'prentice.\n\n'Dick Wilkins, to be sure!' said Scrooge to the Ghost. 'Bless me, yes.\nThere he is. He was very much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear,\ndear!'\n\n'Yo ho, my boys!' said Fezziwig. 'No more work to-night. Christmas Eve,\nDick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up,' cried old\nFezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, 'before a man can say Jack\nRobinson!'\n\nYou wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it! They charged into\nthe street with the shutters--one, two, three--had 'em up in their\nplaces--four, five, six--barred 'em and pinned 'em--seven, eight,\nnine--and came back before you could have got to twelve, panting like\nracehorses.\n\n'Hilli-ho!' cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with\nwonderful agility. 'Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room\nhere! Hilli-ho, Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!'\n\nClear away! There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away, or\ncouldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in\na minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from\npublic life for evermore; the floor was swept and watered, the lamps\nwere trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was as\nsnug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room as you would desire to\nsee upon a winter's night.\n\nIn came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the lofty desk, and\nmade an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came\nMrs. Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the three Miss\nFezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six young followers whose\nhearts they broke. In came all the young men and women employed in the\nbusiness. In came the housemaid, with her cousin the baker. In came the\ncook with her brother's particular friend the milkman. In came the boy\nfrom over the way, who was suspected of not having board enough from his\nmaster; trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one,\nwho was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress. In they all\ncame, one after another; some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some\nawkwardly, some pushing, some pulling; in they all came, any how and\nevery how. Away they all went, twenty couple at once; hands half round\nand back again the other way; down the middle and up again; round and\nround in various stages of affectionate grouping; old top couple always\nturning up in the wrong place; new top couple starting off again as soon\nas they got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help\nthem! When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his\nhands to stop the dance, cried out, 'Well done!' and the fiddler plunged\nhis hot face into a pot of porter, especially provided for that purpose.\nBut, scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again,\nthough there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been\ncarried home, exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man\nresolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.\n\n[Illustration: _Then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs.\nFezziwig_]\n\nThere were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and\nthere was cake, and there was negus, and there was a great piece of Cold\nRoast, and there was a great piece of Cold Boiled, and there were\nmince-pies, and plenty of beer. But the great effect of the evening came\nafter the Roast and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind! The\nsort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have told\nit him!) struck up 'Sir Roger de Coverley.' Then old Fezziwig stood\nout to dance with Mrs. Fezziwig. Top couple, too; with a good stiff\npiece of work cut out for them; three or four and twenty pair of\npartners; people who were not to be trifled with; people who would\ndance, and had no notion of walking.\n\nBut if they had been twice as many--ah! four times--old Fezziwig would\nhave been a match for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig. As to _her_, she\nwas worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term. If that's not\nhigh praise, tell me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared\nto issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance\nlike moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would\nbecome of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone\nall through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner,\nbow and curtsy, cork-screw, thread-the-needle",
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"content": "me higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared\nto issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the dance\nlike moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given time, what would\nbecome of them next. And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone\nall through the dance; advance and retire, both hands to your partner,\nbow and curtsy, cork-screw, thread-the-needle, and back again to your\nplace: Fezziwig 'cut'--cut so deftly, that he appeared to wink with his\nlegs, and came upon his feet again without a stagger.\n\nWhen the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up. Mr. and Mrs.\nFezziwig took their stations, one on either side the door, and, shaking\nhands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him\nor her a Merry Christmas. When everybody had retired but the two\n'prentices, they did the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died\naway, and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a counter\nin the back-shop.\n\nDuring the whole of this time Scrooge had acted like a man out of his\nwits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He\ncorroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and\nunderwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright\nfaces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he\nremembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon\nhim, while the light upon its head burnt very clear.\n\n'A small matter,' said the Ghost, 'to make these silly folks so full of\ngratitude.'\n\n'Small!' echoed Scrooge.\n\nThe Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were\npouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig; and when he had done so,\nsaid:\n\n'Why! Is it not? He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money:\nthree or four, perhaps. Is that so much that he deserves this praise?'\n\n'It isn't that,' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and speaking\nunconsciously like his former, not his latter self. 'It isn't that,\nSpirit. He has the power to render us happy or unhappy; to make our\nservice light or burdensome; a pleasure or a toil. Say that his power\nlies in words and looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it\nis impossible to add and count 'em up: what then? The happiness he gives\nis quite as great as if it cost a fortune.'\n\nHe felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.\n\n'What is the matter?' asked the Ghost.\n\n'Nothing particular,' said Scrooge.\n\n'Something, I think?' the Ghost insisted.\n\n'No,' said Scrooge, 'no. I should like to be able to say a word or two\nto my clerk just now. That's all.'\n\nHis former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish;\nand Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by side in the open air.\n\n'My time grows short,' observed the Spirit. 'Quick!'\n\nThis was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but\nit produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was\nolder now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and\nrigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care\nand avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye,\nwhich showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of\nthe growing tree would fall.\n\nHe was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a mourning\ndress: in whose eyes there were tears, which sparkled in the light that\nshone out of the Ghost of Christmas Past.\n\n'It matters little,' she said softly. 'To you, very little. Another idol\nhas displaced me; and, if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come\nas I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve.'\n\n'What Idol has displaced you?' he rejoined.\n\n'A golden one.'\n\n'This is the even-handed dealing of the world!' he said. 'There is\nnothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it\nprofesses to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!'\n\n'You fear the world too much,' she answered gently. 'All your other\nhopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid\nreproach. I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until\nthe master passion, Gain, engrosses you. Have I not?'\n\n'What then?' he retorted. 'Even if I have grown so much wiser, what\nthen? I am not changed towards you.'\n\nShe shook her head.\n\n'Am I?'\n\n'Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor, and\ncontent to be so, until, in good season, we could improve our worldly\nfortune by our patient industry. You _are_ changed. When it was made you\nwere another man.'\n\n'I was a boy,' he said impatiently.\n\n'Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,' she\nreturned. 'I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart\nis fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I\nhave thought of this I will",
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"content": "in good season, we could improve our worldly\nfortune by our patient industry. You _are_ changed. When it was made you\nwere another man.'\n\n'I was a boy,' he said impatiently.\n\n'Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are,' she\nreturned. 'I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart\nis fraught with misery now that we are two. How often and how keenly I\nhave thought of this I will not say. It is enough that I _have_ thought\nof it, and can release you.'\n\n'Have I ever sought release?'\n\n'In words. No. Never.'\n\n'In what, then?'\n\n'In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another atmosphere of\nlife; another Hope as its great end. In everything that made my love of\nany worth or value in your sight. If this had never been between us,'\nsaid the girl, looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him; 'tell me,\nwould you seek me out and try to win me now? Ah, no!'\n\nHe seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite of\nhimself. But he said, with a struggle, 'You think not.'\n\n'I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered. 'Heaven\nknows! When _I_ have learned a Truth like this, I know how strong and\nirresistible it must be. But if you were free to-day, to-morrow,\nyesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless\ngirl--you who, in your very confidence with her, weigh everything by\nGain: or, choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your\none guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and\nregret would surely follow? I do; and I release you. With a full heart,\nfor the love of him you once were.'\n\n[Illustration: SHE LEFT HIM, AND THEY PARTED]\n\nHe was about to speak; but, with her head turned from him, she resumed:\n\n'You may--the memory of what is past half makes me hope you will--have\npain in this. A very, very brief time, and you will dismiss the\nrecollection of it gladly, as an unprofitable dream, from which it\nhappened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have\nchosen!'\n\nShe left him, and they parted.\n\n'Spirit!' said Scrooge, 'show me no more! Conduct me home. Why do you\ndelight to torture me?'\n\n'One shadow more!' exclaimed the Ghost.\n\n'No more!' cried Scrooge. 'No more! I don't wish to see it. Show me no\nmore!'\n\nBut the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms, and forced him\nto observe what happened next.\n\nThey were in another scene and place; a room, not very large or\nhandsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful\nyoung girl, so like that last that Scrooge believed it was the same,\nuntil he saw _her_, now a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter.\nThe noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more\nchildren there than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;\nand, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not forty\nchildren conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting\nitself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief; but\nno one seemed to care; on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed\nheartily, and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to\nmingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands most\nruthlessly. What would I not have given to be one of them! Though I\nnever could have been so rude, no, no! I wouldn't for the wealth of all\nthe world have crushed that braided hair, and torn it down; and for the\nprecious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul!\nto save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold\nyoung brood, I couldn't have done it; I should have expected my arm to\nhave grown round it for a punishment, and never come straight again. And\nyet I should have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have\nquestioned her, that she might have opened them; to have looked upon the\nlashes of her downcast eyes, and never raised a blush; to have let loose\nwaves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price: in\nshort, I should have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest\nlicense of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its value.\n\n[Illustration: _A flushed and boisterous group_]\n\nBut now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a rush immediately\nensued that she, with laughing face and plundered dress, was borne\ntowards it the centre of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to\ngreet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas\ntoys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the\nonslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him, with\nchairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of\nbrown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his\nneck, pummel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible",
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"content": "greet the father, who came home attended by a man laden with Christmas\ntoys and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the\nonslaught that was made on the defenceless porter! The scaling him, with\nchairs for ladders, to dive into his pockets, despoil him of\nbrown-paper parcels, hold on tight by his cravat, hug him round his\nneck, pummel his back, and kick his legs in irrepressible affection! The\nshouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package\nwas received! The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in\nthe act of putting a doll's frying pan into his mouth, and was more than\nsuspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden\nplatter! The immense relief of finding this a false alarm! The joy, and\ngratitude, and ecstasy! They are all indescribable alike. It is enough\nthat, by degrees, the children and their emotions got out of the\nparlour, and, by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house, where\nthey went to bed, and so subsided.\n\nAnd now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of\nthe house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her\nand her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such\nanother creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have\ncalled him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his\nlife, his sight grew very dim indeed.\n\n'Belle,' said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, 'I saw an\nold friend of yours this afternoon.'\n\n'Who was it?'\n\n'Guess!'\n\n'How can I? Tut, don't I know?' she added in the same breath, laughing\nas he laughed. 'Mr. Scrooge.'\n\n'Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as it was not shut\nup, and he had a candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His\npartner lies upon the point of death, I hear; and there he sat alone.\nQuite alone in the world, I do believe.'\n\n'Spirit!' said Scrooge in a broken voice, 'remove me from this place.'\n\n'I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,' said the\nGhost. 'That they are what they are do not blame me!'\n\n'Remove me!' Scrooge exclaimed, 'I cannot bear it!'\n\nHe turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a\nface, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces\nit had shown him, wrestled with it.\n\n'Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!'\n\nIn the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the Ghost\nwith no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort\nof its adversary, Scrooge observed that its light was burning high and\nbright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized\nthe extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its\nhead.\n\n[Illustration: _Laden with Christmas toys and presents_]\n\nThe Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its\nwhole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down with all his force, he\ncould not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an unbroken\nflood upon the ground.\n\nHe was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible\ndrowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a\nparting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel\nto bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\nSTAVE THREE\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE SECOND OF THE THREE SPIRITS\n\n\nAwaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in\nbed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told\nthat the bell was again upon the stroke of One. He felt that he was\nrestored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial\npurpose of holding a conference with the second messenger despatched to\nhim through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he turned\nuncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this\nnew spectre would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own\nhands, and, lying down again, established a sharp look-out all round the\nbed. For he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its\nappearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous.\n\nGentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves on being\nacquainted with a move or two, and being usually equal to the time of\nday, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing\nthat they are good for anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter;\nbetween which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide\nand comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite\nas hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was\nready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing\nbetween a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.\n\nNow, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means\nprepared for nothing; and consequently, when the bell struck One, and no\nshape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five",
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"content": "uring for Scrooge quite\nas hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was\nready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing\nbetween a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.\n\nNow, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means\nprepared for nothing; and consequently, when the bell struck One, and no\nshape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five\nminutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came.\nAll this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze\nof ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the\nhour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen\nghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at;\nand was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an\ninteresting case of spontaneous combustion, without having the\nconsolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began to think--as you\nor I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not in the\npredicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would\nunquestionably have done it too--at last, I say, he began to think that\nthe source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining\nroom, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea\ntaking full possession of his mind, he got up softly, and shuffled in\nhis slippers to the door.\n\nThe moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock a strange voice called him by\nhis name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.\n\nIt was his own room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone\na surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with\nliving green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which\nbright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe,\nand ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been\nscattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as\nthat dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time,\nor Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the\nfloor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry,\nbrawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,\nmince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts,\ncherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense\ntwelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim\nwith their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch there sat a\njolly Giant, glorious to see; who bore a glowing torch, in shape not\nunlike Plenty's horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on\nScrooge as he came peeping round the door.\n\n'Come in!' exclaimed the Ghost. 'Come in! and know me better, man!'\n\nScrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this Spirit. He was\nnot the dogged Scrooge he had been; and though the Spirit's eyes were\nclear and kind, he did not like to meet them.\n\n'I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit. 'Look upon me!'\n\nScrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple deep green robe,\nor mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the\nfigure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be\nwarded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the\nample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no\nother covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining\nicicles. Its dark-brown curls were long and free; free as its genial\nface, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its\nunconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was\nan antique scabbard: but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was\neaten up with rust.\n\n'You have never seen the like of me before!' exclaimed the Spirit.\n\n'Never,' Scrooge made answer to it.\n\n'Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning\n(for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?'\npursued the Phantom.\n\n'I don't think I have,' said Scrooge. 'I am afraid I have not. Have you\nhad many brothers, Spirit?'\n\n'More than eighteen hundred,' said the Ghost.\n\n'A tremendous family to provide for,' muttered Scrooge.\n\nThe Ghost of Christmas Present rose.\n\n'Spirit,' said Scrooge submissively, 'conduct me where you will. I went\nforth last night on compulsion, and I learned a lesson which is working\nnow. To-night if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.'\n\n'Touch my robe!'\n\nScrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.\n\nHolly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry,\nbrawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch,\nall vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the\nhour of night, and they stood in the city",
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"content": ", let me profit by it.'\n\n'Touch my robe!'\n\nScrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.\n\nHolly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry,\nbrawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit, and punch,\nall vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the\nhour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning,\nwhere (for the weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk\nand not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the pavement\nin front of their dwellings, and from the tops of their houses, whence\nit was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the\nroad below, and splitting into artificial little snowstorms.\n\nThe house-fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker,\ncontrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with\nthe dirtier snow upon the ground; which last deposit had been ploughed\nup in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons: furrows\nthat crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great\nstreets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace in the\nthick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest\nstreets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen,\nwhose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all\nthe chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were\nblazing away to their dear heart's content. There was nothing very\ncheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of\ncheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer\nsun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.\n\n[Illustration: THERE WAS NOTHING VERY CHEERFUL IN THE CLIMATE]\n\nFor the people who were shovelling away on the house-tops were jovial\nand full of glee; calling out to one another from the parapets, and now\nand then exchanging a facetious snowball--better-natured missile far\nthan many a wordy jest--laughing heartily if it went right, and not less\nheartily if it went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open,\nand the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great,\nround, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of\njolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling out into the\nstreet in their apoplectic opulence: There were ruddy, brown-faced,\nbroad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth\nlike Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at\nthe girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up\nmistletoe. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming\npyramids; there were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers'\nbenevolence, to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might\nwater gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy and\nbrown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among the woods, and\npleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves; there were\nNorfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the\noranges and lemons, and, in the great compactness of their juicy\npersons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper\nbags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth\namong these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and\nstagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was something going\non; and, to a fish, went gasping round and round their little world in\nslow and passionless excitement.\n\nThe Grocers'! oh, the Grocers'! nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters\ndown, or one; but through those gaps such glimpses! It was not alone\nthat the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that\nthe twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters\nwere rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended\nscents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the\nraisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the\nsticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious,\nthe candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the\ncoldest lookers-on feel faint, and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that\nthe figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in\nmodest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that everything\nwas good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but the customers were all\nso hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day, that they\ntumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets\nwildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running\nback to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the\nbest humour possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and\nfresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons\nbehind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection,\nand for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.\n\nBut soon",
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"content": "other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets\nwildly, and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running\nback to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in the\nbest humour possible; while the grocer and his people were so frank and\nfresh, that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons\nbehind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection,\nand for Christmas daws to peck at if they chose.\n\nBut soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and\naway they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and\nwith their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores\nof by-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people,\ncarrying their dinners to the bakers' shops. The sight of these poor\nrevellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with\nScrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as\ntheir bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch.\nAnd it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice, when there\nwere angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each\nother, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their\ngood-humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to\nquarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was! God love it, so it was!\n\nIn time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was\na genial shadowing forth of all these dinners, and the progress of their\ncooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven, where the\npavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.\n\n'Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?'\nasked Scrooge.\n\n'There is. My own.'\n\n'Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?' asked Scrooge.\n\n'To any kindly given. To a poor one most.'\n\n'Why to a poor one most?' asked Scrooge.\n\n'Because it needs it most.'\n\n'Spirit!' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, 'I wonder you, of all\nthe beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these\npeople's opportunities of innocent enjoyment.\n\n'I!' cried the Spirit.\n\n'You would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day,\noften the only day on which they can be said to dine at all,' said\nScrooge; 'wouldn't you?'\n\n'I!' cried the Spirit.\n\n'You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day,' said Scrooge. 'And\nit comes to the same thing.'\n\n'I seek!' exclaimed the Spirit.\n\n'Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in\nthat of your family,' said Scrooge.\n\n'There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the Spirit, 'who\nlay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride,\nill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as\nstrange to us, and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived.\nRemember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.'\n\nScrooge promised that he would; and they went on, invisible, as they had\nbeen before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality\nof the Ghost (which Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that\nnotwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any\nplace with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as\ngracefully and like a supernatural creature as it was possible he could\nhave done in any lofty hall.\n\nAnd perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this\npower of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and\nhis sympathy with all poor men, that led him straight to Scrooge's\nclerk's; for there he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his\nrobe; and on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped to\nbless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinklings of his torch. Think\nof that! Bob had but fifteen 'Bob' a week himself; he pocketed on\nSaturdays but fifteen copies of his Christian name; and yet the Ghost of\nChristmas Present blessed his four-roomed house!\n\nThen up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in a\ntwice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap, and make a\ngoodly show for sixpence; and she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda\nCratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master\nPeter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and getting\nthe corners of his monstrous shirt-collar (Bob's private property,\nconferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day,) into his mouth,\nrejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his\nlinen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and\ngirl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt\nthe goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts\nof sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and\nexalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud,\nalthough his collars nearly",
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"content": "antly attired, and yearned to show his\nlinen in the fashionable Parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and\ngirl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt\nthe goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious thoughts\nof sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and\nexalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he (not proud,\nalthough his collars nearly choked him) blew the fire, until the slow\npotatoes, bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out\nand peeled.\n\n'What has ever got your precious father, then?' said Mrs. Cratchit. 'And\nyour brother, Tiny Tim? And Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by\nhalf an hour!'\n\n'Here's Martha, mother!' said a girl, appearing as she spoke.\n\n'Here's Martha, mother!' cried the two young Cratchits. 'Hurrah! There's\n_such_ a goose, Martha!'\n\n'Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are!' said Mrs.\nCratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet\nfor her with officious zeal.\n\n'We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,' replied the girl, 'and\nhad to clear away this morning, mother!'\n\n'Well! never mind so long as you are come,' said Mrs. Cratchit. 'Sit ye\ndown before the fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye!'\n\n'No, no! There's father coming,' cried the two young Cratchits, who were\neverywhere at once. 'Hide, Martha, hide!'\n\nSo Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father, with at least\nthree feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before\nhim, and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look\nseasonable, and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a\nlittle crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame!\n\n'Why, where's our Martha?' cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.\n\n'Not coming,' said Mrs. Cratchit.\n\n'Not coming!' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits;\nfor he had been Tim's blood-horse all the way from church, and had come\nhome rampant. 'Not coming upon Christmas Day!'\n\nMartha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in joke; so\nshe came out prematurely from behind the closet door, and ran into his\narms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off\ninto the wash-house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the\ncopper.\n\n'And how did little Tim behave?' asked Mrs. Cratchit when she had\nrallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his\nheart's content.\n\n'As good as gold,' said Bob, 'and better. Somehow, he gets thoughtful,\nsitting by himself so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever\nheard. He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the\nchurch, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to\nremember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men\nsee.'\n\nBob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when\nhe said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty.\n\nHis active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny\nTim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and\nsister to his stool beside the fire; and while Bob, turning up his\ncuffs--as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more\nshabby--compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and\nstirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, Master\nPeter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose,\nwith which they soon returned in high procession.\n\n[Illustration]\n\nSuch a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose the rarest of\nall birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a matter of\ncourse--and, in truth, it was something very like it in that house. Mrs.\nCratchit made the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing\nhot; Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour; Miss\nBelinda sweetened up the apple sauce; Martha dusted the hot plates; Bob\ntook Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table; the two young\nCratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves, and,\nmounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest\nthey should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At\nlast the dishes were set on, and grace was said. It was succeeded by a\nbreathless pause, as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the\ncarving-knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast; but when she did,\nand when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of\ndelight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two\nyoung Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife and\nfeebly cried Hurrah!\n\n[Illustration: HE HAD BEEN TIM'S BLOOD-HORSE ALL THE WAY FROM CHURCH]\n\nThere never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was\nsuch",
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"content": "she did,\nand when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of\ndelight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two\nyoung Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife and\nfeebly cried Hurrah!\n\n[Illustration: HE HAD BEEN TIM'S BLOOD-HORSE ALL THE WAY FROM CHURCH]\n\nThere never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was\nsuch a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavour, size and cheapness,\nwere the themes of universal admiration. Eked out by apple sauce and\nmashed potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family;\nindeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small\natom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at last! Yet every\none had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits, in particular, were\nsteeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows! But now, the plates being\nchanged by Miss Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone--too nervous\nto bear witnesses--to take the pudding up, and bring it in.\n\nSuppose it should not be done enough! Suppose it should break in turning\nout! Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back-yard and\nstolen it, while they were merry with the goose--a supposition at which\nthe two young Cratchits became livid! All sorts of horrors were\nsupposed.\n\nHallo! A great deal of steam! The pudding was out of the copper. A smell\nlike a washing-day! That was the cloth. A smell like an eating-house and\na pastry-cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to\nthat! That was the pudding! In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit\nentered--flushed, but smiling proudly--with the pudding, like a speckled\ncannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of\nignited brandy, and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top.\n\nOh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he\nregarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since\ntheir marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that, now the weight was off her\nmind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour.\nEverybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it\nwas at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat\nheresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a\nthing.\n\n[Illustration: WITH THE PUDDING]\n\nAt last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth\nswept, and the fire made up. The compound in the jug being tasted and\nconsidered perfect, apples and oranges were put upon the table, and a\nshovel full of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family\ndrew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half\na one; and at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.\nTwo tumblers and a custard cup without a handle.\n\nThese held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden\ngoblets would have done; and Bob served it out with beaming looks, while\nthe chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob\nproposed:\n\n'A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us!'\n\nWhich all the family re-echoed.\n\n'God bless us every one!' said Tiny Tim, the last of all.\n\nHe sat very close to his father's side, upon his little stool. Bob held\nhis withered little hand to his, as if he loved the child, and wished to\nkeep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him.\n\n'Spirit,' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, 'tell\nme if Tiny Tim will live.'\n\n'I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, 'in the poor chimney corner,\nand a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows\nremain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.'\n\n'No, no,' said Scrooge. 'Oh no, kind Spirit! say he will be spared.'\n\n'If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future none other of my race,'\nreturned the Ghost, 'will find him here. What then? If he be like to\ndie, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.'\n\nScrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the Spirit, and\nwas overcome with penitence and grief.\n\n'Man,' said the Ghost, 'if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear\nthat wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is, and\nwhere it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It\nmay be that, in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit\nto live than millions like this poor man's child. O God! to hear the\ninsect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry\nbrothers in the dust!'\n\nScrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and, trembling, cast his eyes\nupon the ground. But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name.\n\n'Mr. Scrooge!' said Bob. 'I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the\nFeast!'\n\n'The Founder of the Feast",
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"content": "O God! to hear the\ninsect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry\nbrothers in the dust!'\n\nScrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and, trembling, cast his eyes\nupon the ground. But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name.\n\n'Mr. Scrooge!' said Bob. 'I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the\nFeast!'\n\n'The Founder of the Feast, indeed!' cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. 'I\nwish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and\nI hope he'd have a good appetite for it.'\n\n'My dear,' said Bob, 'the children! Christmas Day.'\n\n'It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, 'on which one drinks\nthe health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr.\nScrooge. You know he is, Robert! Nobody knows it better than you do,\npoor fellow!'\n\n'My dear!' was Bob's mild answer. 'Christmas Day.'\n\n'I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said Mrs. Cratchit,\n'not for his. Long life to him! A merry Christmas and a happy New Year!\nHe'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt!'\n\nThe children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their\nproceedings which had no heartiness in it. Tiny Tim drank it last of\nall, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the Ogre of the\nfamily. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which\nwas not dispelled for full five minutes.\n\nAfter it had passed away they were ten times merrier than before, from\nthe mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit\ntold them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which\nwould bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two\nyoung Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man\nof business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from\nbetween his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular\ninvestments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that\nbewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's,\nthen told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she\nworked at a stretch and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for\na good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how\nshe had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord\n'was much about as tall as Peter'; at which Peter pulled up his collar\nso high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All\nthis time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-by\nthey had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny\nTim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed.\n\nThere was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family;\nthey were not well dressed; their shoes were far from being waterproof;\ntheir clothes were scanty; and Peter might have known, and very likely\ndid, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful,\npleased with one another, and contented with the time; and when they\nfaded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the Spirit's\ntorch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny\nTim, until the last.\n\nBy this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty heavily; and as\nScrooge and the Spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the\nroaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms was\nwonderful. Here, the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a\ncosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through before the fire,\nand deep red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.\nThere, all the children of the house were running out into the snow to\nmeet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the\nfirst to greet them. Here, again, were shadows on the window-blinds of\nguests assembling; and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and\nfur-booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near\nneighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw them\nenter--artful witches, well they knew it--in a glow!\n\nBut, if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to\nfriendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to\ngive them welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting\ncompany, and piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how\nthe Ghost exulted! How it bared its breadth of breast, and opened its\ncapacious palm, and floated on, outpouring with a generous hand its\nbright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very\nlamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of\nlight, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out\nloudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that\nhe had any company but Christmas.\n\nAnd now, without a word of warning from",
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"content": "capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring with a generous hand its\nbright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach! The very\nlamplighter, who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of\nlight, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out\nloudly as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that\nhe had any company but Christmas.\n\nAnd now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they stood upon a\nbleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast\nabout, as though it were the burial-place of giants; and water spread\nitself wheresoever it listed; or would have done so, but for the frost\nthat held it prisoner; and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse,\nrank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery\nred, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a sullen eye,\nand frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of\ndarkest night.\n\n'What place is this?' asked Scrooge.\n\n'A place where miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth,'\nreturned the Spirit. 'But they know me. See!'\n\nA light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced\ntowards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a\ncheerful company assembled round a glowing fire. An old, old man and\nwoman, with their children and their children's children, and another\ngeneration beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.\nThe old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind\nupon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song; it had been a\nvery old song when he was a boy; and from time to time they all joined\nin the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got\nquite blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank\nagain.\n\nThe Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and,\npassing on above the moor, sped whither? Not to sea? To sea. To\nScrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful\nrange of rocks, behind them; and his ears were deafened by the\nthundering of water, as it rolled and roared, and raged among the\ndreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.\n\nBuilt upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore,\non which the waters chafed and dashed, the wild year through, there\nstood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base,\nand storm-birds--born of the wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the\nwater--rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.\n\nBut, even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that\nthrough the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of\nbrightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough\ntable at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their\ncan of grog; and one of them--the elder too, with his face all damaged\nand scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship might\nbe--struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself.\n\nAgain the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea--on, on--until\nbeing far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a\nship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the look-out in the\nbow, the officers who had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their\nseveral stations; but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or\nhad a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of\nsome bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And\nevery man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder\nword for one another on that day than on any day in the year; and had\nshared to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those he\ncared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember\nhim.\n\nIt was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of\nthe wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the\nlonely darkness over an unknown abyss, whose depths were secrets as\nprofound as death: it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus\nengaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to\nScrooge to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a\nbright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling by his\nside, and looking at that same nephew with approving affability!\n\n'Ha, ha!' laughed Scrooge's nephew. 'Ha, ha, ha!'\n\nIf you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blessed\nin a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to\nknow him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.\n\nIt is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there\nis infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so\nirresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.",
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"content": "'\n\nIf you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a man more blessed\nin a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is, I should like to\nknow him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.\n\nIt is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there\nis infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so\nirresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour. When Scrooge's\nnephew laughed in this way--holding his sides, rolling his head, and\ntwisting his face into the most extravagant contortions--Scrooge's\nniece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled\nfriends, being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.\n\n'Ha, ha! Ha, ha, ha, ha!'\n\n'He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live!' cried Scrooge's\nnephew. 'He believed it, too!'\n\n'More shame for him, Fred!' said Scrooge's niece indignantly. Bless\nthose women! they never do anything by halves. They are always in\nearnest.\n\nShe was very pretty; exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,\nsurprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that seemed made\nto be kissed--as no doubt it was; all kinds of good little dots about\nher chin, that melted into one another when she laughed; and the\nsunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head.\nAltogether she was what you would have called provoking, you know; but\nsatisfactory, too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory!\n\n'He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'that's the truth;\nand not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry their\nown punishment, and I have nothing to say against him.'\n\n'I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece. 'At least, you\nalways tell _me_ so.'\n\n'What of that, my dear?' said Scrooge's nephew. 'His wealth is of no use\nto him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable\nwith it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking--ha, ha, ha!--that he is\never going to benefit Us with it.'\n\n'I have no patience with him,' observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's\nniece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed the same opinion.\n\n'Oh, I have!' said Scrooge's nephew. 'I am sorry for him; I couldn't be\nangry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself always.\nHere he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine\nwith us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner.'\n\n'Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,' interrupted Scrooge's\nniece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have\nbeen competent judges, because they had just had dinner; and with the\ndessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.\n\n'Well! I am very glad to hear it,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'because I\nhaven't any great faith in these young housekeepers. What do _you_ say,\nTopper?'\n\nTopper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters,\nfor he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast, who had no right\nto express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's\nsister--the plump one with the lace tucker: not the one with the\nroses--blushed.\n\n'Do go on, Fred,' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. 'He never\nfinishes what he begins to say! He is such a ridiculous fellow!'\n\nScrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to\nkeep the infection off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with\naromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed.\n\n'I was only going to say,' said Scrooge's nephew, 'that the consequence\nof his taking a dislike to us, and not making merry with us, is, as I\nthink, that he loses some pleasant moments, which could do him no harm.\nI am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own\nthoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean\nto give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not, for\nI pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help\nthinking better of it--I defy him--if he finds me going there, in good\ntemper, year after year, and saying, \"Uncle Scrooge, how are you?\" If it\nonly put him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds, _that's_\nsomething; and I think I shook him yesterday.'\n\nIt was their turn to laugh now, at the notion of his shaking Scrooge.\nBut being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed\nat, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their\nmerriment, and passed the bottle, joyously.\n\nAfter tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew\nwhat they were about when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you:\nespecially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one",
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"content": "shaking Scrooge.\nBut being thoroughly good-natured, and not much caring what they laughed\nat, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their\nmerriment, and passed the bottle, joyously.\n\nAfter tea they had some music. For they were a musical family, and knew\nwhat they were about when they sung a Glee or Catch, I can assure you:\nespecially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and\nnever swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face over\nit. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and played, among other\ntunes, a simple little air (a mere nothing: you might learn to whistle\nit in two minutes) which had been familiar to the child who fetched\nScrooge from the boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost\nof Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the things\nthat Ghost had shown him came upon his mind; he softened more and more;\nand thought that if he could have listened to it often, years ago, he\nmight have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his own happiness with\nhis own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob\nMarley.\n\n[Illustration: _The way he went after that plump sister in the lace\ntucker!_]\n\nBut they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they\nplayed at forfeits; for it is good to be children sometimes, and never\nbetter than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child himself.\nStop! There was first a game at blind man's-buff. Of course there was.\nAnd I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes\nin his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done thing between him and\nScrooge's nephew; and that the Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The\nway he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on\nthe credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons, tumbling\nover the chairs, bumping up against the piano, smothering himself\namongst the curtains, wherever she went, there went he! He always knew\nwhere the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had\nfallen up against him (as some of them did) on purpose, he would have\nmade a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would have been an\naffront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in\nthe direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't\nfair; and it really was not. But when, at last, he caught her; when, in\nspite of all her silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him,\nhe got her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his conduct\nwas the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her; his\npretending that it was necessary to touch her head-dress, and further to\nassure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her\nfinger, and a certain chain about her neck; was vile, monstrous! No\ndoubt she told him her opinion of it when, another blind man being in\noffice, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains.\n\nScrooge's niece was not one of the blind man's-buff party, but was made\ncomfortable with a large chair and a footstool, in a snug corner where\nthe Ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the\nforfeits, and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the\nalphabet. Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was very\ngreat, and, to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters\nhollow; though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you.\nThere might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all\nplayed, and so did Scrooge; for wholly forgetting, in the interest he\nhad in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears, he\nsometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed\nright, too; for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to\ncut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge, blunt as he took it in\nhis head to be.\n\nThe Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon\nhim with such favour that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay\nuntil the guests departed. But this the Spirit said could not be done.\n\n'Here is a new game,' said Scrooge. 'One half-hour, Spirit, only one!'\n\nIt was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of\nsomething, and the rest must find out what, he only answering to their\nquestions yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to\nwhich he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an\nanimal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an\nanimal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes and\nlived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show\nof, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was\nnever killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a\nbull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or",
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"content": "animal, a savage animal, an\nanimal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes and\nlived in London, and walked about the streets, and wasn't made a show\nof, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie, and was\nnever killed in a market, and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a\nbull, or a tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every\nfresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar\nof laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that he was obliged to\nget up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a\nsimilar state, cried out:\n\n'I have found it out! I know what it is, Fred! I know what it is!'\n\n'What is it?' cried Fred.\n\n'It's your uncle Scro-o-o-o-oge.'\n\nWhich it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though\nsome objected that the reply to 'Is it a bear?' ought to have been\n'Yes'; inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have\ndiverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had\nany tendency that way.\n\n'He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,' said Fred, 'and it\nwould be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled\nwine ready to our hand at the moment; and I say, \"Uncle Scrooge!\"'\n\n'Well! Uncle Scrooge!' they cried.\n\n'A merry Christmas and a happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is!'\nsaid Scrooge's nephew. 'He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it,\nnevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!'\n\nUncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart, that\nhe would have pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked\nthem in an inaudible speech, if the Ghost had given him time. But the\nwhole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his\nnephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.\n\nMuch they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but\nalways with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick-beds, and they\nwere cheerful; on foreign lands, and they were close at home; by\nstruggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope; by poverty,\nand it was rich. In almshouse, hospital, and gaol, in misery's every\nrefuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast\nthe door, and barred the Spirit out, he left his blessing and taught\nScrooge his precepts.\n\nIt was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge had his doubts\nof this, because the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into\nthe space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that, while\nScrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older,\nclearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it\nuntil they left a children's Twelfth-Night party, when, looking at the\nSpirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair\nwas grey.\n\n'Are spirits' lives so short?' asked Scrooge.\n\n'My life upon this globe is very brief,' replied the Ghost. 'It ends\nto-night.'\n\n'To-night!' cried Scrooge.\n\n'To-night at midnight. Hark! The time is drawing near.'\n\nThe chimes were ringing the three-quarters past eleven at that moment.\n\n'Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said Scrooge, looking\nintently at the Spirit's robe, 'but I see something strange, and not\nbelonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a\nclaw?'\n\n'It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was the Spirit's\nsorrowful reply. 'Look here!'\n\nFrom the foldings of its robe it brought two children, wretched, abject,\nfrightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung\nupon the outside of its garment.\n\n'O Man! look here! Look, look down here!' exclaimed the Ghost.\n\nThey were a boy and girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but\nprostrate, too, in their humility. Where graceful youth should have\nfilled their features out, and touched them with its freshest tints, a\nstale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted\nthem, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat\nenthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No change, no\ndegradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade, through all the\nmysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible and\ndread.\n\nScrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he\ntried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves,\nrather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.\n\n'Spirit! are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more.\n\n'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they\ncling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This\ngirl is",
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"content": "oge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he\ntried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves,\nrather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude.\n\n'Spirit! are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more.\n\n'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they\ncling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This\ngirl is Want. Beware of them both, and all of their degree, but most of\nall beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom,\nunless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out\nhis hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for\nyour factious purposes, and make it worse! And bide the end!'\n\n'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.\n\n'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last\ntime with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?'\n\nThe bell struck Twelve.\n\nScrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last\nstroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob\nMarley, and, lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and\nhooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him.\n\n\nSTAVE FOUR\n\n\n\n\nTHE LAST OF THE SPIRITS\n\n\nThe Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him,\nScrooge bent down upon his knee; for in the very air through which this\nSpirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.\n\nIt was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its\nface, its form, and left nothing of it visible, save one outstretched\nhand. But for this, it would have been difficult to detach its figure\nfrom the night, and separate it from the darkness by which it was\nsurrounded.\n\nHe felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him, and that\nits mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more,\nfor the Spirit neither spoke nor moved.\n\n'I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come?' said\nScrooge.\n\nThe Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.\n\n'You are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened,\nbut will happen in the time before us,' Scrooge pursued. 'Is that so,\nSpirit?'\n\nThe upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its\nfolds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head. That was the only answer\nhe received.\n\nAlthough well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the\nsilent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found\nthat he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit\npaused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to\nrecover.\n\nBut Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague,\nuncertain horror to know that, behind the dusky shroud, there were\nghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he, though he stretched his\nown to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great\nheap of black.\n\n'Ghost of the Future!' he exclaimed, 'I fear you more than any spectre\nI have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope\nto live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear your\ncompany, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?'\n\nIt gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight before them.\n\n'Lead on!' said Scrooge. 'Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is\nprecious time to me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!'\n\nThe Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in\nthe shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him\nalong.\n\nThey scarcely seemed to enter the City; for the City rather seemed to\nspring up about them, and encompass them of its own act. But there they\nwere in the heart of it; on 'Change, amongst the merchants, who hurried\nup and down, and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in\ngroups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully with their\ngreat gold seals, and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.\n\nThe Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men. Observing\nthat the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their\ntalk.\n\n'No,' said a great fat man with a monstrous chin, 'I don't know much\nabout it either way. I only know he's dead.'\n\n'When did he die?' inquired another.\n\n'Last night, I believe.'\n\n'Why, what was the matter with him?' asked a third, taking a vast\nquantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box. 'I thought he'd never\ndie.'\n\n'God knows,' said the first, with a yawn.\n\n'What has he done with his money?' asked a red-faced gentleman with a\npendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills\nof a turkey-cock.\n\n'I haven't heard,' said the man with the large chin, yawning again.\n'Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to _me_. That's all\nI know.'\n\nThis pleasantry was received with a general",
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"content": ",' said the first, with a yawn.\n\n'What has he done with his money?' asked a red-faced gentleman with a\npendulous excrescence on the end of his nose, that shook like the gills\nof a turkey-cock.\n\n'I haven't heard,' said the man with the large chin, yawning again.\n'Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't left it to _me_. That's all\nI know.'\n\nThis pleasantry was received with a general laugh.\n\n'It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,' said the same speaker; 'for,\nupon my life, I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a\nparty, and volunteer?'\n\n'I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,' observed the gentleman with\nthe excrescence on his nose. 'But I must be fed if I make one.'\n\nAnother laugh.\n\n[Illustration:\n\n _\"How are you?\" said one.\n \"How are you?\" returned the other.\n \"Well!\" said the first. \"Old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?\"_\n\n]\n\n'Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,' said the first\nspeaker, 'for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll\noffer to go if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not\nat all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend; for we used to\nstop and speak whenever we met. Bye, bye!'\n\nSpeakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups.\nScrooge knew the men, and looked towards the Spirit for an explanation.\n\nThe phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed to two persons\nmeeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation might lie\nhere.\n\nHe knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of business: very\nwealthy, and of great importance. He had made a point always of standing\nwell in their esteem in a business point of view, that is; strictly in a\nbusiness point of view.\n\n'How are you?' said one.\n\n'How are you?' returned the other.\n\n'Well!' said the first, 'old Scratch has got his own at last, hey?'\n\n'So I am told,' returned the second. 'Cold, isn't it?'\n\n'Seasonable for Christmas-time. You are not a skater, I suppose?'\n\n'No, no. Something else to think of. Good-morning!'\n\nNot another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their\nparting.\n\nScrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should\nattach importance to conversations apparently so trivial; but feeling\nassured that they must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to\nconsider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to\nhave any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was\nPast, and this Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of\nany one immediately connected with himself to whom he could apply them.\nBut nothing doubting that, to whomsoever they applied, they had some\nlatent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every\nword he heard, and everything he saw; and especially to observe the\nshadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation that the\nconduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed, and would\nrender the solution of these riddles easy.\n\nHe looked about in that very place for his own image, but another man\nstood in his accustomed corner; and though the clock pointed to his\nusual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among\nthe multitudes that poured in through the Porch. It gave him little\nsurprise, however; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of\nlife, and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out\nin this.\n\nQuiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its outstretched\nhand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied,\nfrom the turn of the hand, and its situation in reference to himself,\nthat the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder,\nand feel very cold.\n\nThey left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town,\nwhere Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognised its\nsituation and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow; the shop\nand houses wretched; the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly.\nAlleys and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of\nsmell and dirt, and life upon the straggling streets; and the whole\nquarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.\n\nFar in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed, beetling\nshop, below a penthouse roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and\ngreasy offal were bought. Upon the floor within were piled up heaps of\nrusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse\niron of all kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were bred\nand hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and\nsepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a\ncharcoal stove made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly\nseventy years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without\nby a frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung upon a line and\nsmoked his pipe in all",
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"content": "to scrutinise were bred\nand hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and\nsepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a\ncharcoal stove made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal, nearly\nseventy years of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without\nby a frouzy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters hung upon a line and\nsmoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement.\n\nScrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a\nwoman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely\nentered, when another woman, similarly laden, came in too; and she was\nclosely followed by a man in faded black, who was no less startled by\nthe sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of each other.\nAfter a short period of blank astonishment, in which the old man with\nthe pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.\n\n'Let the charwoman alone to be the first!' cried she who had entered\nfirst. 'Let the laundress alone to be the second; and let the\nundertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a\nchance! If we haven't all three met here without meaning it!'\n\n'You couldn't have met in a better place,' said old Joe, removing his\npipe from his mouth. 'Come into the parlour. You were made free of it\nlong ago, you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop till I shut\nthe door of the shop. Ah! how it skreeks! There an't such a rusty bit of\nmetal in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no\nsuch old bones here as mine. Ha! ha! We're all suitable to our calling,\nwe're well matched. Come into the parlour. Come into the parlour.'\n\nThe parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The old man raked\nthe fire together with an old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky\nlamp (for it was night) with the stem of his pipe, put it into his mouth\nagain.\n\nWhile he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on\nthe floor, and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool, crossing her\nelbows on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at the other two.\n\n'What odds, then? What odds, Mrs. Dilber?' said the woman. 'Every person\nhas a right to take care of themselves. _He_ always did!'\n\n'That's true, indeed!' said the laundress. 'No man more so.'\n\n'Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman! Who's the\nwiser? We're not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?'\n\n'No, indeed!' said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. 'We should hope\nnot.'\n\n'Very well then!' cried the woman. 'That's enough. Who's the worse for\nthe loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose?'\n\n'No, indeed,' said Mrs. Dilber, laughing.\n\n'If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a wicked old screw,'\npursued the woman, 'why wasn't he natural in his lifetime? If he had\nbeen, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with\nDeath, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself.'\n\n'It's the truest word that ever was spoke,' said Mrs. Dilber. 'It's a\njudgment on him.'\n\n'I wish it was a little heavier judgment,' replied the woman: 'and it\nshould have been, you may depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands\non anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value\nof it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for\nthem to see it. We knew pretty well that we were helping ourselves\nbefore we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe.'\n\nBut the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this; and the man in\nfaded black, mounting the breach first, produced _his_ plunder. It was\nnot extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons,\nand a brooch of no great value, were all. They were severally examined\nand appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give\nfor each upon the wall, and added them up into a total when he found\nthat there was nothing more to come.\n\n'That's your account,' said Joe, 'and I wouldn't give another sixpence,\nif I was to be boiled for not doing it. Who's next?'\n\n\n[Illustration: _\"What do you call this?\" said Joe. \"Bed-curtains.\"_]\n\nMrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two\nold fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few\nboots. Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.\n\n'I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's\nthe way I ruin myself,' said old Joe. 'That's your account. If you asked\nme for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being\nso liberal, and knock off half-a-crown.'\n\n'And now undo _my_ bundle, Joe,' said the first woman.\n\nJoe went down on his knees for the",
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"content": "Her account was stated on the wall in the same manner.\n\n'I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's\nthe way I ruin myself,' said old Joe. 'That's your account. If you asked\nme for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd repent of being\nso liberal, and knock off half-a-crown.'\n\n'And now undo _my_ bundle, Joe,' said the first woman.\n\nJoe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it,\nand, having unfastened a great many knots, dragged out a large heavy\nroll of some dark stuff.\n\n'What do you call this?' said Joe. 'Bed-curtains?'\n\n'Ah!' returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed\narms. 'Bed-curtains!'\n\n'You don't mean to say you took 'em down, rings and all, with him lying\nthere?' said Joe.\n\n'Yes, I do,' replied the woman. 'Why not?'\n\n'You were born to make your fortune,' said Joe, 'and you'll certainly do\nit.'\n\n'I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything in it by\nreaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you,\nJoe,' returned the woman coolly. 'Don't drop that oil upon the blankets,\nnow.'\n\n'His blankets?' asked Joe.\n\n'Whose else's do you think?' replied the woman. 'He isn't likely to take\ncold without 'em, I dare say.'\n\n'I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?' said old Joe, stopping\nin his work, and looking up.\n\n'Don't you be afraid of that,' returned the woman. 'I an't so fond of\nhis company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah!\nyou may look through that shirt till your eyes ache, but you won't find\na hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine\none too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.'\n\n'What do you call wasting of it?' asked old Joe.\n\n'Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,' replied the woman, with\na laugh. 'Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If\ncalico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for\nanything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than\nhe did in that one.'\n\nScrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about\ntheir spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he\nviewed them with a detestation and disgust which could hardly have been\ngreater, though they had been obscene demons marketing the corpse\nitself.\n\n'Ha, ha!' laughed the same woman when old Joe producing a flannel bag\nwith money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. 'This\nis the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he\nwas alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!'\n\n'Spirit!' said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. 'I see, I see. The\ncase of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way now.\nMerciful heaven, what is this?'\n\nHe recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost\ntouched a bed--a bare, uncurtained bed--on which, beneath a ragged\nsheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb,\nannounced itself in awful language.\n\nThe room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy,\nthough Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse,\nanxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the\nouter air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft,\nunwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.\n\nScrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the\nhead. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of\nit, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the\nface. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to\ndo it; but he had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the\nspectre at his side.\n\nOh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and\ndress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command; for this is thy\ndominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head thou canst not\nturn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is\nnot that the hand is heavy, and will fall down when released; it is not\nthat the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open,\ngenerous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender, and the pulse a\nman's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the\nwound, to sow the world with life immortal!\n\nNo voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them\nwhen he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up\nnow, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping\ncares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!\n\nHe lay in the dark, empty house, with not",
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"content": "see his good deeds springing from the\nwound, to sow the world with life immortal!\n\nNo voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them\nwhen he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up\nnow, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping\ncares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!\n\nHe lay in the dark, empty house, with not a man, a woman, or a child to\nsay he was kind to me in this or that, and for the memory of one kind\nword I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was\na sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearthstone. What _they_ wanted in\nthe room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge\ndid not dare to think.\n\n'Spirit!' he said, 'this is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not\nleave its lesson, trust me. Let us go!'\n\nStill the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head.\n\n'I understand you,' Scrooge returned, 'and I would do it if I could. But\nI have not the power, Spirit. I have not the power.'\n\nAgain it seemed to look upon him.\n\n'If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this\nman's death,' said Scrooge, quite agonised, 'show that person to me,\nSpirit, I beseech you!'\n\nThe Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing;\nand, withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her\nchildren were.\n\nShe was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness; for she walked\nup and down the room, started at every sound, looked out from the\nwindow, glanced at the clock, tried, but in vain, to work with her\nneedle, and could hardly bear the voices of her children in their play.\n\nAt length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door,\nand met her husband; a man whose face was careworn and depressed, though\nhe was young. There was a remarkable expression in it now, a kind of\nserious delight of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to\nrepress.\n\nHe sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire,\nand when she asked him faintly what news (which was not until after a\nlong silence), he appeared embarrassed how to answer.\n\n'Is it good,' she said, 'or bad?' to help him.\n\n'Bad,' he answered.\n\n'We are quite ruined?'\n\n'No. There is hope yet, Caroline.'\n\n'If _he_ relents,' she said, amazed, 'there is! Nothing is past hope, if\nsuch a miracle has happened.'\n\n'He is past relenting,' said her husband. 'He is dead.'\n\nShe was a mild and patient creature, if her face spoke truth; but she\nwas thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so with clasped hands.\nShe prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry; but the first was\nthe emotion of her heart.\n\n'What the half-drunken woman, whom I told you of last night, said to me\nwhen I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay--and what I thought\nwas a mere excuse to avoid me--turns out to have been quite true. He was\nnot only very ill, but dying, then.'\n\n'To whom will our debt be transferred?'\n\n'I don't know. But, before that time, we shall be ready with the money;\nand even though we were not, it would be bad fortune indeed to find so\nmerciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep to-night with light\nhearts, Caroline!'\n\nYes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter. The children's\nfaces, hushed and clustered round to hear what they so little\nunderstood, were brighter; and it was a happier house for this man's\ndeath! The only emotion that the Ghost could show him, caused by the\nevent, was one of pleasure.\n\n'Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,' said Scrooge; 'or\nthat dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just now, will be for ever\npresent to me.'\n\nThe Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet;\nand as they went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself,\nbut nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house;\nthe dwelling he had visited before; and found the mother and the\nchildren seated round the fire.\n\nQuiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as still as statues\nin one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before him.\nThe mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing. But surely they\nwere very quiet!\n\n'\"And he took a child, and set him in the midst of them.\"'\n\nWhere had Scrooge heard those words? He had not dreamed them. The boy\nmust have read them out as he and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why\ndid he not go on?\n\nThe mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her\nface.\n\n'The colour hurts my eyes,' she said.\n\nThe colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!\n\n'They're better now again,' said Cratchit's wife. 'It makes them weak by\ncandle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes\nhome for the world. It must be near his time.'\n\n'Past it rather,' Peter answered, shutting up his",
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"content": "go on?\n\nThe mother laid her work upon the table, and put her hand up to her\nface.\n\n'The colour hurts my eyes,' she said.\n\nThe colour? Ah, poor Tiny Tim!\n\n'They're better now again,' said Cratchit's wife. 'It makes them weak by\ncandle-light; and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes\nhome for the world. It must be near his time.'\n\n'Past it rather,' Peter answered, shutting up his book. 'But I think he\nhas walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings,\nmother.'\n\nThey were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a steady, cheerful\nvoice, that only faltered once:\n\n'I have known him walk with--I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon\nhis shoulder very fast indeed.'\n\n'And so have I,' cried Peter. 'Often.'\n\n'And so have I,' exclaimed another. So had all.\n\n'But he was very light to carry,' she resumed, intent upon her work,\n'and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble, no trouble. And\nthere is your father at the door!'\n\nShe hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter--he had\nneed of it, poor fellow--came in. His tea was ready for him on the hob,\nand they all tried who should help him to it most. Then the two young\nCratchits got upon his knees, and laid, each child, a little cheek\nagainst his face, as if they said, 'Don't mind it, father. Don't be\ngrieved!'\n\nBob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family.\nHe looked at the work upon the table, and praised the industry and speed\nof Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would be done long before Sunday,\nhe said.\n\n'Sunday! You went to-day, then, Robert?' said his wife.\n\n'Yes, my dear,' returned Bob. 'I wish you could have gone. It would have\ndone you good to see how green a place it is. But you'll see it often. I\npromised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little\nchild!' cried Bob. 'My little child!'\n\nHe broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped\nit, he and his child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they\nwere.\n\nHe left the room, and went upstairs into the room above, which was\nlighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas. There was a chair set close\nbeside the child, and there were signs of some one having been there\nlately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and\ncomposed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what\nhad happened, and went down again quite happy.\n\nThey drew about the fire, and talked, the girls and mother working\nstill. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's\nnephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once, and who, meeting him in the\nstreet that day, and seeing that he looked a little--'just a little\ndown, you know,' said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him.\n'On which,' said Bob, 'for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman you\never heard, I told him. \"I am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,\" he\nsaid, \"and heartily sorry for your good wife.\" By-the-bye, how he ever\nknew _that_ I don't know.'\n\n'Knew what, my dear?'\n\n'Why, that you were a good wife,' replied Bob.\n\n'Everybody knows that,' said Peter.\n\n'Very well observed, my boy!' cried Bob. 'I hope they do. \"Heartily\nsorry,\" he said, \"for your good wife. If I can be of service to you in\nany way,\" he said, giving me his card, \"that's where I live. Pray come\nto me.\" Now, it wasn't,' cried Bob, 'for the sake of anything he might\nbe able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was quite\ndelightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt\nwith us.'\n\n'I'm sure he's a good soul!' said Mrs. Cratchit.\n\n'You would be sure of it, my dear,' returned Bob, 'if you saw and spoke\nto him. I shouldn't be at all surprised--mark what I say!--if he got\nPeter a better situation.'\n\n'Only hear that, Peter,' said Mrs. Cratchit.\n\n'And then,' cried one of the girls, 'Peter will be keeping company with\nsome one, and setting up for himself.'\n\n'Get along with you!' retorted Peter, grinning.\n\n'It's just as likely as not,' said Bob, 'one of these days; though\nthere's plenty of time for that, my dear. But, however and whenever we\npart from one another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor Tiny\nTim--shall we--or this first parting that there was among us?'\n\n'Never, father!' cried they all.\n\n'And I know,' said Bob, 'I know, my dears, that when we recollect how\npatient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we\nshall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in\ndoing it.'\n\n'No, never, father!' they all cried again.\n\n'I am very happy,' said little Bob, 'I am very happy",
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"content": "there was among us?'\n\n'Never, father!' cried they all.\n\n'And I know,' said Bob, 'I know, my dears, that when we recollect how\npatient and how mild he was; although he was a little, little child; we\nshall not quarrel easily among ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in\ndoing it.'\n\n'No, never, father!' they all cried again.\n\n'I am very happy,' said little Bob, 'I am very happy!'\n\nMrs. Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the two young\nCratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. Spirit of Tiny\nTim, thy childish essence was from God!\n\n'Spectre,' said Scrooge, 'something informs me that our parting moment\nis at hand. I know it but I know not how. Tell me what man that was whom\nwe saw lying dead?'\n\nThe Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come conveyed him, as before--though at a\ndifferent time, he thought: indeed there seemed no order in these latter\nvisions, save that they were in the Future--into the resorts of business\nmen, but showed him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for\nanything, but went straight on, as to the end just now desired, until\nbesought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.\n\n'This court,' said Scrooge, 'through which we hurry now, is where my\nplace of occupation is, and has been for a length of time. I see the\nhouse. Let me behold what I shall be in days to come.'\n\nThe Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.\n\n'The house is yonder,' Scrooge exclaimed. 'Why do you point away?'\n\nThe inexorable finger underwent no change.\n\nScrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an\noffice still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the\nfigure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before.\n\nHe joined it once again, and, wondering why and whither he had gone,\naccompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round\nbefore entering.\n\nA churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man, whose name he had now to\nlearn, lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place. Walled in by\nhouses; overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's death,\nnot life; choked up with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A\nworthy place!\n\nThe Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to One. He advanced\ntowards it trembling. The Phantom was exactly as it had been, but he\ndreaded that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape.\n\n'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' said Scrooge,\n'answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will\nbe, or are they shadows of the things that May be only?'\n\nStill the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.\n\n'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in,\nthey must lead,' said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the\nends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!'\n\nThe Spirit was immovable as ever.\n\nScrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and, following the\nfinger, read upon the stone of the neglected grave his own name,\nEBENEZER SCROOGE.\n\n'Am I that man who lay upon the bed?' he cried upon his knees.\n\nThe finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.\n\n'No, Spirit! Oh no, no!'\n\nThe finger still was there.\n\n'Spirit!' he cried, tight clutching at its robe, 'hear me! I am not the\nman I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this\nintercourse. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?'\n\nFor the first time the hand appeared to shake.\n\n'Good Spirit,' he pursued, as down upon the ground he fell before it,\n'your nature intercedes for me, and pities me. Assure me that I yet may\nchange these shadows you have shown me by an altered life?'\n\nThe kind hand trembled.\n\n'I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I\nwill live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all\nThree shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they\nteach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!'\n\nIn his agony he caught the spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but\nhe was strong in his entreaty, and detained it. The Spirit stronger yet,\nrepulsed him.\n\nHolding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate reversed, he saw\nan alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and\ndwindled down into a bedpost.\n\n\nSTAVE FIVE\n\n\n[Illustration]\n\n\n\n\nTHE END OF IT\n\n\nYes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his\nown. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make\namends in!\n\n'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!' Scrooge repeated\nas he scrambled out of bed. 'The Spirits of all Three shall strive\nwithin me. O Jacob Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for\nthis! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!'",
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"content": "was his own, the room was his\nown. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make\namends in!\n\n'I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!' Scrooge repeated\nas he scrambled out of bed. 'The Spirits of all Three shall strive\nwithin me. O Jacob Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for\nthis! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!'\n\nHe was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his\nbroken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing\nviolently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with\ntears.\n\n'They are not torn down,' cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed-curtains\nin his arms, 'They are not torn down, rings and all. They are here--I am\nhere--the shadows of the things that would have been may be dispelled.\nThey will be. I know they will!'\n\nHis hands were busy with his garments all this time: turning them inside\nout, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making\nthem parties to every kind of extravagance.\n\n'I don't know what to do!' cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the\nsame breath, and making a perfect Laocoon of himself with his stockings.\n'I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as merry as\na schoolboy, I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to\neverybody! A happy New Year to all the world! Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!'\n\nHe had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing there,\nperfectly winded.\n\n'There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!' cried Scrooge, starting\noff again, and going round the fireplace. 'There's the door by which the\nGhost of Jacob Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of\nChristmas Present sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering\nSpirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!'\n\nReally, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years, it was\na splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long\nline of brilliant laughs!\n\n'I don't know what day of the month it is,' said Scrooge. 'I don't know\nhow long I have been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite\na baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!\nHallo here!'\n\nHe was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out the\nlustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clash, hammer; ding, dong,\nbell! Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clash, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!\n\nRunning to the window, he opened it, and put out his head. No fog, no\nmist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the blood\nto dance to; golden sunlight; heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry\nbells. Oh, glorious! Glorious!\n\n'What's to-day?' cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday\nclothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.\n\n'EH?' returned the boy with all his might of wonder.\n\n'What's to-day, my fine fellow?' said Scrooge.\n\n'To-day!' replied the boy. 'Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.'\n\n'It's Christmas Day!' said Scrooge to himself. 'I haven't missed it. The\nSpirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like.\nOf course they can. Of course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow!'\n\n'Hallo!' returned the boy.\n\n'Do you know the poulterer's in the next street but one, at the corner?'\nScrooge inquired.\n\n'I should hope I did,' replied the lad.\n\n'An intelligent boy!' said Scrooge. 'A remarkable boy! Do you know\nwhether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there?--Not\nthe little prize turkey: the big one?'\n\n'What! the one as big as me?' returned the boy.\n\n'What a delightful boy!' said Scrooge. 'It's a pleasure to talk to him.\nYes, my buck!'\n\n'It's hanging there now,' replied the boy.\n\n'Is it?' said Scrooge. 'Go and buy it.'\n\n'Walk-ER!' exclaimed the boy.\n\n'No, no,' said Scrooge. 'I am in earnest. Go and buy it, and tell 'em to\nbring it here, that I may give them the directions where to take it.\nCome back with the man, and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him\nin less than five minutes, and I'll give you half-a-crown!'\n\nThe boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady hand at a trigger\nwho could have got a shot off half as fast.\n\n'I'll send it to Bob Cratchit's,' whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands,\nand splitting with a laugh. 'He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the\nsize of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to\nBob's will be!'\n\nThe hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one; but write\nit he did, somehow, and went downstairs to open the street-door, ready\nfor the coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting his\narrival, the",
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"content": "hands,\nand splitting with a laugh. 'He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the\nsize of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to\nBob's will be!'\n\nThe hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady one; but write\nit he did, somehow, and went downstairs to open the street-door, ready\nfor the coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there, waiting his\narrival, the knocker caught his eye.\n\n'I shall love it as long as I live!' cried Scrooge, patting it with his\nhand. 'I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression it\nhas in its face! It's a wonderful knocker!--Here's the turkey. Hallo!\nWhoop! How are you! Merry Christmas!'\n\nIt _was_ a turkey! He never could have stood upon his legs, that bird.\nHe would have snapped 'em short off in a minute, like sticks of\nsealing-wax.\n\n'Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,' said Scrooge. 'You\nmust have a cab.'\n\nThe chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid\nfor the turkey, and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab, and the\nchuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by\nthe chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and\nchuckled till he cried.\n\nShaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much;\nand shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are\nat it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a\npiece of sticking-plaster over it, and been quite satisfied.\n\nHe dressed himself 'all in his best,' and at last got out into the\nstreets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them\nwith the Ghost of Christmas Present; and, walking with his hands behind\nhim, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so\nirresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured\nfellows said, 'Good-morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!' And Scrooge\nsaid often afterwards that, of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard,\nthose were the blithest in his ears.\n\nHe had not gone far when, coming on towards him, he beheld the portly\ngentleman who had walked into his counting-house the day before, and\nsaid, 'Scrooge and Marley's, I believe?' It sent a pang across his heart\nto think how this old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but\nhe knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.\n\n'My dear sir,' said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and taking the old\ngentleman by both his hands, 'how do you do? I hope you succeeded\nyesterday. It was very kind of you. A merry Christmas to you, sir!'\n\n'Mr. Scrooge?'\n\n'Yes,' said Scrooge. 'That is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant\nto you. Allow me to ask your pardon. And will you have the goodness----'\nHere Scrooge whispered in his ear.\n\n'Lord bless me!' cried the gentleman, as if his breath were taken away.\n'My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?'\n\n'If you please,' said Scrooge. 'Not a farthing less. A great many\nback-payments are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that\nfavour?'\n\n'My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him, 'I don't know\nwhat to say to such munifi----'\n\n'Don't say anything, please,' retorted Scrooge. 'Come and see me. Will\nyou come and see me?'\n\n'I will!' cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he meant to do it.\n\n'Thankee,' said Scrooge. 'I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty\ntimes. Bless you!'\n\nHe went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people\nhurrying to and fro, and patted the children on the head, and questioned\nbeggars, and looked down into the kitchens of houses, and up to the\nwindows; and found that everything could yield him pleasure. He had\nnever dreamed that any walk--that anything--could give him so much\nhappiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's\nhouse.\n\nHe passed the door a dozen times before he had the courage to go up and\nknock. But he made a dash and did it.\n\n'Is your master at home, my dear?' said Scrooge to the girl. 'Nice girl!\nVery.'\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'Where is he, my love?' said Scrooge.\n\n'He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you\nupstairs, if you please.'\n\n'Thankee. He knows me,' said Scrooge, with his hand already on the\ndining-room lock. 'I'll go in here, my dear.'\n\nHe turned it gently, and sidled his face in round the door. They were\nlooking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these\nyoung housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see\nthat everything is right.\n\n'Fred!' said Scrooge.\n\nDear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had\nforgotten,",
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"content": "hand already on the\ndining-room lock. 'I'll go in here, my dear.'\n\nHe turned it gently, and sidled his face in round the door. They were\nlooking at the table (which was spread out in great array); for these\nyoung housekeepers are always nervous on such points, and like to see\nthat everything is right.\n\n'Fred!' said Scrooge.\n\nDear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had\nforgotten, for the moment, about her sitting in the corner with the\nfootstool, or he wouldn't have done it on any account.\n\n'Why, bless my soul!' cried Fred, 'who's that?'\n\n[Illustration: _\"It's I, your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will\nyou let me in, Fred?\"_]\n\n'It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in,\nFred?'\n\nLet him in! It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in\nfive minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same.\nSo did Topper when _he_ came. So did the plump sister when _she_ came.\nSo did every one when _they_ came. Wonderful party, wonderful games,\nwonderful unanimity, won-der-ful happiness!\n\nBut he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was early there! If\nhe could only be there first, and catch Bob Cratchit coming late! That\nwas the thing he had set his heart upon.\n\nAnd he did it; yes, he did! The clock struck nine. No Bob. A quarter\npast. No Bob. He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time.\nScrooge sat with his door wide open, that he might see him come into the\ntank.\n\nHis hat was off before he opened the door; his comforter too. He was on\nhis stool in a jiffy, driving away with his pen, as if he were trying to\novertake nine o'clock.\n\n'Hallo!' growled Scrooge in his accustomed voice as near as he could\nfeign it. 'What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?'\n\n'I am very sorry, sir,' said Bob. 'I _am_ behind my time.'\n\n'You are!' repeated Scrooge. 'Yes, I think you are. Step this way, sir,\nif you please.'\n\n'It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing from the tank. 'It\nshall not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.'\n\n'Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge. 'I am not going to\nstand this sort of thing any longer. And therefore,' he continued,\nleaping from his stool, and giving Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that\nhe staggered back into the tank again--'and therefore I am about to\nraise your salary!'\n\nBob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary\nidea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him, and calling to the\npeople in the court for help and a strait-waistcoat.\n\n'A merry Christmas, Bob!' said Scrooge, with an earnestness that could\nnot be mistaken, as he clapped him on the back. 'A merrier Christmas,\nBob, my good fellow, than I have given you for many a year! I'll raise\nyour salary, and endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will\ndiscuss your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of\nsmoking bishop, Bob! Make up the fires and buy another coal-scuttle\nbefore you dot another i, Bob Cratchit!'\n\n[Illustration: _\"Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,\" said Scrooge. \"I\nam not going to stand this sort of thing any longer.\"_]\n\nScrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more;\nand to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as\ngood a friend, as good a master, and as good a man as the good old\nCity knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough in the good old\nworld. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them\nlaugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that\nnothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did\nnot have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as\nthese would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they\nshould wrinkle up their eyes in grins as have the malady in less\nattractive forms. His own heart laughed, and that was quite enough for\nhim.\n\nHe had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the\nTotal-Abstinence Principle ever afterwards; and it was always said of\nhim that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed\nthe knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as\nTiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!\n\n[Illustration]\n\n+---------------------------------------------------------------+\n|Transcriber's note: The Contents were added by the transcriber.|\n+---------------------------------------------------------------+\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CHRISTMAS CAROL ***\n\n\n \n\nUpdated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will\nbe renamed.\n\nCreating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright\nlaw means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works,\nso the Foundation (and you",
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