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  • a christmas carol by charles  dickens read by bob neufeld

  • preface i have endeavored in this ghostly  little book to raise the ghost of an idea  

  • which shall not put my readers out of  humor with themselves with each other  

  • with the season or with me may it haunt their  houses pleasantly and no one wished to lay it  

  • their faithful friend and servant  charles dickens december 1843

  • Stage one: marley's ghost

  • marley was dead to begin with there is no  doubt whatever about that the register of  

  • his burial was signed by the clergyman the  clerk the undertaker and the chief mourner  

  • scrooge signed it and scrooch's name was good upon  change for anything he chose to put his hand to  

  • old marley was as dead as a doornail minddon't mean to say that i know of my own knowledge  

  • what there is particularly dead about a door  nail i might have been inclined myself to  

  • regard a coffin nail as the deadest  piece of iron mongeri in the trade  

  • but the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile  and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it  

  • for the country is done for you will therefore  permit me to repeat emphatically that marley  

  • was as dead as a doornail scrooge knew he was  dead of course he did how could it be otherwise  

  • scrooge and he were partners for i don't know  how many years scrooge was his sole executor  

  • his sole administrator his soul assign his sole  residuary legacy his soul friend and soul mourner  

  • and even scrooge was not so dreadfully caught up  by the sad events but that he was an excellent  

  • man of business on the very day of the funeral  and solemnized it with an undaunted bargain the  

  • mention of marty's funeral brings me back to the  point i started from there is no doubt that marley  

  • was dead this must be distinctly understood or  nothing wonderful can come of the story i am going  

  • to relate if we were not perfectly convinced that  hamlet's father died before the play began there  

  • would be nothing more remarkable in his takingstroll at night in an easterly wind upon his own  

  • ramparts then there would be any other middle-aged  gentleman brashly turning out after dark in  

  • a breezy spot say saint paul's churchyard for  instance literally to astonish his son's weak mind  

  • scrooge never painted out old molly's name there  it stood years afterwards above the warehouse door  

  • scrooge and marley the firm was known as scrooge  and marley sometimes people new to the business  

  • called scrooge scrooge and sometimes marley but he  answered to both names it was all the same to him  

  • oh but he was a tight-fisted hand at the  grindstone scrooge a squeezing wrenching  

  • grasping scraping clutching covetous old sinner  hard and sharp as flint from which no steel had  

  • ever struck out generous fire secret and  self-contained and solitary as an oyster  

  • the cold within him froze his old features  nipped his pointed nose shriveled his cheek  

  • stiffened his gate made his eyes red his thin lips  blew and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice  

  • a frosty rhyme was on his head and on his  eyebrows and his wiery chin he carried his  

  • own low temperature always about with him he iced  his office in the dog days and didn't thaw it one  

  • degree at christmas external heat and cold had  little influence on scrooge no warmth could warm  

  • no wintry weather chilled him no wind that  blew was better than he no falling snow was  

  • more intent upon its purpose no pelting rain less  open to entreaty foul weather didn't know where to  

  • have him the heaviest rain and snow and hail and  sleet that boast of the advantage over him in only  

  • one respect they often came down handsomely  and scrooge never did nobody ever stopped him  

  • in the street to say with gladsome looks my dear  scrooge how are you when will you come to see me  

  • though beggars implored him to bestow a trifle  no children asked him what it was o'clock  

  • no man or woman ever once in all his life  inquired away to such and such a place of scrooge  

  • even the blind men's dogs appeared to  know him and when they saw him coming on  

  • would tug their owners into doorways and up courts  and then would wag their tails as though they said  

  • no i at all is better than an evil one  dark master but what did scrooge care  

  • it was the very thing he liked to edge  his way along the crowded paths of life  

  • warning all human sympathy to keep its distance  was what the knowing ones call nuts to scrooge  

  • once upon a time of all the good days in the  year on christmas eve old scrooge sat busy in  

  • his counting house there was cold bleak biting  weather foggy with all and he could hear the  

  • people in the court outside go wheezing up and  down beating their hands upon their breasts and  

  • stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to  warm them the city clocks had only just gone three  

  • but it was quite dark already it had not been  light all day and candles were flaring in the  

  • windows of the neighboring offices like  bloody smears upon the palpable brown air  

  • the fog came pouring in at every [ __ ] and  keyhole and was so dense without that although  

  • the court was of the narrowest the houses  opposite were mere phantoms to see the dingy  

  • cloud come drooping down obscuring everything  one might have thought that nature lived hard  

  • by and was brewing on a large scale the door of  scrooge's counting house was open that he might  

  • keep his eye upon his clerk who in a dismal little  cell beyond a sort of tank was copying letters  

  • scrooge had a very small fire but the clerk's  fire was so much smaller that it looked like  

  • one coal but he couldn't replenish it for  scrooge kept the coal box in his own room  

  • and so surely as the clerk came in with the  shuffle the master predicted that it would  

  • be necessary for them to part wherefore  the clerk put on his white comforter  

  • and tried to warm himself at the candle in which  efforts not being a man of a strong imagination he  

  • failed a merry christmas uncle god save you cried  a cheerful voice it was the voice of scrooge's  

  • nephew who came upon him so quickly that this  was the first intimation he had of his approach

  • said scrooge hum bug he had so heated himself  with his rapid walking in the fog and frost  

  • this nephew of screeches that he was all in a glow  his face was ruddy and handsome his eyes sparkled  

  • and his breath smoked again christmas a humbug  uncle said scrooge's nephew you don't mean that  

  • i am sure i do said scrooge merry  christmas what right have you to be married  

  • what reason have you to be married you're poor  enough oh come then return the nephew gaby  

  • what right have you to be dismal what reason have  you to be morose you're rich enough throughge  

  • having no better answer ready on the spirit of the  moment said again and followed it up with hamburg  

  • don't be cross uncle said the nephew but what  else can i be returned the uncle when i live in  

  • such a world of fools as this merry christmas out  upon merry christmas what's christmas time to you  

  • but a time for paying bills without money  a time for finding yourself a year older  

  • but not an hour richer a time for balancing your  books and having every item in them through a  

  • round dozen of once presented dead against you  if i could work my will said scrooge indignantly  

  • every idiot who goes about with merry christmas  on his lips should be boiled with his own  

  • pudding and buried with a steak of honey through  his heart he should uncle pleaded the nephew  

  • nephew returned the uncle sternly keep christmas  in your own way and let me keep it in mind  

  • keep it repeated scrooge's nephew but you don't  keep it let me leave it alone then said scrooge  

  • much good man do you much good has it ever done  you there are many things from which i might have  

  • derived good by which i have not profiteddaresay returned the nephew christmas among  

  • the rest but i am sure i have always thought of  christmas time when it has come round apart from  

  • the veneration due its sacred name and origin if  anything belonging to it can be apart from that  

  • as a good time a kind forgiving charitable  pleasant time the only time i know of in the  

  • long calendar of the year when men and women seem  by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely  

  • and to think of people below them as if they  really were fellow passengers to the grave  

  • and not another race of creatures bound on other  journeys and therefore uncle though it has never  

  • put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocketbelieve that it has done me good and will do  

  • me good and i say god bless it the clerk in the  tank involuntarily applauded becoming immediately  

  • sensible of the impropriety he poked the fire  and distinguished the last frail spark forever

  • let me hear another sound from you said  scrooge and you'll keep your christmas  

  • by losing your situation you're quitepowerful speaker sir we added turning to  

  • his nephew i wonder you don't go into parliament  don't be angry uncle come dine with us tomorrow  

  • scrooge said that he would see him yes indeed he  did he went the whole length of the expression  

  • and said that he would see him in that  extremity first but why cried scrooge's nephew  

  • why why did you get married said scrooge  because i fell in love because you fell in love  

  • growled scrooge as if that were the only one  thing in the world more ridiculous than a  

  • merry christmas good afternoon may uncle but  you never came to see me before that happened  

  • why give it as a reason for not coming now good  afternoon said scrooge i want nothing from you  

  • i ask nothing of you why cannot we be friends  good afternoon said scrooge i am sorry with all  

  • my heart to find you so resolute we have never  had any quarrel to which i have been a party  

  • but i have made the trial in homage to christmas  and i'll keep my christmas humor to the last so a  

  • merry christmas uncle good afternoon said scrooge  and a happy new year good afternoon said scrooge  

  • his nephew left the room without an angry word  notwithstanding he stopped at the outer door to  

  • bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk  who cold as he was was warmer than scrooge for  

  • he returned them cordially there's another fellow  muttered scrooge who overheard him my clerk with  

  • 15 shillings a week and a wife and family talking  about a merry christmas i'll retire to bedlam

  • this lunatic and letting scrooge's nephew out  had let two other people in they were partly  

  • gentlemen pleasant to behold and now stood  with their hats off in scrooge's office  

  • they had books and papers in their hands and  bowed to him scrooge and maris i believe said  

  • one of the gentlemen referring to his list havethe pleasure of addressing mr scrooge or mr marley  

  • mr marley has been dead these seven years  scrooge replied he died seven years ago  

  • this very night we have no doubt his liberality is  well represented by his surviving partner said the  

  • gentleman presenting his credentials it certainly  was for they had been two kindred spirits at the  

  • ominous word liberality scrooge frowned and  shook his head and handed the credentials back  

  • at this festive season of the year mr scrooge  said the gentleman taking up a pen it is more than  

  • usually desirable that we should make some  slight provision for the poor and destitute  

  • who suffer greatly at the present time many  thousands are in want of common necessaries  

  • hundreds of thousands are in want of common  comforts sir are there no prisons asked scrooge  

  • oh plenty of prisons said the gentleman laying  down the pen again and the union work houses  

  • demanded scrooge are they still in operation  they are still returned the gentleman  

  • i wish i could say they were not the treadmill  and the poor law are in full vigor then  

  • said scrooge both very busy sir ah i was afraid  from what you said at first but something  

  • had occurred to stop them in their useful  course said scrooge i'm very glad to hear it  

  • under the impression that they scarcely furnish  christian chair of mind or body to the multitude  

  • return the gentleman a few of us are endeavoring  to raise a fund to buy the poor some meat and  

  • drink and means of warmth we choose this time  because it is a time of all others when want  

  • is keenly felt and abundance rejoices  what shall we put you down for nothing  

  • scrooge replied ah you wish to remain anonymouswish to be left alone said scrooge since you ask  

  • me what i wish gentlemen that is my answer i don't  make marry myself for christmas and i can't afford  

  • to make idle people marry i help to support the  establishments i have mentioned they cost enough  

  • and those who are badly off must go there oh  many can't go there and many would rather die  

  • oh if they would rather die said scrooge they had  better do it and decrease the surplus population  

  • besides excuse me i don't know that but  you might know it observe the gentleman  

  • it's not my business scrooge returned it's  enough for a man to understand his own business  

  • and not to interfere with other peoples mine  occupies me constantly good afternoon gentlemen  

  • seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue  their point the gentleman withdrew scrooge resumed  

  • his labors with an improved opinion of himself and  in a more facetious temper than was usual with him

  • meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened  so that people ran about with flaring links  

  • proffering their services to go before horses  in carriages and conduct them on their way the  

  • ancient tower of a church whose gruff old bell  was always peeping slyly down at scrooge out  

  • of a gothic window in the wall became invisible  and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds  

  • with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its  teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there  

  • the cold became intense in the main street at the  corner of the court some laborers were repairing  

  • the gas pipes and had lighted a great fire inbrazier around which a party of ragged men and  

  • boys were gathered warming their hands and winking  their eyes before the blaze in rapture the water  

  • plug being left in solitude its overflowings  solidly congealed and turned to misanthropic ice  

  • the brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and  berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows  

  • made pale faces ruddy as they passed  poulterers and grocers trades became a splendid  

  • joke a glorious pageant with which it was next to  impossible to believe that such dull principles as  

  • bargain and sale had anything to do the lord mayor  in the stronghold of the mighty mansion house  

  • gave orders to his 50 cooks and butlers to keep  christmas as a lord mayor's household should  

  • and even the little taylor whom he had fined  five shillings on the previous monday for being  

  • drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets stirred  up tomorrow's pudding and his garrett while his  

  • lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef  foggier yet and colder piercing searching biting  

  • cold if the good saint dunstan had but nipped the  evil spirit's nose with a touch of such weather as  

  • that instead of using his familiar weapons then  indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose  

  • the owner of one scant young nose gnawed  and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones  

  • are nod by dogs stooped down at scrooge's  keyhole to regale him with a christmas carol  

  • but at the first sound of god bless you  mary gentlemen may nothing you dismay  

  • seized the ruler with such energy of action that  the singer fled in terror leaving the keyhole  

  • to the fog an even more congenial frost at length  the hour of shutting up the counting house arrived  

  • with an ill will scrooge dismounted from his  stool and tacitly admitted the fact to the  

  • expectant clerk in the tank who instantly  snuffed his candle out and put on his hat  

  • you'll want all day tomorrow i suppose  said scrooge if quite convenient sir  

  • it's not convenient said scrooge and it's not fair  if i was to stop half a crown for it you'd think  

  • yourself ill used i'll be bound the clerk smiled  faintly and yet said scrooge you don't think me  

  • ill used when i pay a day's wages for no work  the clerk observed that it was only once a year  

  • a poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every  25th of december said scrooge buttoning his great  

  • coat to the chin but i suppose you must have the  whole day be here all the earlier next morning  

  • the clerk promised that he would and scrooge  walked out with a growl the office was closed  

  • in a twinkling and the clerk with the long ends  of his white comforter dangling below his waist  

  • for he boasted no great coat went down a slide on  cornhill at the end of a lane of boys 20 times in  

  • honor of its being christmas eve and then ran  home to camden town as hard as he could pelt  

  • to play at blind man's buff scrooge took his  melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern  

  • and having read all the newspapers and beguiled  the rest of the evening with his banker's book  

  • went home to bed he lived in chambers which  had once belonged to his deceased partner  

  • they were a gloomy suite of rooms in a lowering  pile of building up a yard where it had so little  

  • business to be that one could scarcely help  fancying it must have run there when it was  

  • a young house playing it hide and seek with  other houses and forgotten the way out again  

  • it was old enough now and dreary enough but  nobody lived in it but scrooge the other rooms  

  • being all let out as offices the yard was so dark  that even scrooge who knew his every stone was  

  • feigned to grope with his hands the fog and frost  so hung about the black old gateway of the house  

  • that it seemed as if the genius of the weather  started mournful meditation on the threshold  

  • now it is a fact that there was nothing at  all particular about the knocker on the door  

  • except that it was very large it was alsofact that scrooge had seen it night and morning  

  • during his whole residence in that place also  that scrooge had as little of what is called fancy  

  • about him as any man in the city of london even  including which is a bold word the corporation  

  • alderman and livery that had also been bored  in mind that scrooge had not bestowed one  

  • thought on marley since his last mention of  his seven years dead partner that afternoon  

  • and then let any man explain to me if he can how  it happened that scrooge having his key in the  

  • lock of the door saw in the knocker without its  undergoing any intermediate process of change  

  • not a knocker but marley's face marley's face  it was not in impenetrable shadow as the other  

  • objects of the yard were but had a dismal light  about it like a bad lobster in a dark cellar  

  • it was not angry or ferocious but  looked at scrooge as marley used to look  

  • with ghostly spectacles turned up on his ghostly  forehead the hair was curiously stirred as if by  

  • breath or hot air and though the eyes were wide  open they were perfectly motionless that and its  

  • livid color made it horrible but its horror seemed  to be in spite of the face and beyond its control  

  • rather than a part of its own expression as  scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon  

  • it was a knocker again to say that he was not  startled or that his blood was not conscious  

  • of a terrible sensation to which it had beenstranger from infancy would be untrue but he put  

  • his hand upon the key he had relinquished turned  it sturdily walked in and lighted his candle

  • he did pause with a moment's ear resolution  before he shut the door and he did look cautiously  

  • behind it first as if he half expected to  be terrified with the sight of marley's pig  

  • dale sticking out into the hall but there  was nothing on the back of the door except  

  • the screws and nuts that held the knocker on  so he said poo poo and close it with a bang  

  • the sound resounded through the house like  thunder every room above and every cask in  

  • the wine merchant cellars below appeared to  have a separate peel of echoes of its own  

  • scrooge was not a man to be frightened  by echoes he fastened the door and  

  • walked across the hall and up the stairs  slowly too trimming his candle as he went  

  • you may talk vaguely about driving a coach and  six up a good old flight of stairs or through a  

  • bad young act of parliament but i mean to say  you might have got a hearse up that staircase  

  • and taken it broadwise with a splinter bar towards  the wall and the door towards the balustrades  

  • and done it easy there was plenty of width for  that and room to spare which is perhaps the reason  

  • why scrooge thought he saw a locomotive  hearse going on before him in the gloom  

  • half a dozen gas lamps out of the street  wouldn't have lighted the entry too well  

  • so you may suppose that it was pretty  dark with scrooge's dip up scrooge went  

  • not carrying a button for that darkness is cheap  and scrooge liked it but before he shut his heavy  

  • door he walked through his rooms to see that  all was right he had just enough recollection  

  • of the face to desire to do that sitting room  bedroom lumber room small as they should be  

  • nobody under the table nobody under the sofasmall fire in the grate spoon and basin ready  

  • and the little saucepan of gruel scrooge hadcoal in his head upon the hob nobody under the bed  

  • nobody in the closet nobody in his dressing gown  which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude  

  • against the wall lumber room as usual old fire  guard old shoes two fish baskets washing stand on  

  • three legs and a poker quite satisfied he closed  his door and locked himself in double locked  

  • himself in which was not his custom thus secured  against surprise he took off his cravat put on  

  • his dressing gown and slippers and his night cap  and sat down before the fire to take his gruel  

  • it was a very low fire in dean nothing on suchbitter night he was obliged to sit close to it and  

  • brood over it before he could extract the least  sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel  

  • the fireplace was an old one built by some dutch  merchant long ago and paved all round with quaint  

  • dutch tiles designed to illustrate the scriptures  there were cain's and abel's pharaoh's daughters  

  • queens of sheba angelic messengers descending  through the air on clouds like feather beds  

  • abrahams belshazzars apostles pulling off to sea  and butter boats hundreds of figures to attract  

  • his thoughts and yet that face of marley seven  years dead came like the ancient prophet's rod  

  • and swallowed up the hole if each smooth tile  had been a blank at first with power to shape  

  • some picture on its surface from the disjointed  fragments of his thoughts there would have been  

  • a copy of old marley's head on everyone hum  bug said scrooge and walked across the room  

  • after several turns he sat down again as he threw  his head back in the chair his glance happened to  

  • rest upon a bell a disused bell that hung in  the room and communicated for some purpose now  

  • forgotten with a chamber in the highest story  of the building it was with great astonishment  

  • and with a strange inexplicable dread that  as he looked he saw this bell begin to swing  

  • it swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely  made a sound but soon it rang out loudly and so  

  • did every bell in the house this might have lasted  half a minute or a minute but it seemed an hour  

  • the bells ceased as they had begun together  they were succeeded by a clanking noise deep  

  • down below as if some person were dragging a heavy  chain over the casks in the wine merchant cellar  

  • scrooge then remembered to have heard that  ghosts in haunted houses were described as  

  • dragging chains the cellar door flew open with  a booming sound and then he heard the noise much  

  • louder on the floors below then coming up the  stairs then coming straight towards his door  

  • it's hamburg still said scrooge i won't believe  it his color changed though when without a pause  

  • it came on through the heavy door and  passed into the room before his eyes  

  • upon its coming in the dying flame leaped up as  though it cried i know him marley's ghost and  

  • fell again the same face the very same marley in  his pigtail usual waistcoats tights and boots the  

  • tassels on the ladder bristling like his pigtail  in his coat skirts and the hair upon his head  

  • the chain he drew was clasped about his middle  it was long and wound about him like a tail  

  • and it was made for scrooge observed it  closely of cash boxes keys padlocks ledgers  

  • deeds and heavy purses rotten steel his  body was transparent so that scrooge  

  • observing him and looking through his waistcoat  could see the two buttons on his coat behind  

  • scrooge had often heard it said that marley had  no bowels but he had never believed it until now  

  • no nor did he believe it even now though  he looked the phantom through and through  

  • and saw it standing before him though he felt  the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes  

  • and marked the very texture of the folded  kerchief bound about its head and chin  

  • which rapper he had not observed before he was  still incredulous and fought against his senses  

  • oh no said scrooge caustic and cold  as ever but what do you want with me  

  • marge marley's voice no doubt about  it who are you ask me who i was  

  • who were you then said scrooge raising  his voice you're particular for a shade  

  • he was going to say to a shade but substituted  this as more appropriate in life i was your  

  • partner jacob marley can you can you sit  down ask scrooge looking doubtfully at him  

  • i can will do it then scrooge asked the question  because he didn't know whether a ghost so  

  • transparent might find himself in the condition  to take a chair and felt that in the event of  

  • its being impossible it might involve the  necessity of an embarrassing explanation  

  • but the ghost sat down on the opposite side of  the fireplace as if he were quite used to it  

  • you don't believe in me observe the ghostdon't said scrooge what evidence would you have  

  • of my reality beyond that of your senses i don't  know said scrooge why do you doubt your senses  

  • because said scrooge a little thing affects them  a slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats  

  • you may be an undigested bit of beef  a blot of mustard a crumb of cheese  

  • a fragment of an underdone potato there's more  of gravy than a grave about you whatever you are  

  • scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking  jokes nor did he feel in his heart by any means  

  • waggish then the truth is that he tried to be  smart as a means of distracting his own attention  

  • and keeping down his terror for the  spectre's voice disturbed the very  

  • marrow in his bones to sit staring at those  fixed glazed eyes in silence for a moment  

  • would play scrooge felt the very deuce with him  there was something very awful too in the specters  

  • being provided with an infernal atmosphere  of its own scrooge could not feel it himself  

  • but this was clearly the case for though  the ghost sat perfectly motionless  

  • its hair and skirts and tassels were still  agitated as by the hot vapor from an oven  

  • you see this toothpick said scrooge returning  quickly to the charge but the reason just assigned  

  • and wishing though it were only for a second  to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself  

  • i do replied the ghost you are not looking at  it said scrooge but i see it said the ghost  

  • notwithstanding well returned scrooge i have  but to swallow this and be for the rest of  

  • my days persecuted by a legion of goblins all  of my own creation hamburg i tell you hamburg  

  • at this the spirit raised a frightful cry  and shook its chain with such a dismal and  

  • appalling noise that scrooge held on tight to  his chair to save himself from falling in a spoon  

  • but how much greater was his horror when the  phantom taking off the bandage round its head  

  • as if it were too warm to wear indoors  its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast  

  • scrooge fell upon his knees and clasped his hands  before his face mercy he said dreadful apparition  

  • why do you trouble me man of the worldly mind  replied because do you believe in me or not i do  

  • said scrooge i must but why do spirits walk the  earth and why do they come to me it is required  

  • of every man the ghost returned that the spirit  within him should walk abroad among his fellow men  

  • and travel far and wide and if  that spirit goes not forth in life  

  • it is condemned to do so after death it  is doomed to wander through the world  

  • ah woe is me and witness what it cannot share but  might have shed on earth and turned to happiness  

  • again the spectre raised a cry and shook  its chain and wrung its shadowy hands  

  • you are fettered said scrooge trembling tell  me why i wear the chain i forged in life  

  • replied the ghost i made it blink by link and  yard by god i girded it on of my own free will  

  • but of my own free will i wore it is its pattern  strange do you scrooge trembled more and more or  

  • would you know pursue the ghost the weight and  length of the strong coil you bear yourself  

  • it was full as heavy and long as this seven  christmas eves ago you have labored on it  

  • since it is a ponderous chain scrooge glanced  about him on the floor in the expectation  

  • of finding himself surrounded by some 50 or 60  fathoms of iron cable but he could see nothing  

  • jacob he said implore me oh jacob marley  tell me more speak comfort to me jacob  

  • i have none to give the ghost replied it  comes from other regions of a nation's crude  

  • and is conveyed by other ministers to other  kinds of men nor can i tell you what i would  

  • a very little more is permitted to me i cannot  rest i cannot stay i cannot linger anywhere  

  • my spirit never walked beyond our counting house  mark me in life my spirit never roved beyond the  

  • narrow limits of our money-changing whole and  weary journeys lie before me it was a habit with  

  • scrooge whenever he became thoughtful to put his  hands in his breach's pockets pondering on what  

  • the ghost had said he did so now but without  lifting up his eyes or getting off his knees  

  • you must have been very slow about it jacob  scrooge observed in a business-like manner  

  • though with humility and deference slow the  ghost repeated seven years dead mused scrooge  

  • and traveling all the time the whole time said  the ghost no rest no peace incessant torture  

  • of remorse he traveled fast said scrooge on  the wings of the wind replied the ghost you  

  • might have got over a great quantity of ground in  seven years said scrooge the ghost on hearing this  

  • set up another cry and clanked its chain so  hideously in the dead silence of the night that  

  • the ward would have been justified in indicting it  for a nuisance oh captain bound and double ironed  

  • cried the phantom not to know that ages  of incessant labor by immortal creatures  

  • for this earth must pass into eternity for the  good of which it is susceptible is all developed  

  • not to know that any christian spirit working  kindly in its little sphere whatever it may be  

  • will find its mortal life too short for its  vast means of usefulness not to know that no  

  • space of regret can make amends for one life's  opportunity misused yet such was i oh such was i

  • but you were always a good man of business  jacob faltered scrooge who now began to  

  • apply this to himself business cried the ghost  ringing his hands again mankind was my business  

  • the common welfare was my business charity mercy  forbearance and benevolence were all my business  

  • the dealings of my trade were about a drop of  water in the comprehensive ocean of my business it  

  • held up its chain at arm's length as if that were  the cause of all its unavailing grief and flung  

  • it heavily upon the ground again at this time of  the rolling year the specter said i suffer most  

  • why did i walk through the crowds of  fellow beings with my eyes turned down  

  • and never raised them to that blessed star  which led the wise men to a poor abode  

  • were there no poor homes to which  its light would have conducted me  

  • scrooge was very dismayed to hear the specter go  on at this rate and began to quake exceedingly  

  • hear me cried the ghost my time is  nearly gone i i will said scrooge but  

  • don't be hard upon me don't be flowery jacob  pray how it is that i appear before you in a  

  • shape that you can see i may not tell i have  sat invisible beside you many and many a day  

  • it was not an agreeable idea scrooge shivered  and wiped the perspiration from his brow  

  • that is no light part of my penance pursued the  ghost i am here tonight to warn you that you  

  • have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate  a trance and hope of my procuring ebenezer you  

  • were always a good friend to me said scrooge thank  you you will be haunted resume the ghost by three  

  • spirits scrooge's countenance fell almost as low  as the ghosts had done is that the chance and hope  

  • you mentioned jacob it demanded in a faltering  voice it is i i think i'd rather not said scrooge  

  • without their visits said the ghost you  cannot hope to shun the path i tread  

  • expect the first tomorrow when the bell tolls  one couldn't i take them all at once and have  

  • it over jacob hinted scrooge expect the  second on the next night at the same hour  

  • the third upon the next night when the  last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate  

  • look to see me no more and look that for your own  sake you'll remember what has passed between us  

  • when it had said these words the  specter took its wrapper from the table  

  • and bound it round its head as before scrooge  knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when  

  • the jaws were brought together by the bandage he  ventured to raise his eyes again and found his  

  • supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect  attitude with its chain wound over and about  

  • its arm the apparition walked backward from him  and at every step it took the window raised itself  

  • a little so that when the spectre reached it it  was wide open it beckoned scrooge to approach  

  • which he did when they were within two paces  of each other marley's ghost held up its hand  

  • warning him to come no nearer scrooge stopped  not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear  

  • for on the raising of the hand he became sensible  of confused noises in the air incoherent sounds of  

  • lamentation and regret wailing inexpressibly  sorrowful and self-accusatory the spectre  

  • after listening for a moment joined in the  mournful dirge and floated out upon the bleak  

  • dark night scrooge followed to the window  desperate in his curiosity he looked out  

  • the air was filled with phantoms wandering heather  and thither in restless haste and moaning as they  

  • went every one of them wore chains like marley's  ghost some few they might be guilty governments  

  • were linked together none were free many had  been personally known to scrooge in their lives  

  • he had been quite familiar with one old ghost  in a white waistcoat with a monstrous iron safe  

  • attached to his ankle who cried piteously at being  unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant  

  • whom it saw below upon a doorstep  the misery with them all was clearly  

  • that they sought to interfere for good in  human matters and had lost the power forever  

  • whether these creatures faded into mist or missed  and shrouded them he could not tell but they  

  • and their spirit voices faded together and the  night became as it had been when he walked home

  • closed the window and examined the  door by which the ghost had entered  

  • it was double locked as he had  locked it with his own hands  

  • and the bolts were undisturbed he tried to  say hambug but stops at the first syllable  

  • and being from the emotion he had undergone  or the fatigues of the day or his glimpse of  

  • the invisible world or the dull conversation of  the ghost or the lateness of the hour much need  

  • of repose went straight to bed without undressing  and fell asleep upon the instant end of stave one

  • stave two of a christmas carol the first of the  three spirits it was scrooge awoke it was so dark  

  • that looking out of bed he could scarcely  distinguish the transparent window from the  

  • opaque walls of his chamber he was endeavoring  to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes  

  • when the chimes of a neighboring church struck  the four quarters so he listened for the hour  

  • to his great astonishment the heavy bell went  on from six to seven and from seven to eight  

  • and regularly up to twelve then stopped twelve  it was past two when he went to bed the clock  

  • was wrong an icicle must have got into the  works twelve he touched the spring of his  

  • repeater to correct this most preposterous  clock its rapid little pulse beat twelve  

  • and stopped why it isn't possible said scrooge  that i can have slept through a whole day and far  

  • into another night it isn't possible that anything  has happened to the sun and this is 12 at noon  

  • the idea being an alarming one he scrambled  out of bed and groped his way to the window  

  • he was obliged to rub the frost off with the  sleeve of his dressing gown before he could  

  • see anything and could see very little then  all he could make out was that it was still  

  • very foggy and extremely cold and that there  was no noise of people running to and fro  

  • and making a great stir as there unquestionably  wouldn't have been if knight had beaten off bright  

  • day and taken possession of the world this wasgreat relief because three days after sight of the  

  • first of exchange paid to mr ebenezer scrooge  or his order and so forth would have become a  

  • mere united states security if there were no days  to count by scrooge went to bed again and thought  

  • ben thought and thought it over and over and over  and could make nothing of it the more he thought  

  • the more perplexed he was and the more he  endeavoured not to think the more he thought

  • marley's ghost bothered him exceedingly every time  he resolved within himself after mature inquiry  

  • that it was all a dream his mind flew back  again like a strong string released to its  

  • first position and presented the same problem  to be worked all through was it a dream or not  

  • crucially in this state until the  chime had gone three quarters more  

  • when he remembered on a sudden that the ghost had  warned him of a visitation when the bell told one  

  • he resolved to lie awake until the hour  was passed and considering that he could no  

  • more go to sleep than go to heaven this was  perhaps the wisest resolution in his power  

  • the quarter was so long that he was more  than once convinced he must have sunk into  

  • a doze unconsciously and missed the clock  at length it broke upon his listening ear  

  • ding dong a quarter past said scrooge counting  ding dong half past said scrooge ding dong  

  • a quarter to it said scrooge ding dong the hour  itself said scrooge triumphantly and nothing else  

  • he spoke before the our bell sounded which  it now did with a deep dull hollow melancholy  

  • one light flashed up in the room upon the  instant and the curtains of his bed were drawn  

  • the curtains of his bed were drawn asidetell you by a hand not the curtains at his feet  

  • nor the curtains at his back but those to  which his face was addressed the curtains  

  • of his bed were drawn aside and scrooge starting  up into a half-recumbent attitude found himself  

  • face to face with the unearthly visitor who  drew them as close to it as i am now to you  

  • and i am standing in the spirit at your  elbow it was a strange figure like a  

  • child yet not so like a child as like an old man  viewed through some supernatural medium which  

  • gave him the appearance of having receded from the  view and being diminished to a child's proportions  

  • its hair which hung about its neck and down its  back was white as if with age and yet the face had  

  • not a wrinkle in it and the tenderest bloom was  on the skin the arms were very long and muscular  

  • the hands the same as if its hold were of uncommon  strength its legs and feet most delicately formed  

  • were like those upper members bare it wore a tunic  of the purest white and round its waist was bound  

  • a lustrous belt the sheen of which was beautiful  it held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand  

  • and in singular contradiction of that wintry  emblem had its dress trimmed with summer flowers  

  • but the strangest thing about it was that from  the crown of its head there sprang a bright clear  

  • jet of light by which all this was visible and  which was doubtless the occasion of its using  

  • in its duller moments a great extinguisher  for a cap which had now held under its arm  

  • even this though when scrooge looked at it with  increasing steadiness was not its strangest  

  • quality for as its belt sparkled and glittered now  in one part and now in another and what was light  

  • one instant another time was dark so the  figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness  

  • being now a thing with one  arm well now with one leg  

  • now with twenty legs now a pair of legs without  a head now a head without a body of which  

  • dissolving parts no outline would be visible  in the dense gloom wherein they melted away  

  • and in the very wonder of this it would  be itself again distinct and clear as ever

  • are you the spirit sir whose coming was foretold  to me asked scrooge i am the voice was soft and  

  • gentle singularly low as if instead of being  so close beside him they were at a distance  

  • who and what are you scrooge demanded  i am the ghost of christmas past  

  • long past inquired scrooge observant  of its dwarfish stature no your past  

  • perhaps scrooge could not have told anybody why if  anybody could have asked him but he had a special  

  • desire to see the spirit in his cap and begged  him to be covered what exclaimed the ghost would  

  • you so soon put out with worldly hands the light  i give is it not enough that you are one of those  

  • whose passions made this cap and force me through  whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow  

  • scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention  to offend or any knowledge of having willfully  

  • bonneted the spirit at any period of his life  he then made bold to inquire what business  

  • brought him there your welfare said the ghost  scrooge expressed himself much obliged but could  

  • not help thinking that a night of unbroken  rest would have been more conducive to that  

  • end the spirit must have heard him thinking for it  said immediately your reclamation then take heed  

  • it put out its strong hand as it spoke and clasped  him gently by the arm rise and walk with me  

  • it wouldn't have been in vain for scrooge to  plead that the weather and the hour were not  

  • adapted to pedestrian purposes that bed was warm  and the thermometer a long way below freezing  

  • that he was clad but lightly in his slippers  dressing gown and nightcap and that he had a  

  • cold upon him at the time the grasp though gentle  as a woman's hand was not to be resisted he  

  • rose but finding that the spirit made towards  the window clasped his robe in supplication  

  • i am a mortal scrooge remonstrated and liable  to fall bear but a touch of my hand there  

  • said the spirit laying it upon his heart  and you shall be upheld in more than this  

  • as the words were spoken they passed through  the wall and stood upon an open country road  

  • with fields on either hand the city had entirely  vanished not a vestige of it was to be seen  

  • the darkness and the mist had vanished with it for  it was a clear cold winter day with snow upon the  

  • ground good heaven said scrooge clasping  his hands together as he looked about him  

  • i was bred in this place i was a boy  here the spirit gazed upon him mildly  

  • its gentle touch though it had been light and  instantaneous appeared still present to the old  

  • man's sense of feeling he was conscious  of a thousand odors floating in the air  

  • each one connected with a thousand thoughts and  hopes and joys and cares long long forgotten  

  • your lip is trembling said the ghost and what  is that upon your cheek scrooge muttered with an  

  • unusual catching in his voice that it was a pimple  and begged the ghost to lead him where he would  

  • you recollect the way inquired the spirit  remember it cried scrooge with fervor i could  

  • walk it blindfold strange to have forgotten it  for so many years observe the ghost let us go on

  • they walked along the road scrooge recognizing  every gate and post and tree until a little  

  • market town appeared in the distance with its  bridge its church and winding river some shaggy  

  • ponies now were seen trotting towards them with  boys upon their backs who called to other boys  

  • in country gigs and carts driven by farmers all  these boys were in great spirits and shouted to  

  • each other until the broad fields were so full of  merry music that the crisp air laughed to hear it  

  • these are but shadows of the things that have been  said the ghost they have no consciousness of us  

  • the jarkan travelers came on and as they  came scrooge knew and named them everyone  

  • why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them  why did his cold eye glisten and his heart leap  

  • up as they went past why was he filled  with gladness when he heard them give  

  • each other merry christmas as they parted at  crossroads and byways for their several homes  

  • what was merry christmas to scrooge out upon  merry christmas what good had it ever done to him

  • the school is not quite deserted  

  • said the ghost a solitary child neglected  by his friends is left there still  

  • scrooge said he knew it and he saw they left  the high road by a well-remembered lane and  

  • soon approached a mansion of dull red brick with  a little weather cocksurmounted cupola on the roof  

  • and a bell hanging in it it was a large house but  one of broken fortunes for the spacious officers  

  • were little used their walls were damp and mossy  their windows broken and their gates decayed fouls  

  • clucked and strutted in the stables and the  coach houses and sheds were overrun with grass  

  • nor was it more retentive of its ancient states  within for entering the dreary hall and glancing  

  • through the open doors of many rooms they found  them poorly furnished cold and vast there was  

  • an earthly saber in the air a chilly bareness  in the place which associated itself somehow  

  • with too much getting up by candlelight but not  too much to eat they went the ghost and scrooge  

  • across the hall to a door at the back of the  house it opened before them and disclosed a long  

  • bare melancholy room made bearer still  by lines of plain deal forms and desks  

  • at one of these a lonely boy was reading nearfeeble fire and scrooge sat down upon a form and  

  • wept to see his poor forgotten self as he  used to be not a latent echo in the house  

  • not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind  the paneling not a drip from the half thawed  

  • water spout in the dull yard behind not a sigh  among the leafless vows of one despondent poplar  

  • not of the idle swinging of an empty storehouse  door no not a clicking in the fire but  

  • fell upon the heart of scrooge with a softening  influence gave it a freer passage to his tears  

  • the spirit touched him on his arm and pointed to  his younger self intent upon his reading suddenly  

  • a man in foreign garments wonderfully real  and distinct to look at stood outside the  

  • window with an axe stuck in his belt and  leading by the bridle and ass laden with wood  

  • why it's alibaba scrooge exclaimed ecstasy  it's their old honest alibaba yes yes i  

  • know oh one christmas time when yonder solitary  child was left here all alone he did come for  

  • the first time just like that poor boy and  valentine said scrooge and his wild brother orson  

  • there they go and what's his name who was put  down in his drawers asleep at the gate of damascus  

  • don't you see him and the sultan's groom turned  upside down by the genie oh there he is upon his  

  • head serve him right the i'm glad of it what  business had he to be married to the princess  

  • to hear scrooge expending all the earnestness of  his nature on such objects in a most extraordinary  

  • voice between laughing and crying and to see  his heightened and excited face would have been  

  • a surprise to his business friends in the city  indeed oh there's the parrot cried scrooge green  

  • body and yellow tail with a thing like a lettuce  growing out of the top of his head oh there he  

  • is poor robin crusoe he called him when he came  home again after sailing round the island poor  

  • robin crusoe where have you been robin cruzo the  man thought he was dreaming but he wasn't it was  

  • the parrot you know oh there goes friday running  for his life to the little creek hello hope hello

  • then with a rapidity of transition very foreign  to his usual character he said in pity for his  

  • former self poor boy and cried againwish scrooge muttered putting his hand in  

  • his pocket and looking about him after drying  his eyes with his cuff but it's too late now  

  • what is the matter ask the spirit nothing  said scrooge nothing there was a boy singing  

  • a christmas carol at my door last night  i should like to have given him something  

  • that's all the ghost smiled thoughtfully  and waved his hand saying it as he did so  

  • let us see another christmas scrooge's  former self grew larger at the words  

  • and the room became a little darker and more  dirty the panels shrunk the windows cracked  

  • fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling  and the naked lads were shown instead but how  

  • all this was brought about scrooge knew no more  than you do he only knew that it was quite correct  

  • that everything had happened so that there he was  alone again when all the other boys had gone home  

  • for the jolly holidays he was not reading now  but walking up and down despairingly scrooge  

  • looked at the ghost and with a mournful shaking  of his head glanced anxiously towards the door  

  • it opened and a little girl much younger than  the boy came darting in and putting her arms  

  • about his neck and often kissing him addressed him  as her dear dear brother i have come to bring you  

  • home dear brother said the child clapping her tiny  hands and bending down to laugh to bring you home  

  • home home home little fan returned the boy yes  said the child a brim full of glee home for good  

  • and all home forever and ever father is so much  kinder than he used to be that homes like heaven  

  • he spoke so gently to me one dear night whenwas going to bed that i was not afraid to ask  

  • him once more if you might come home and he said  yes you should and sent me in a coach to bring you  

  • and you're to be a man said the child opening  her eyes and are never to come back here  

  • but first we're to be together all the christmas  long and have the merriest time in all the world  

  • you are quite a woman little fan exclaimed the  boy she clapped her hands and laughed and tried to  

  • touch his head but being too little laughed again  and stood on tiptoe to embrace him then she began  

  • to drag him in her childish eagerness towards the  door and he nothing lost to go accompanied her  

  • a terrible voice in the hall cried bring  down master scrooge's box there and in the  

  • hall appeared the school master himself who glared  on master scrooge with a ferocious condescension  

  • and threw him into a dreadful state of mind  by shaking hands with him he then conveyed him  

  • and his sister into the various old well of  a shivering best partner that ever was seen  

  • for the maps upon the wall and the celestial and  terrestrial globes in the windows were waxy with  

  • cold here he produced a decanter of curiously  light wine and a block of curiously heavy cake  

  • and administered installments of these deities  to the young people at the same time sending out  

  • a meager servant to offer a glass of something  to the post-boy who answered that he thanked  

  • the gentleman but if it was the same tap as he had  tasted before he would rather not master scrooge's  

  • trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the  shells the children bad the schoolmaster goodbye  

  • right willingly and getting into it drove gaily  down the garden sweep the quick wheels dashing  

  • the whole frost and snow from off the dark  leaves of the evergreens like spray always  

  • a delicate creature whom a breath might have  withered said the ghost but she had a large heart  

  • so she had cried scrooge you're right i will not  gain saiyan spirit god forbid she died a woman  

  • said the ghost and had as i think children  one child scrooge returned true said the ghost  

  • your nephew scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind  and answered briefly yes although they had but  

  • that moment left the school behind them they were  now in the busy thoroughfares of a city where  

  • shadowy passengers passed and re-passed where  shadowy carts and coaches battled for their way  

  • and all the strife and tumult of a real city were  it was made plain enough by the dressing of the  

  • shops that here too it was christmas time again  but it was evening and the streets were lighted up  

  • the ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door  

  • and asked scrooge if he knew it know  it said scrooge was i apprenticed here  

  • they went in at sight of an old gentleman in  a welsh wig sitting behind such a high desk  

  • that if he had been two inches taller he must have  knocked his head against the ceiling scrooge cried  

  • in great excitement why it's old fazzy wig bless  his heart it's fuzzywig alive again old fezziwig  

  • laid down his pen and looked up at the clock which  pointed to the hour of seven he rubbed his hands  

  • adjusted his capacious waistcoat laughed all over  himself from his shoes to his organ of benevolence  

  • and called out in a comfortable oily rich  fat jovial voice yoho there ebenezer dick  

  • scrooge's former self now grown a young man came  briskly in accompanied by his fellow prentice  

  • dick wilkins to be sure said scrooge  to the ghost bless me yes there he is  

  • he was very much attached to me was dick poor  dick dear dear yoho my boys said fuzzy wig  

  • no more work tonight christmas eve dick  christmas ebenezer let's have the shutters up  

  • cried old fezziwig with a sharp clap of his  hands before a man can say jack robinson  

  • you wouldn't believe how these two fellows went at  it they charged into the street with the shutters  

  • one two three had them up in their places four  five six barred them and pinned them seven eight  

  • nine and came back before you could  have got to 12 panting-like racehorses  

  • cried old fezziwick skipping down from  the high desk with wonderful agility  

  • clear away my lads and let's have a lots of  room here hi ellie ho dick cheer up ebenezer  

  • clear away there was nothing they wouldn't  have cleared away or couldn't have cleared  

  • away with old fezziwig looking on it was done in  a minute every removable was packed off as if it  

  • were dismissed from public life forever more the  floor was swept and watered the lamps were trimmed  

  • fuel was heaped upon the fire and the warehouse  was as snug and warm and dry and bright a ballroom  

  • as you would desire to see upon a winter's  night in came a fiddler with a music book  

  • and went up to the lofty desk and made an  orchestra of it and tuned like 50 stomachaches  

  • in came mrs fessywig one vast substantial smile in  came the three miss fezzy wigs beaming and lovable  

  • in came the six young followers whose hearts they  broke in came all the young men and women employed  

  • in the business in came the housemaid with  her cousin the baker in came the cook with her  

  • brother's particular friend the milkman in came  the boy from over the way who was suspected of not  

  • having bored enough from his master trying to hide  himself behind the girl from the next door but one  

  • who was proved to have had her ears pulled by her  mistress and they all came one after another some  

  • shyly some boldly some gracefully some awkwardly  some pushing some pulling and they all came anyhow  

  • and everyhow the way they all went 20 couple at  once hands half round and back again the other way  

  • down the middle and up again round and round  in various stages of affectionate grouping  

  • old top couple always turning up in the wrong  place new top couple starting off again as soon  

  • as they got there all top couples at  last but not a bottom one to help them  

  • when this result was brought about old fezziwig  clapping his hands to stop the dance cried out  

  • well done and the fiddler plunged his hot face  into a pot of porter especially provided for that  

  • purpose but scorning rest upon his reappearance he  instantly began again though there were no dancers  

  • yet as if the other fiddler had been carried home  exhausted on a shutter and he were a brand new  

  • man resolved to beat him out of sight or perish  there were more dances and there were forfeits  

  • and more dances and there was cake and there  was negus and there was a great piece of cold  

  • roast and there was a great piece of cold boiled  and there were minced pies and plenty of beer  

  • but the great effect of the evening came after  the roast and boiled when the fiddler an artful  

  • dog mind the sort of man who knew his business  better than you or i could have told it him  

  • struck up sir roger de coverley then old fancy  wigs stood out to dance with mrs fezzywig top  

  • couple too with a good stiff piece of work cut out  for them three or four or twenty pair of partners  

  • people who would dance and had no notion of  walking but if they had been twice as many  

  • ah four times old fezziwig would have been  a match for them and so would mrs fuzzywig  

  • as to her she was worthy to be his partner in  every sense of the term if that's not high praise  

  • tell me higher and i'll use it a positive light  appeared to issue from fezzy wigg's calves they  

  • shone in every part of the dance like moons  you couldn't have predicted at any given time  

  • what would have become of them next and when old  fazzywig and mrs fezzywig had gone all through  

  • the dance advance and retire both hands to your  partner bow and curtsy corkscrew thread the needle  

  • and back again to your place pezzy wig cut cut so  deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs and  

  • came upon his feet again without a stagger when  the clock struck 11 the domestic ball broke up  

  • mr and mrs fezzywig took their station one  on either side of the door and shaking hands  

  • with every person individually as he or she  went out wished him or her a merry christmas  

  • when everybody had retired but the two apprentices  they did the same to them and thus the cheerful  

  • voices died away and the lads were left to their  beds which were under a counter in the back shop  

  • during the whole of this time scrooge had  acted like a man out of his wits his heart  

  • and soul were in the scene and with his former  self he corroborated everything remembered  

  • everything enjoyed everything and underwent  the strangest agitation it was not until now  

  • when the bright faces of his former self had dick  were turned from them that he remembered the ghost  

  • and became conscious that it was looking full upon  him while the light upon its head burnt very clear  

  • a small matter said the ghost to make these silly  folks so full of gratitude small i called scrooge  

  • the spirit signed to him to  listen to the two apprentices  

  • who were pouring out their hearts in praise  of fezzywig and when he had done so said why  

  • is it not he has spent but a few pounds  of your mortal money three or four perhaps  

  • is that so much that he deserves this praise  but isn't that said scrooge heated by the remark  

  • and speaking unconsciously like his former not  his latter self and isn't that spirit he has the  

  • power to render us happy or unhappy to make our  service lights or burdensome a pleasure or a toil  

  • say that his power lies in words and looks in  things so slight and insignificant that it is  

  • impossible to add and count them up what then  the happiness he gives is quite as great as if  

  • it cost a fortune he felt the spirits glance  and stopped what is the matter asked the ghost  

  • nothing particular said scrooge somethingthink the ghost insisted no said scrooge no  

  • i should like to be able to say a word  or two to my clerk just now that's all

  • his former self turned down the lamps as he gave  utterance to the wish and scrooge and the ghost  

  • again stood side by side in the open air my  time grows short observed the spirit quick  

  • this was not addressed to scrooge or to anyone he  could see but it produced an immediate effect for  

  • again scrooge saw himself he was older now  a man in the prime of life his face had not  

  • the harsh and rigid lines of later years but it  had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice  

  • there was an eager gritty restless motion  in the eye which showed the passion that  

  • had taken root and where the shadow of the  growing tree would fall he was not alone  

  • but sat by the side of a fair young girl  in a morning dress in whose eyes there  

  • were tears which sparkled in the light that  shone out of the ghost of christmas past  

  • it matters little she said softly to you very  little another idol has displaced me and if it can  

  • cheer and comfort you in time to come as i would  have tried to do i have no just cause to grieve

  • what idol has displaced you he rejoinedgolden one this is the even-handed dealing  

  • of the world he said there is nothing  on which it is so hard as poverty  

  • and there is nothing it professes to condemn  with such severity as the pursuit of wealth  

  • you fear the world too much she answered gently  all your other hopes have merged into the hope of  

  • being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach  i have seen your nobler aspirations fall off  

  • one by one until the master passion gain and  grosses you have i not what then he retorted even  

  • if i have grown so much wiser what then i have  not changed towards you she shook her head am i  

  • our contract is an old one it was made  when we were both poor and content to be so  

  • until in good season we could improve our  worldly fortune by our patient industry  

  • you are changed when it was made you were another  man i was a boy he said impatiently your own  

  • feeling tells you that you were not what you are  she returned i am that which promised happiness  

  • when we were one in heart is fraught with misery  now that we are too how often and how keenly i  

  • have thought of this i will not say it is enough  that i have thought of it and can release you  

  • have i ever sought release in words no never or in  what then in a changed nature in an altered spirit  

  • in another atmosphere of life another hope as its  great end in everything that made my love of any  

  • worth or value in your sight if this had never  been between us said the girl looking mildly but  

  • with steadiness upon him tell me would you seek me  out and try to win me now now he seemed to yield  

  • to the justice of this supposition in spite of  himself but he said with a struggle you think not  

  • i would gladly think otherwise ifcould she answered heaven knows when  

  • i have learned a truth like this i know  how strong and irresistible it must be  

  • but if you were free today tomorrow yesterday can  even i believe that you would choose a dourless  

  • girl you who in your very confidence  with her weighing everything by gain  

  • or choosing her if for a moment you were false  enough to your own guiding principle to do so  

  • do i not know that your repentance  and regret would surely follow i do  

  • and i release you for the fall of  heart for the love of him you once were  

  • he was about to speak but with her head turned  from him she resumed you may the memory of what  

  • his past half makes me hope you will have pain in  this a very very brief time and you will dismiss  

  • the recollection of it gladly as an unprofitable  dream from which it happened well that you awoke  

  • may you be happy in the life you have chosen she  left him and they parted spirit said scrooge show  

  • me no more conduct me home why do you delight to  torture me one shadow more exclaimed the ghost  

  • no more cried scrooge no moredon't wish to see it show me no more  

  • but the relentless ghost pinioned him in both his  arms and forced him to observe what happened next  

  • they were in another scene in place a room  not very large or handsome but full of comfort  

  • near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young  girl so like that last that scrooge believed  

  • it was the same until he saw her now a comely  matron sitting opposite her daughter the noise  

  • in this room was perfectly tumultuous but there  were more children there than scrooge in his  

  • agitated state of mind could count and unlike  the celebrated heard in the poem there were  

  • not 40 children conducting themselves like one  but every child was conducting itself like 40.  

  • the consequences were uproarious beyond belief  but no one seemed to care on the contrary  

  • the mother and daughter laughed utterly  and enjoyed it very much and the latter  

  • soon beginning to mingle in the sports got  pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly  

  • what would i not have given to be one of them  though i never could have been so rude no  

  • no i wouldn't for the wealth of all the world  have crushed that braided hair and torn it down  

  • and for the precious little shoe i wouldn't  have plucked it off god bless my soul to save  

  • my life as to measuring her waste in sport as they  did bold young brood i couldn't have done it i  

  • should have expected my arm to have grown rounded  for a punishment and never come straight again  

  • and yet i should have dearly liked i own to  have touched her lips to have questioned her  

  • that she might have opened them to have looked  upon the lashes of my downcast eyes and never  

  • raised a blush to have let loose waves of hair  an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price  

  • in short i should have liked i do confess  to have had the lightest license of a child  

  • and yet to have been mad enough to know its value  

  • but now a knocking at the door was heard when  such a rush immediately ensued that with laughing  

  • face and plundered dress was born towards it the  center of a flushed and boisterous group just in  

  • time to greet the father who came home attended  by a man laden with christmas toys and presents  

  • then the shouting and the struggling and the  onslaught that was made on the defenseless porter  

  • the scaling him with chairs for ladders to  dive into his pockets to spoil him of brown  

  • paper parcels hold on tight by his cravats hug  him round his neck pommel his back and kick his  

  • legs in irrepressible affection the shouts of  wonder and delight with which the development  

  • of every package was received the terrible  announcement that the baby had been taken in the  

  • act of putting a doll's frying pan into his mouth  and was more than suspected of having swallowed a  

  • fictitious turkey glued on a wooden platter the  immense relief of finding this a false alarm  

  • the joy and gratitude and ecstasy  they are all indescribable alike  

  • it is enough that by degrees the children and  their emotions got out of the parlor and by  

  • one stair at a time up to the top of the house  where they went to bed and so subsided and now  

  • scrooge looked on more attentively than ever  when the master of the house having his daughter  

  • leaning fondly on him sat down with her and her  mother at his own fireside and when he thought  

  • that such another creature quite as graceful and  as full of promise might have called him father  

  • and been a springtime in the haggard winter  of his life his sight grew very dim indeed  

  • bell said the husband turning to his wife withsmile i saw an old friend of yours this afternoon  

  • who was it who guess well how can i i don't  know she added in the same breath laughing as he  

  • laughed mr scrooge mr scrooge it was i passed his  office window and as he was not shut up and he had  

  • a candle inside i could scarcely help seeing him  his partner lies upon the point of death i hear  

  • and there he sat alone quite alone in the worlddo believe spirit said scrooge in a broken voice  

  • remove me from this place i told you these were  shadows of the things that have been said the  

  • ghost that they are what they are do not blame  me remove me scrooge exclaimed i cannot bear it  

  • he turned upon the ghost and seeing that  it looked upon him with a face in which in  

  • some strange way there were fragments of all the  faces it had shown him wrestled with it believe me  

  • take me back haunt me no longer in the struggle if  that can be called a struggle in which the ghost  

  • with no visible resistance on its own part  was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary  

  • scrooge observed that its light  was burning high and bright  

  • and dimly connecting that with its influence  over him he seized the extinguisher capped  

  • and by a sudden action pressed it down upon  its head the spirit dropped beneath it so  

  • that the extinguisher covered its whole form but  though scrooge pressed it down with all his force  

  • he could not hide the light which streamed from  under it in an unbroken flood upon the ground  

  • he was conscious of being exhausted and  overcome by an irresistible drowsiness and  

  • further of being in his own bedroom he gave the  cap a parting squeeze in which his hand relaxed  

  • and had barely time to reel to bed  before he sank into a heavy sleep

  • end of stave too

  • stave three of a christmas carol  the second of the three spirits

  • awakening in the middle of a prodigiously tough  snore and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts  

  • together scrooge had no occasion to be told that  the bell was again upon the stroke of one he felt  

  • that he was restored to consciousness in the right  nick of time for the especial purpose of holding a  

  • conference with the second messenger dispatched  to him through jacob marley's intervention  

  • but finding that he turned uncomfortably  cold when he began to wonder which of his  

  • curtains this new specter would draw back he  put them everyone aside with his own hands  

  • and lying down again established a sharp lookout  all around the bed for he wished to challenge the  

  • spirit on the moment of its appearance and did  not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous  

  • gentlemen of the free and easy swords who plume  themselves are being acquainted with a move or two  

  • and being usually equal to the time of day express  the wide range of their capacity for adventure  

  • by observing that they are good for anything  from pitch and toss to manslaughter between which  

  • opposite extremes no doubt there lies a tolerably  wide and comprehensive range of subjects  

  • without venturing for scrooge  quite as heartily as this  

  • i don't mind calling on you to believe that  he was ready for a good broad field of strange  

  • appearances and that nothing between a baby and  a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much

  • now being prepared for almost anything he  was not by any means prepared for nothing  

  • and consequently when the bell struck one  and no shape appeared he was taken with a  

  • violent fit of trembling five minutes ten minutes  a quarter of an hour went by yet nothing came  

  • all this time he lay upon his bed the very  core and center of a blaze of ready light which  

  • streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the  hour and which being only light was more alarming  

  • than a dozen ghosts as he was powerless to make  out what it meant or would be at and by sometimes  

  • apprehensive that he might be at that very moment  an interesting case of spontaneous combustion  

  • without having the consolation of knowing  it at last however he began to think  

  • as you and i would have thought at first for it  is always the person not in the predicament who  

  • knows what ought to have been done in it  and would unquestionably have done it too  

  • at last i say he began to think that the  source and secret of this ghostly light  

  • might be in the adjoining room from whence on  further tracing it it seemed to shine this idea  

  • taking full possession of his mind he got up  softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door  

  • the moment scrooge's hand was on the lockstrange voice called him by his name and bat him  

  • enter he obeyed it was his own room there was no  doubt about that but it had undergone a surprising  

  • transformation the walls and ceiling were so hung  with living green that it looked like a perfect  

  • grove from every part of which bright gleaming  berries glistened the crisp leaves of harley  

  • mistletoe and ivy reflected back the light as if  so many little mirrors had been scattered there  

  • and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the  chimney as that dull petrification of a hearth had  

  • never known in scrooge's time or marlies or for  many and many a winter season gone heaped up on  

  • the floor to form a kind of throne where turkeys  geese game poultry brawn great joints of meat  

  • sucking pigs long wreaths of sausages  mince pies plum puddings barrels of oysters  

  • red hot chestnuts cherry cheat apples juicy  oranges luscious pears immense 12th cakes  

  • and seething bowls of punch that made the chamber  dim with their delicious steam an easy state upon  

  • this couch there sat a jolly giant glorious to  see who bore a glowing torch in shape not unlike  

  • plenty's horn and held it up high up to shed its  light on scrooge as he came peeping round the door  

  • come in exclaimed the ghost come in and  know me better man scrooge entered timidly  

  • and hung his head before this spirit he  was not the dogged scrooge he had been  

  • and though the spirit's eyes were clear  and kind he did not like to meet them  

  • i am the ghost of christmas present said the  spirit look upon me scrooge reverently did  

  • so it was clothed in one simple green  robe or mantle bordered with white fur  

  • this garment hung so loosely on the figure that  its capacious breast was bare as if disdaining  

  • to be watered or concealed by any artifice its  feet observable beneath the ample folds of the  

  • garment were also bare and on its head it wore no  other covering than a holly wreath sat here and  

  • there with shining icicles its dark brown curls  were long and free free as its genial face its  

  • sparkling eye its open hand its cheery voice  its unconstrained demeanor and its joyful air  

  • girded round its middle was an antique scabbard  but no sword was in it and the ancient sheath  

  • was eaten up with rust you have never seen  the like of me before exclaimed the spirit  

  • never scrooge made answer to it i've never walked  forth with the younger members of my family  

  • meaning for i am very young my elder  brothers born in these later years  

  • pursued the phantom i don't thinkhave said scrooge i am afraid i have not  

  • have you had many brothers spirit more  than eighteen hundred said the ghost  

  • oh a tremendous family to provide for murdered  scrooge the ghost of christmas present bros  

  • spirit said scrooge submissively conduct me where  you will i went forth last night on compulsion and  

  • i learned a lesson which is working now tonight  if you have ought to teach me let me profit by it  

  • touch my robe scrooge did as he was told and held  it fast holly mistletoe red berries ivy turkeys  

  • geese game poultry brawn meat pigs sausages  oysters pies puddings fruit and punch all vanished  

  • instantly so did the room the fire the ruddy  glow the hour of night and they stood in the city  

  • streets on christmas morning where for the weather  was severe the people made a rough but brisk and  

  • not unpleasant kind of music in scraping the snow  from the pavement in front of their dwellings  

  • and from the tops of their houses once  it was mad delight to the boys to see it  

  • come plumping down into the road below and  splitting into artificial little snowstorms  

  • the house fronts looked black enough and  the windows blacker contrasting with a  

  • smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs  and with the dirtier snow upon the ground  

  • which last deposit had been plowed up in deep  furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons  

  • furrows that crossed and re-crossed each other  hundreds of times where the great streets  

  • branched off and made intricate channels hard to  trace in the thick yellow and icy water the sky  

  • was gloomy and the shortest streets were choked up  with a dingy mist half-thought half-frozen whose  

  • heavier particles descended in a shower of [ __ ]  atoms as if all the chimneys in great britain had  

  • by one consent caught fire and were  blazing away to their dear heart's content  

  • there is nothing very cheerful in the climate or  the town and yet there was an air of cheerfulness  

  • abroad that the clearest summer air and the  brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to  

  • diffuse in vain for the people who were shoveling  away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee  

  • calling out to one another from the parapets  but now and then exchanging a facetious snowball  

  • better natured missile far than many a worded  jest laughing heartily if it went right but not  

  • less heartily if it went wrong the shops were  still half open and the fruiterers were radiant  

  • in their glory there were great round pot-bellied  baskets of chestnuts shaped like the waistcoats  

  • of jolly old gentlemen lolling at the doors and  tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic  

  • opulence there were ruddy brown-faced broad  girthed spanish onions shining in the fatness of  

  • their growth like spanish friars and winking from  their shelves in want and slyness of the girls  

  • as they went by and glanced merely at the hung up  mistletoe there were pears and apples clustered  

  • high in blooming pyramids there were bunches  of grapes made in the shopkeeper's benevolence  

  • to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's  mouths might water gratis as they passed there  

  • were piles of filberts mossy and brown recalling  in their fragrance ancient walks among the woods  

  • and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through  withered leaves there were norfolk biffins  

  • squat and swarthy setting off the yellow of the  oranges and lemons and in the great compactness  

  • of their juicy persons urgently entreating and  beseeching to be carried home in paper bags  

  • and eaten after dinner the very gold and silver  fish set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl  

  • though members of a dull and stagnant blooded race  appeared to know that there was something going on  

  • and two of fish went gasping round and round  their little world in slow and passionless  

  • excitement the grossers all the grocers nearly  closed with perhaps two shutters down or one  

  • but through these gaps such glimpses it  was not alone that the scales descending on  

  • the counter made a merry sound or that the  twine and roller parted company so briskly  

  • or that the canisters were rattled up and down  like juggling tricks or even that the blended  

  • sense of tea and coffee were so grateful to the  nose or even that the raisins were so plentiful  

  • and rare the almonds so extremely white the sticks  of cinnamon so long and straight the other spice  

  • is so delicious the candied fruits so caked and  spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest  

  • lookers on a feel faint and subsequently bilious  nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy  

  • or that the french plums blushed in modest  tartness from their highly decorated boxes  

  • or that everything was good to  eat and in its christmas dress  

  • but the customers were all so hurried and  so eager in their hopeful promise of the day  

  • that they tumbled up against each other at the  door crashing their wicker baskets wildly and left  

  • their purchases upon the counter and came running  back to fetch them man committed hundreds of  

  • like mistakes in the best humor possible while  the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh  

  • that the polished hearts with which they  fastened their aprons behind might have  

  • been their own one outside for general inspection  and for christmas doors to peck at if they chose  

  • but soon the steeples called good  people all to church and chapel  

  • and away they came flocking through the streets  in their best clothes and with their gayest faces  

  • and at the same time there emerged from scores  of by streets lanes and nameless turnings  

  • people carrying their dinners to the baker's  shops the sight of these poor revellers appeared  

  • to interest the spirit very much for he stood  with scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway  

  • and taking off the covers as their bearers past  sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch  

  • and it was a very uncommon kind of torch for once  or twice when there were angry words between some  

  • dinner carriers who had jostled each other he shed  a few drops of water on them from it and their  

  • good humor was restored directly for they said  it was a shame to quarrel upon christmas day and  

  • so it was god love it so it was in time the bells  ceased and the bakers were shot up and yet there  

  • was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners  and the progress of their cooking in the thawed  

  • blotch of wet above each baker's oven or the  pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too  

  • is there a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle  from your torch master scrooge there is  

  • my own would it apply to any kind of dinner  on this day asked scrooge to any kindly given  

  • to a poor one most why to a poor one most  asked scrooge because it needs it most  

  • spirit said scrooge after a moment's thought  i wonder you of all the beings in the many  

  • worlds about us should desire to cramp these  people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment  

  • i cried the spirit you would deprive them  of their means of dining every seventh day  

  • often the only day on which they can be said  to dine at all said scrooge wouldn't you i  

  • cried the spirit you seek to close  these places on the seventh day  

  • said scrooge and it comes to the same  thing i seek exclaimed the spirit  

  • forgive me if i am wrong it has been done in  your name but at least in that of your family  

  • said scrooge there are some upon this earth of  yours return the spirit who lay claim to know us  

  • and who do their deeds of passion pride ill  will hatred envy bigotry and selfishness  

  • in our name who are as strange to us and all  are kept and kin as if they had never lived  

  • remember that and charge their doings on  themselves not us scrooge promised that he would  

  • and they went on invisible as they had been before  into the suburbs of the town it was a remarkable  

  • quality of the ghost which scrooge had observed at  the bakers that notwithstanding his gigantic size  

  • he could accommodate himself to any place with  ease and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as  

  • gracefully and like a supernatural creature as it  was possible he could have done in any lofty hall  

  • and perhaps it was the pleasure the good  spirit had in showing off this power of  

  • his or else it was his own kind generous hearted  nature and his sympathy with all poor men that  

  • led him straight to scrooge's clerks for there he  went and took scrooge with him holding to his robe  

  • and on the threshold of the door the spirit smiled  and stopped to bless bob cratchit's dwelling with  

  • the sprinkling of his torch think of that bob had  15 bob a week himself he pocketed on saturdays but  

  • 15 copies of his christian name and yet the ghost  of christmas present blessed his four-roomed house  

  • then up rose mrs cratchit cratchit's wife dressed  out but poorly in a twice-turned-gown but brave in  

  • ribbons which are cheap and make a goodly show  for sixpence and she laid the cloth assisted by  

  • belinda cratchit second of her daughters also  brave in ribbons while master peter cratchit  

  • plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes and  getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar  

  • bob's private property conferred upon his son  and heir in honor of the day into his mouth  

  • rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired and  yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks  

  • and now two smaller cratchits boy and girl came  tearing in screaming that outside the bakers they  

  • had smelt the goose and known it for their own  and basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and  

  • onion these young cratchits danced about the table  and exalted master peter cratchit to the skies  

  • while he not proud although his collars  nearly choked him blew the fire until the  

  • slow potatoes bubbling up knocked loudly  at the saucepan lid to be let out and peel

  • what has ever got your precious father then  said mrs cratchit and your brother tiny tim  

  • and martha weren't as late last christmas day  by half an hour here's martha mother said a girl  

  • appearing as she spoke here's martha mother cry  the two young crashes hurrah there's such a goose  

  • martha my bless your heart alive my dear how  late you are said mrs cratchit kissing her a  

  • dozen times and taking off her shawl and bonnet  for her with officious zeal we'd a deal of work  

  • to finish up last night replied the girl  and had to clear away this morning mother  

  • well never mind so long as you are come said mrs  cratchit sit here down before the fire my dear  

  • and have a warm lord bless you no no there's  father coming cry the two young cratchits  

  • who were everywhere at once hi martha hide so  martha hid herself and in came little bob the  

  • father with at least three feet of comforter  exclusive of the fringe hanging down before him  

  • and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed  to look seasonable and tiny tim upon his shoulder  

  • alas for tiny tim he bore a little crutch  and had his limbs supported by an iron frame  

  • why where's our martha cried  bob cratchit looking around  

  • not coming said mrs cratchit not coming said  bob with a sudden declension in his high spirits  

  • for he had been tim's blood horse all the  way from church and had come home rampant  

  • not coming upon christmas day martha didn't like  to see him disappointed if it were only a joke  

  • so she came out prematurely from behind  the closet door and ran into his arms  

  • while the two young cratchits hustled tiny tim  and bore him off into the wash house that he  

  • might hear the pudding singing in the copper and  how did little tim behave said mrs cratchit when  

  • she had rallied bob on his credulity and bob  had hugged his daughter to his heart's content  

  • oh as good as gold said bob and better somehow  he gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much and  

  • thinks the strangest things you ever heard he told  me coming home that he hoped the people saw him in  

  • the church because he was a [ __ ] and it might  be pleasant to them to remember on christmas day  

  • who made the lame beggars walk and blind men see  bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this  

  • and trembled more when he said that tiny tim was  growing strong and hearty he active little crotch  

  • was heard upon the floor and back came tiny tim  before another word was spoken escorted by his  

  • brother and sister to his stool before the fire  and while bob turning up his cuffs as if poor  

  • fellow they were capable of being made more shabby  compounded some hot mixture in a jug with gin and  

  • lemons and stirred it round and round and put  it on the hob to simmer master peter and the two  

  • ubiquitous young cratchits went to fetch the goose  with which they soon returned in high procession  

  • such a bustle ensued that you might have thought  a goose the rarest of all birds a feathered  

  • phenomenon to which a black swan was a matter  of course and in truth it was something very  

  • like it in that house mr scratchett made the gravy  ready beforehand in a little saucepan hissing hot  

  • master peter mashed the potatoes with incredible  vigor miss belinda sweetened up the applesauce  

  • martha dusted the hot plates bob took tiny  tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table  

  • the two young cratchits set chairs for everybody  not forgetting themselves and mounting guard upon  

  • their posts crammed spoons into their mouths  lest they should shriek for goose before their  

  • time came to be helped at last the dishes were  set on and grace was said it was succeeded by  

  • a breathless pause as mrs cratchit looking slowly  all along the carving knife prepared to plunge it  

  • in the breast but when she did and when the  long expected gush of stuffing issued forth  

  • one murmur of delight arose all round the board an  even tiny tim excited by the two young cratchits  

  • beat on the table with the handle  of his knife and feebly cried hoorah

  • there was never such a goose bob said he didn't  believe that ever was such a goose cooked  

  • its tenderness and flavor size and cheapness  were the themes of universal admiration  

  • eked out by applesauce and mashed potatoes it was  a sufficient dinner for the whole family indeed  

  • as mrs cratchit said with great delight surveying  one small atom of a bone upon the dish they hadn't  

  • ate it all at last yet everyone had had enough  and the youngest cratchits in particular were  

  • steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows but  now the plates being changed by miss belinda mrs  

  • cratchit left the room alone too nervous to bear  witnesses to take the pudding up and bring it in  

  • suppose it should not be done enough suppose  it should break in turning out suppose somebody  

  • should have got over the wall of the backyard and  stolen it while they were merry with the goose  

  • a supposition at which the two young cratchits  became livid all sorts of horrors were supposed  

  • hello a great deal of steam the pudding was out  of the copper a smell like a washing day that  

  • was the cloth a smell like an eating house  and a pastry cooks next door to each other  

  • with a laundresses next door to that that was  the pudding in half a minute mrs cratchit entered  

  • flushed but smiling proudly with the pudding like  a speckled cannonball so hard and firm blazing in  

  • half a half a quarter of ignited brandy and bedite  with christmas harley stuck into the top oh a  

  • wonderful pudding bob cratchit said and calmly  too that he regarded it as the greatest success  

  • achieved by mrs cratchit since their marriage mrs  cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind  

  • she would confess that she had her doubts about  the quantity of flour everybody had something to  

  • say about but nobody said or thought it was at  all a small pudding for a large family it would  

  • have been flat heresy to do so any cratchit  would have blushed the hint at such a thing  

  • at last the dinner was all done the cloth was  cleared the hearth swept and the fire made up the  

  • compound in the jug being tasted and considered  perfect apples and oranges were put upon the table  

  • and a shovel full of chestnuts on the fire then  all the cratchit family drew round the hearth  

  • in what bob cratchit called a circle meaning  half a one and that bob cratchit's elbow  

  • stood the family display of glass two tumblers  and a custard cup without a handle these held  

  • the hot stuff from the jug however as well as  golden goblets would have done and bob served  

  • it out with beaming looks while the chestnuts  on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily then  

  • bob proposed a merry christmas to us all my  dears god bless us which all the family re-echoed  

  • god bless us everyone said tiny tim the last  of all he sat very close to his father's side  

  • upon his little stool bob held his withered  little hand in his as if he loved the child  

  • and wished to keep him by his side and  dreaded that he might be taken from him spirit  

  • said scrooge with an interest he had never  felt before tell me if tiny tim will live

  • i see a vacant seat replied the ghost  in the poor chimney corner and a crotch  

  • without an owner carefully preserved if  these shadows remain unaltered by the future  

  • the child will die no no said scrooge oh no  kind spirit say he will be spared if these  

  • shadows remain unaltered by the future another  of my race returned the ghost will find him here  

  • what then if he'd be like to die he had better  do it and decrease the surplus population scrooge  

  • hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the  spirit and was overcome with penitence and grief  

  • man said the ghost if man you  be in heart not adamant forbear  

  • that wicked cant until you have discovered  what the surplus is and where it is will you  

  • decide what men shall live what men shall  die it may be that in the sight of heaven  

  • you are more worthless and less fit to live than  millions like this poor man's child oh god to hear  

  • the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too  much life among his hungry brothers in the dust

  • scrooge bent before the ghost's rebuke and  trembling cast his eyes upon the ground  

  • but he raised them speedily on hearing his own  name mr scrooge said bob i'll give you mr scrooge  

  • the founder of the feast the founder of the feast  indeed cried mrs cratchit reddening i wish i had  

  • him here i'd give him a piece of my mind to feast  upon and i'd hope he'd have a good appetite for it  

  • my dear said bob the children christmas day  it should be a christmas day i am sure said  

  • she on which one drinks the health of such an  odious stingy hard unfeeling man as mr scrooge  

  • you know he is robert nobody knows it better than  you do poor fellow my dear was bob's mild answer  

  • christmas day i'll drink his health for your sake  and the days said mrs cratchit not for his long  

  • life to him a merry christmas and a happy new year  he'll be very merry and very happy i have no doubt  

  • the children drank the toast after her it was the  first of their proceedings which had no heartiness  

  • tiny tim drank it last of all but he didn't care  tuppence for it scrooge was the ogre of the family  

  • the mention of his name cast a dark shadow on  the party which was not dispelled for full five  

  • minutes after it had passed away they were ten  times merrier than before from the mere relief of  

  • scrooge the baleful being done with bob cratchit  told them how he had a situation in his eye for  

  • master peter which would bring in if obtained full  five and sixpence weekly the two young cratchits  

  • laughed tremendously at the idea of peter's  being a man of business and peter himself  

  • looked thoughtfully at the fire from between  his callers as if he were deliberating what  

  • particular investments he should favor when he  came into the receipt of that bewildering income  

  • martha who was a poor apprentice at a millionaires  then told them what kind of work she had to do  

  • and how many hours she worked at a stretch and  how she meant to lie a bed tomorrow morning for  

  • a good long rest tomorrow being a holiday  she passed at home also how she had seen a  

  • countess and a lord some days before and how  the lord was much about as tall as peter at  

  • which peter pulled up his collar so high that you  couldn't have seen his head if you had been there  

  • all this time the chestnuts and the jug went  round and round and by and by they had a song  

  • about a lost child traveling in the snow from  tiny tim who had a plaintive little voice  

  • and sang it very well indeed there was nothing of  high mark in this they were not a handsome family  

  • they were not well dressed their shoes were  far from waterproof their clothes were scanty  

  • and peter might have known or very likely did  the inside of a pawn brokers but they were happy  

  • grateful pleased with one another  and contended with the time  

  • and when they faded and looked happier yet  in the bright sprinklings of the spirit's  

  • torch at parting scrooge had his eye upon them and  especially on tiny tim until the last by this time  

  • it was getting dark and snowing pretty heavily and  as scrooge and the spirit went along the streets  

  • the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens  parlors and all sorts of rooms was wonderful here  

  • the flickering of the blaze showed preparations  for a cozy dinner with hot plates baking through  

  • and through before the fire and deep red curtains  ready to be drawn to shut out cold in darkness  

  • there all the children of the house were running  out into the snow to meet their married sisters  

  • brothers cousins uncles aunts and be the first  to greet them here again were shadows on the  

  • window blind of guests assembling and there  a group of handsome girls all hooded and fur  

  • booted and all chattering at once tripped  lightly off to some near neighbor's house  

  • where whoa upon the single man who saw them  enter artful witches well they knew it in a glow  

  • but if you had judged from the numbers of  people on their way to friendly gatherings  

  • you might have thought that no one was at  home to give them welcome when they got there  

  • instead of every house expecting company  and piling up its fires half chimney high  

  • blessings on it how the ghost exalted how it bared  its breadth of breasts and opened its capacious  

  • palm and floated on outpouring with a generous  hand its bright and harmless mirth on everything  

  • within its reach the very lamplighter who ran  on before dotting the dusky street with specks  

  • of light and who was dressed to spend the evening  somewhere laughed out loudly as the spirit passed  

  • the little canned the lamplighter  that he had any company but christmas  

  • and now without a word of warning from the ghost  they stood upon a bleak and desert moon where  

  • monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about  as though it were the burial place of giants  

  • and water spread itself wheresoever it listed or  would have done so but for the frost that held  

  • it prisoner and nothing grew but moss and furs and  coarse rank grass down in the west the setting sun  

  • had left the streak of fiery red which glared upon  the desolation for an instant like a sullen eye  

  • and frowning lower lower lower yet was  lost in the thick gloom of darkest night  

  • what place is this asked scrooge a place where  miners live who labor in the bowels of the earth  

  • returned the spirit but they know me see a light  shone from the window of a hut and swiftly they  

  • advanced towards it passing through the wall  of mud and stone they found a cheerful company  

  • assembled around a glowing fire old old man and  woman with their children and their children's  

  • children and another generation beyond that  all decked out gaily in their holiday attire  

  • the old man in a voice that seldom rose above  the howling of the wind upon the barren waste  

  • was singing them a christmas song it had  been a very old song when he was a boy  

  • and from time to time they all joined in the  chorus so surely as they raised their voices  

  • the old man got quite blithed and loud and so  surely as they stopped his vigor sank again  

  • the spirit did not tarry here but bad scrooge  hold his robe and passing on above the moor sped  

  • with her not to see to see to scrooge's horror  looking back he saw the last of the land a  

  • frightful range of rocks behind them and his  ears were deafened by the thundering of water  

  • as it rolled and roared and raged among the  dreadful caverns it had worn and fiercely  

  • tried to undermine the earth built upon a dismal  reef of sunken rocks some league or so from shore  

  • on which the waters chafed and dashed the wild  year through there stood a solitary lighthouse  

  • great heaps of seaweed clung to its base  and storm birds born of the wind one might  

  • suppose as seaweed of the water rose and  fell about it like the waves they skimmed  

  • but even here two men who watched the light had  made a fire that threw the loophole in the thick  

  • stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on  the awful sea joining their horny hands over  

  • the rough table at which they sat they wished  each other merry christmas in their can of grog  

  • and one of them the elder too with his face  all damaged and scarred with hard weather  

  • as the figurehead of an old ship might be struck  up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself  

  • again the ghost sped on above the black and  heaving sea on on until being far away as he  

  • told scrooge from any shore they lighted on a ship  they stood beside the helmsman at the wheel the  

  • lookout in the bow the officers who had the watch  dark ghostly figures in their several stations  

  • but every man among them hummed a christmas  tune or had a christmas thought or spoke  

  • below his breath to his companion of some bygone  christmas day with homeward hopes belonging to it  

  • and every man on board waking or sleeping good or  bad had had a kinder word for another on that day  

  • than on any day in the year and had shared  to some extent in its festivities and had  

  • remembered those he cared for at a distance and  had known that they delighted to remember him  

  • it was a great surprise to scrooge while  listening to the moaning of the wind  

  • and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move  on through the lonely darkness over an unknown  

  • abyss whose depths were secrets as profound  as death it was a great surprise to scrooge  

  • while thus engaged to hear a hearty laugh  it was a much greater surprise to scrooge  

  • to recognize it as his own nephews and to find  himself in a bright dry gleaming room with a  

  • spirit standing smiling by his side and looking  at that same nephew with approving affability

  • laughed scrooge's nephew

  • if you should happen by any unlikely chance to  know a man more blessed in a laugh than scrooge's  

  • nephew all i can say is i should like to know  him too introduce him to me and i'll cultivate  

  • his acquaintance it is a fair even-handed noble  adjustment of things that while there is infection  

  • and disease and sorrow there is nothing in the  world so irresistibly contagious as laughter  

  • and good humor when scrooge's nephew laughed  in his way holding his sides rolling his head  

  • and twisting his face into the most extravagant  contortions scrooge's niece by marriage laughed  

  • as heartily as he and their assembled friends  being not a bit behind hand roared out lustily  

  • he said that christmas was a humbug as i live  cried scrooge's nephew he believed it too  

  • of more shame for him fred said scrooge's niece  indignantly bless those women they never do  

  • anything by haves they are always in earnest  she was very pretty exceedingly pretty  

  • with a dimpled surprise looking capital faceripe little mouth that seemed made to be kissed  

  • as no doubt it was all kinds of good little dots  about her chin that melted into one another when  

  • she laughed and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever  saw in any little creature's head altogether she  

  • was what you would have called provoking you know  but satisfactory too oh perfectly satisfactory  

  • he's a comical old fellow said scrooge's  nephew that's the truth and not so pleasant as  

  • he might be however his offenses carry their own  punishment and i have nothing to say against him  

  • i'm sure he's very rich fred hinted scrooch's  niece at least you always tell me so what of  

  • that my dear said scrooge's nephew his wealth  is of no use to him he don't do any good with  

  • it he don't make himself comfortable with  it because of the satisfaction of thinking  

  • that he is ever going to benefit us with ithave no patience with him observed scrooge's niece  

  • scrooge's niece's sisters and all the  other ladies expressed the same opinion  

  • oh i have said scrooge's nephew i am sorry for  him i couldn't be angry with him if i tried  

  • who suffers by his ill whims himself always  here he takes it into his head to dislike  

  • us and he won't come and dine with us what's  the consequence he don't lose much of a dinner  

  • indeed i think he loses a very good dinner  interrupted scrooge's niece everybody else  

  • said the same and they must be allowed to have  been competent judges because they had just had  

  • dinner and with the dessert upon the table were  clustered round the fire by lamplight well i'm  

  • very glad to hear it said scrooge's nephew because  i haven't great faith in these young housekeepers  

  • what do you say topper topper had clearly got  his eye upon one of scrooge's niece's sisters  

  • for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched  outcast who had no right to express an opinion  

  • on the subject whereas scrooge's niece's  sister the plump one with the lace tucker  

  • not the one with the roses blushed  do go on fred said scrooge's niece  

  • clapping her hands he never finishes what he  begins to say he is such a ridiculous fellow  

  • scrooge's nephew reveled in another laugh and as  it was impossible to keep the infection off though  

  • the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic  vinegar his example was unanimously followed  

  • i was only going to say said scrooge's nephew that  the consequence of his taking a dislike to us and  

  • not making mary with us is i think that he loses  some pleasant moments which could do him no harm  

  • i am sure he loses pleasanter companions that he  can find in his own thoughts either in his moldy  

  • old office or his dusty chambers i mean to give  him the same chance every year whether he likes  

  • it or not for i pity him he may rail at christmas  till he dies but he can't help thinking better of  

  • it i defy him if he finds me going there in  good temper year after year and saying uncle  

  • scrooge how are you if it only puts him in the  vein to leave his poor clerk 50 pounds that's  

  • something and i think i shook him yesterday it  was their turn to laugh now with the notion of his  

  • shaking scrooge but being thoroughly good-natured  and not much caring what they laughed at so that  

  • they laughed at any rate he encouraged them in  their merriment and passed the bottle joyously  

  • after tea they had some music for they werevery musical family and knew what they were about  

  • when they sang a glee or catch i can assure you  especially topper who would growl away in the base  

  • like a good one and never swell the large veins  in his forehead or get bread in the face over it  

  • scrooge's niece played well upon the harp and  played among other tunes a simple little air a  

  • mere nothing you might learn to whistle it in two  minutes which had been familiar to the child who  

  • fetched scrooge from the boarding school as he  had been reminded by the ghost of christmas past  

  • when this strain of music sounded all  the things that ghost had shown him  

  • came upon his mind he softened more and more and  thought that if he could have listened to it often  

  • years ago he might have cultivated the kindnesses  of life for his own happiness with his own hands  

  • without resorting to the sextan's spade that  buried jacob marley but they didn't devote  

  • the whole evening to music after a while they  played at forfeits for it is good to be children  

  • sometimes and never better than christmas  when its mighty founder was a child himself  

  • stop there was first a game at blind man's bluff  of course there was and i no more belief topper  

  • was really blind that i believe he had eyes in  his boots my opinion is that it was a done thing  

  • between him and scrooge's nephew and that the  ghost of christmas present knew it the way he  

  • went after that plump sister in the lace tucker  was an outrage on the credulity of human nature  

  • knocking down the fire irons tumbling over the  chairs bumping against the piano smothering  

  • himself among the curtains wherever she went there  went he he always knew where the plump sister was  

  • he wouldn't catch anybody else if you had fallen  up against him as some of them did on purpose he  

  • would have made a faint of endeavoring to  seize you which would have been an affront  

  • to your understanding and would instantly have  sidled off in the direction of the plump sister  

  • she often cried out that it wasn't fair  and it really was not but when at last  

  • he caught her when in spite of all her soaking  rustlings and her rapid flutterings past him  

  • he got her into a corner whence there was no  escape then his conduct was the most executable  

  • for his pretending not to know her is pretending  that it was necessary to touch her headdress  

  • and further to assure himself of her identity  by pressing a certain ring upon her finger  

  • and a certain chain about her neck was vile  monstrous no doubt she told him her opinion of it  

  • when another blind man being in office they were  so very confidential together behind the curtains  

  • scrooge's niece was not one of the blind man's  buff party but was made comfortable with a large  

  • chair and a foot stool in a snug corner where  the ghost and scrooge were close behind her  

  • but she joined in the forfeits and loved her love  to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet  

  • likewise at the game of how when and where she  was very great and to the secret joy of scrooge's  

  • nephew beat her sisters hollow though they were  sharp girls too as topper could have told you  

  • there might have been 20 people there young  and old but they all played and so did scrooge  

  • for holy forgetting in the interest  he had and what was going on that  

  • his voice made no sound in their ears  he sometimes came out with his guess  

  • quite loud and very often guessed quite right  too for the sharpest needle best white chapel  

  • warranted not to cut in the eye was not sharper  than scrooge blunt as he took it at his head to be  

  • the ghost was greatly pleased to find him in  this mood and looked upon him with such favor  

  • that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay  until the guests departed but this the spirit  

  • said could not be done here is a new game  said scrooge oh one half hour spirit only one  

  • it was a game called yes and no where scrooge's  nephew had to think of something and the rest  

  • must find out what he only answering to their  questions yes or no as the case was the brisk  

  • fire of questioning to which he was exposed  elicited from him that he was thinking of an  

  • animal a live animal rather a disagreeable animal  a savage animal an animal that growled and grunted  

  • sometimes and talked sometimes and lived in london  and walked about the streets and was it made a  

  • show of and wasn't led by anybody and didn't live  in a menagerie and was never killed in a market  

  • and was not a horse or an ass or a cow orbull or a tiger or a dog or a pig or a cat  

  • or a bear and every fresh question that was put  to him this nephew burst into a fresh roar of  

  • laughter and was so inexpressibly tickled that  he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp  

  • at last the plump sister falling intosimilar state cried out ah i have found it  

  • i know what it is fred i know what it is  what is it cried fred it's your uncle scrooge

  • which it certainly was  

  • admiration was the universal sentiment though  some objected that to reply to is it a bear  

  • ought to have been yes inasmuch as an answer  in the negative was sufficient to have diverted  

  • their thoughts from mr scrooge supposing  they had ever had any tendency that way  

  • he has given us plenty of merriment i am sure said  fred and it would be ungrateful not to drink his  

  • health here is a glass of mulled wine ready to  our hand at the moment and i say uncle scrooge  

  • well uncle scrooge they cried a merry christmas  and a happy new year to the old man whatever he  

  • is said scrooge's nephew he wouldn't take it from  me but may he have it nevertheless uncle scrooge  

  • uncle scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay  in light of heart that he would have pledged  

  • the unconscious company in return and thanked them  in an inaudible speech if ghost had given him time  

  • but the whole scene passed off in the  breath of the last word spoken by his nephew  

  • and he and the spirit were  again upon their travels  

  • much they saw and far they went and many  homes they visited but always with a happy end  

  • the spirits stood beside sick beds and they were  cheerful on foreign lands and they were close at  

  • home by struggling men and they were patient in  their greatest hope by poverty and it was rich  

  • in alms house hospital and jail in miseries  every refuge where vain man and his little  

  • brief authority had not made fast the door and  barred the spirit out he left his blessing and  

  • taught scrooge his presence it was a long night  if it were only a night but scrooge had his  

  • doubts of this because the christmas holidays  appeared to be condensed into the space of time  

  • they passed together it was strange too that while  scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form  

  • the ghosts grew older clearly older scrooge  had observed this change but never spoke of it  

  • until they left the children's twelfth night  party when looking at the spirit as they stood  

  • together in an open place he noticed that his hair  was gray ah spirits lives so short asked scrooge  

  • my life upon this globe is very brief replied  the ghost it ends tonight tonight cried scrooge  

  • tonight at midnight hark the time is drawing near  

  • the chimes were ringing the  three-quarters past eleven at that moment  

  • forgive me if i am not justified in what i ask  said scrooge looking intently at the spirit's robe  

  • but i see something strange and not belonging  to yourself protruding from your skirts is it a  

  • foot or a claw it might be a claw for the flesh  there is upon it said the spirit's sorrowful reply  

  • look here from the foldings of its robe  it brought two children wretched abject  

  • frightful hideous miserable they knelt down at  his feet and clung upon the outside of his garment  

  • oh man look here look look down here  exclaimed the ghost they were a boy and a girl  

  • yellow meager ragged scowling wolfish  but prostrate too in their humility  

  • where graceful youth should have filled their  features out and touched them with its freshest  

  • tints a stale and shriveled hand like that of  age had pinched and twisted them and pulled them  

  • into shreds where angels might have sat enthroned  devils lurked and glared out menacing no change no  

  • degradation no perversion of humanity in any grade  through all the mysteries of wonderful creation  

  • as monsters half so horrible and dread scrooge  started back appalled having them shown to him in  

  • this way he tried to say they were fine children  but the words choked themselves rather than be  

  • parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude spirit  are they yours scrooge could say no more they  

  • are mans said the spirit looking down upon them  and they cling to me appealing from their fathers  

  • this boy is ignorance this girl is want beware  them both and all of their degree but most of all  

  • beware this boy for on his brow i see that written  which is doom unless the writing be erased deny it  

  • cried the spirit stretching out his hand  towards the city slander those who tell it ye  

  • admit it for your fascist purposes  and make it worse and bide the end  

  • have you no refuge or resource cried  scrooge are there no prisons said the spirit  

  • turning on him for the last time with  his own words are there no work houses  

  • the bell struck twelve scrooge looked about him  for the ghost and saw it not as the last stroke  

  • ceased to vibrate he remembered the prediction of  old jacob marley and lifting up his eyes beheld a  

  • solemn phantom draped and hooded coming likemist along the ground towards him end of stave

  • three stave four of a christmas  carol the last of the spirits

  • the phantom slowly gravely silently approached  when it came near him scrooge bent down upon his  

  • knee for in the very air through which this spirit  moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery  

  • it was shrouded in a deep black  garment which concealed its head  

  • its face its form and left nothing of it  visible save one outstretched hand but for this  

  • it would have been difficult to detach its figure  from the night and separate separated from the  

  • darkness by which it was surrounded he felt that  it was tall and stately when it came beside him  

  • and that its mysterious presence  filled him with a solemn dread  

  • he knew no more for the spirit neither spoke  nor moved i am in the presence of the ghost of  

  • christmas yet to come said scrooge the spirit  answered not but pointed onward with its hand  

  • you are about to show me shadows of the things  that have not happened but will happen in the time  

  • before us scrooge pursued is that so spirit the  upper portion of the garment was contracted for an  

  • instant in its folds as if the spirit had inclined  its head that was the only answer he received  

  • although well used to ghostly company by this time  scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his  

  • legs trembled beneath him and he found that he  could hardly stand when he prepared to follow him  

  • the spirit paused a moment as observing his  condition and giving him time to recover but  

  • scrooge was all the worse for this it thrilled  him with a vague uncertain horror to know that  

  • behind that dusky shroud there were ghostly  eyes intently fixed upon him while he though he  

  • stretched his own to the utmost could see nothing  but a spectral hand than one great heap of black  

  • ghost of the future he exclaimed i fear  you are more than any specter i have seen  

  • but as i know your purpose is to do me good and as  i hope to live to be another man from what i was  

  • i am prepared to bear you company and do it  with a thankful heart will you not speak to me  

  • it gave him no reply the hand was pointed  straight before them lead on said scrooge lead on  

  • the night is waning fast and it is  precious time to be i know lead on spirit  

  • the phantom moved away as it had come towards him  scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress which  

  • bore him up he thought and carried him along they  scarcely seemed to enter the city for the city  

  • rather seemed to spring up about them and  encompass them as its own act and there they  

  • were in the heart of it on change amongst the  merchants who hurried up and down and chinked  

  • the money in their pockets and conversed  in groups and looked at their watches  

  • and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold  seals and so forth as scrooge had seen them often  

  • the spirit stopped beside one little knot of  businessmen observing that the hand was pointed  

  • to them scrooge advanced to listen to their talk  no said a great fat man with a monstrous chin  

  • i don't know much about it either wayonly know he's dead but when did he die  

  • inquired another last night i believe why what was  the matter with him asked a third taking a vast  

  • quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff box  i thought he'd never die god knows said the first  

  • with a yawn what has he done with his money asked  a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous exercise on  

  • the end of his nose that shook like the gills of  a turkey [ __ ] i haven't heard said the man with  

  • a large chin yawning again left it to his company  perhaps he hasn't left it to me that's all i know  

  • the pleasantry was received with a general  laugh it's likely to be a very cheap funeral  

  • said the same speaker for upon my life  i don't know of anybody to go to it  

  • suppose we make up a party and volunteer  i don't mind going if a lunch is provided  

  • observe the gentleman with the exocrescence  on his nose but i must be fed if i make one  

  • another laugh well i am the most  disinterested among you after all  

  • said the first speaker for i never  wear black gloves but i never eat lunch  

  • but i'll offer to go if anybody else will  when i come to think of it i'm not at all  

  • sure that i wasn't his most particular friend for  we used to stop and speak whenever we met bye bye

  • speakers and listeners strolled away and mixed  with other groups scrooge knew the men and  

  • looked towards the spirit for an explanation the  phantom glided on into a street his finger pointed  

  • to two persons meeting scrooge listened again  thinking that the explanation might lie here  

  • he knew these men also perfectly they were men  of business very wealthy and of great importance  

  • he had made a point always of standing well  in their esteem in a business point of view  

  • that is strictly in a business point of view  how are you said one how are you returned the  

  • other well said the first old scratch has got his  own at last eh so i'm told return of the second  

  • cold isn't it seasonable for christmas time you're  not a skater i suppose oh no something else to  

  • think of good morning not another word that was  their meeting their conversation and their parting  

  • scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised  that the spirit should attach importance to  

  • conversations apparently so trivial but feeling  assured that they must have some hidden purpose  

  • he set himself to consider what it was likely to  be they would scarcely be supposed to have any  

  • bearing on the death of jacob his old partner for  that was past and this ghost's province was the  

  • future nor could he think of anyone immediately  connected with himself to whom he could apply  

  • them but nothing doubting that to whomsoever  they applied they had some latent moral for his  

  • own improvement he resolved to treasure up every  word he heard and everything he saw and especially  

  • to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared  for he had an expectation that the conduct of his  

  • future self would give him the clue he missed and  would render the solution of these riddles easy  

  • he looked about in that very place for his own  image but another man stood in his accustomed  

  • corner and though the clock pointed to  his usual time of day for being there  

  • he saw no likeness of himself among the  multitudes that poured in through the porch  

  • it gave him little surprise however for he had  been revolving in his mind a change of life  

  • and thought and hope he saw his  newborn resolutions carried out in this

  • quiet and dark beside him stood the phantom with  his outstretched hand when he roused himself from  

  • his thoughtful quest he fancied from the turn of  the hand and its situation in reference to himself  

  • that the unseen eyes were looking at him  keenly it made him shudder and feel very  

  • old left the busy scene and went  into an obscure part of the town  

  • where scrooge had never penetrated before although  he recognized its situation and its bad repute the  

  • ways were found and narrow the shops and houses  wretched the people half naked drunken slipshod  

  • ugly alleys and archways like so many cesspools  disgorged their offenses of smell and dirt and  

  • life upon the straggling streets and the whole  quarter wreaked with crime with filth and misery  

  • far in this den of infamous resort there waslow browed beetling shop below a penthouse roof  

  • where iron old rags bottles bones and greasy  awful were brought upon the floor within were  

  • piled up heaps of rusty keys nails chains hinges  files scales weights and refuse iron of all kinds  

  • secrets that few would like to scrutinize were  bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags  

  • masses of corrupted fat and sepal curse of  bones sitting in among the wares he dealt in  

  • by a charcoal stove made of old bricks with  a gray-haired rascal nearly 70 years of  

  • age who had screened himself from the cold air  without by a frosty curtaining of miscellaneous  

  • tatters hung upon a line and smoked his  pipe in all the luxury of calm retirement

  • scrooge and the phantom came into the presence  of this man just as a woman with a heavy bundle  

  • slunk into the shop but she had scarcely entered  when another woman similarly laden came in too and  

  • she was closely fathered by a man in faded black  who was no less startled by the sight of them  

  • than they had been upon the recognition of each  other after a short period of blank astonishment  

  • in which the old man with the pipe had  joined them they all three burst into a laugh

  • let the char woman allowed to bathe her  first cried she who had entered first let  

  • the laundress alone to be the second and let  the undertaker's man alone to be the third  

  • look here old joe here's a chance if  we haven't all three met here without  

  • meaning it you couldn't have met in a better place  said old joe removing his pipe from his mouth  

  • come into the parlor you were made free of  it long ago you know and the other two ain't  

  • strangers stop till i shut the door the sharp ah  oh it shrieks there ain't such a rustic bit of  

  • metal in the place as its own inches i believe and  i'm sure there's no such old bones here as mine

  • we're all suitable to our calling we're well  matched come into the parlor come into the parlor  

  • the parlor was the space  between the screen of rags  

  • the old man rakes the fire together with an old  stair rod and having trimmed his smoky lamp for  

  • it was night with the stem of his pipe put it in  his mouth again while he did this the woman who  

  • had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor  and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool  

  • crossing her elbows on her knees and looking  with a bold defiance at the other two  

  • what odd stan what odds mrs dilbert said the  woman every person has a right to take care  

  • of themselves he always did that's true  indeed said the laundress no man more so  

  • why then don't stand staring as if you was afraid  woman who's the wiser we're not gonna pick holes  

  • in each other's coats i suppose no indeed said  mrs dilber and the man together we should hope not  

  • very well then cried the woman that's enough who's  the worst for the loss of a few things like these  

  • not a dead man i suppose no indeed said  mrs dilbert if he wanted to keep him after  

  • he was dead a wicked old screw pursued the  woman why wasn't he natural in his lifetime  

  • if he had been he'd have had somebody to look  after him when he was struck with death instead  

  • of lying gasping out his last there alone by  himself it's the truest word that ever was spoke  

  • said mrs dilber it's a judgment on him well i wish  he was a little heavier judgment replied the woman  

  • and it should have been you may depend on it  if i could have laid my hands on anything else  

  • open that bundle oh joe and  let me know the value of it  

  • speak out plain i'm not afraid to be the first  nor afraid for them to see it we know pretty  

  • well that we were helping ourselves before we met  here i believe it's no sin open the bundle joe  

  • but the gallantry of her friends would not allow  of this and the man in faded black mounting the  

  • breach first produced his plunder it was not  extensive a seal or two a pencil case a pair of  

  • sleeve buttons and a brooch of no great value were  all they were severally examined and appraised by  

  • old joe who chalked the sums he was disposed to  give for each upon the wall and added them up into  

  • a total when he found there was nothing more to  come that's your account said joe and i wouldn't  

  • give another sixpence if i was to be boiled  for not doing it who's next mrs dilber was next  

  • sheets and towels a little wearing apparel  two old-fashioned silver teaspoons a pair  

  • of sugar tongs and a few boots her account  was stated on the wall in the same manner  

  • i always give too much to ladies it's a weakness  of mine and that's the way i ruined myself  

  • said old joe that's your account if you asked me  for another penny and made it an open question  

  • i'd repent of being so liberal and knock off half  a crown and now undo my bundle joe said the first  

  • woman joe went down on his knees for the greater  convenience of opening it and having unfastened a  

  • great many knots dragged out a large and heavy  roll of some dark stuff what do you call this  

  • said joe bed curtains ah returned the woman  laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms  

  • bad curtains you don't mean to say you took him  down rings and all with him lying there said joe  

  • yes i do replied the woman why not why you were  born to make your fortune said joe and you'll  

  • certainly do it i certainly can't hold my hand  when i can get anything in it by reaching out  

  • for the sake of such a man as he was i promise  you joe returned the woman [ __ ] don't drop  

  • that oil upon the blankets now is blankets as  joe oh asses do you think replied the woman  

  • he isn't likely to take hole without himdare say i hope he didn't die of anything  

  • catching eh said old joe stopping in his work and  looking up don't you be afraid of that returned  

  • the woman i ain't so fond of his company that  i'd loiter about him for such doings if he did  

  • ah you may look through that shirt till your  eyes ache but you won't find a hole in it nor a  

  • threadbare place it's the bestie ad and a fine one  too they'd have wasted it if it hadn't been for me  

  • what do you call wasting it asked old joe or  putting it on him to be buried in to be sure  

  • replied the woman with a laugh  somebody was fool enough to do it  

  • but i took it off again if calico ain't good  enough for such a purpose it isn't good enough  

  • for anything it's quite as becoming to the body  he can't look uglier than he did in that one  

  • scrooge listen to this dialogue in horror as they  sat grouped about their spoil in the scanty light  

  • afforded by the old man's lamp he viewed  them with a detestation and disgust which  

  • could hardly have been greater though they had  been obscene demons marketing the corpse itself

  • laugh the same woman when old joe  producing a flannel bag with money and it  

  • told out there several gains upon the  ground this is the end of it you see  

  • he frightened everyone away from him when  he was alive to profit us when he was dead

  • spirit said scrooge shuttering from head to foot  i see i see the case of this unhappy man might be  

  • my own my life tends that way now merciful heaven  what is this he recoiled in terror for the scene  

  • had changed and now he almost touched a bed a bare  uncurtained bed on which beneath a racket sheet  

  • there lay a something covered up which though  it was dumb announced itself in awful language  

  • the room was very dark too dark to be observed  with any accuracy though scrooge glanced  

  • around it in obedience to a secret impulse  anxious to know what kind of room it was  

  • a pale light rising in the outer air fell  straight upon the bed and on it plundered and  

  • bereft unwatched unwept uncared for was the body  of this man scrooge glanced towards the phantom  

  • its steady hand was pointed to the head the  cover was so carelessly adjusted that the  

  • slightest raising of it the motion of a finger  upon scrooge's part would have disclosed the face  

  • he thought of it felt how easy it would be to  do and longed to do it but had no more power to  

  • withdraw the veil than to dismiss the spectre at  his side o cold cold rigid dreadful death set up  

  • thine altar here and dress it with such terrors as  thou hasteth thy command for this is thy dominion  

  • but of the loved revered and honored head thou  canst not turn one hair to thy dread purposes  

  • and make one feature odious it is not that the  hand is heavy and will fall down when released  

  • it is not that the heart and pulse are still  but that the hand was open generous and true  

  • the heart brave warm and tender and  the pulse of man's strike shadow strike  

  • and see his good deeds springing from the  wound to sow the world with life immortal  

  • no voice pronounced these words in scrooge's ears  and yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed  

  • he thought if this man could be raised up now  what would be his foremost thoughts avarice  

  • hard-dealing griping cares they have brought him  a rich and truly he lay in the dark empty house  

  • with not a man a woman or a child  to say that he was kind to me  

  • in this or that and for the memory of one kind  word i will be kind to him a cat was tearing at  

  • the door and there was a sound of gnawing rats  beneath the hearthstone what they wanted in the  

  • room of death and why they were so restless  and disturbed scrooge did not dare to think  

  • spirit he said this is a fearful place and  leaving it i shall not leave its lesson trust me  

  • let us go still the ghost pointed with an  unmoved finger to the head i understand you  

  • scrooge returned and i would do it if i could but  i have not the power spirit i have not the power  

  • again it seemed to look upon him if there is any  person in the town who feels emotion caused by  

  • this man's death said scrooge quite agonized  show that person to me spirit i beseech you

  • the phantom spread its dark robe  before him for a moment like a wing  

  • and withdrawing it revealed a room by daylight  where her mother and her children were  

  • she was expecting someone and with anxious  eagerness for she walked up and down the  

  • room started at every sound looked out from  the window glanced at the clock tried but in  

  • vain to work with her needle and could hardly  bear the voices of the children in their play  

  • at length the long-expected knock was heard she  hurried to the door and met her husband a man  

  • whose face was care-worn and depressed though he  was young there was a remarkable expression in  

  • it now a kind of serious delight of which he felt  ashamed and which he struggled to repress he sat  

  • down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him  by the fire and when she asked him faintly what  

  • news which was not until after a long silence  he appeared embarrassed how to answer is it  

  • good she said or bad to help him bad he answered  we are quite ruined no there is hope yet caroline  

  • if he relents she said amazed there is nothing  is past hope if such a miracle has happened  

  • he is past relenting said her husband he is dead  she was a mild and patient creature if her face  

  • spoke truth but she was thankful in her soul  to hear it and she said so with clasped hands  

  • she prayed forgiveness the next moment and was  sorry but the first was the emotion of her heart  

  • what the half-drunken woman whom i told you of  last night said to me when i tried to see him  

  • and obtain a week's delay and what i thought  was a mere excuse to avoid me turns out to  

  • have been quite true he was not only very ill but  dying then to whom will our debt be transferred  

  • i don't know but before that time  we shall be ready with the money  

  • and even though we were not it would  be a bad fortune indeed to find so  

  • merciless a creditor and his successor we  may sleep tonight with light hearts caroline  

  • yes soften it as they would their hearts were  lighter the children's faces hushed and clustered  

  • round to hear what they so little understood  were brighter and it was a happier house for this  

  • man's death the only emotion that the ghost would  show him caused by the event was one of pleasure  

  • let me see some tenderness connected with a death  

  • said scrooge or that dark chamber spirit which  we leave just now will be forever present to me  

  • the ghost conducted him through several  streets familiar to his feet and as they  

  • went along scrooge looked here and there to  find himself but nowhere was he to be seen  

  • they entered poor bob cratchit's house the  dwelling he had visited before and found the  

  • mother and the children seated round the fire  quiet very quiet the noisy little cratchits  

  • were as still as statues in one corner and sat  looking up at peter who had a book before him  

  • the mother and her daughters were engaged  in sewing but surely they were very quiet  

  • and he took a child and set him in the midst of  them where had scrooge heard these words they  

  • had not dreamed them the boy must have read them  out as he and the spirit crossed the threshold  

  • why did he not go on the mother laid her work  upon the table and put her hand up to her face  

  • the color hurts my eyes she said the color oh poor  tiny tim they're better now again said cratchit's  

  • wife it makes them weak by candlelight andwouldn't show we guys to your father when he  

  • comes home for the world it must be near his time  past it rather peter answered shutting up his book  

  • but i think he has walked a little slower  than he used these few last evenings mother  

  • they were very quiet again at last she said that  in a steady cheerful voice that only faltered once  

  • i have known him walk with i have known  him walk with tiny tim upon his shoulder  

  • very fast indeed and so have i cried peter  often and so have i explained another so had all  

  • but he was very light to carry she resumed  intent upon her work and his father loved him  

  • so it was no trouble no trouble ah  and there is your father at the door  

  • she hurried out to meet him and little bob in  his comforter he had need of it poor fellow  

  • came in his tea was ready for him on the hob and  they all tried who should help him to it most  

  • then the two young cratchits got upon his knees  and laid each child a little cheek against his  

  • face as if they said don't mind it father don't  be grieved bob was very cheerful with them  

  • and spoke pleasantly to all the family he looked  at the work upon the table and praised the  

  • industry and speed of mrs cratchit and the girls  they would be done long before sunday he said  

  • sunday you went today then  robert said his wife yes my dear  

  • returned bob i wish you could have gone it would  have done you good to see how green a place it is  

  • but you'll see it often i promised him  that i would walk there on a sunday  

  • my little little child cried bob my little child  he broke down all at once he couldn't help it  

  • if he could have helped it he and his child would  have been further apart perhaps than they were  

  • he left the room and went upstairs into the room  above which was lighted cheerfully and hung with  

  • christmas there was a chair sat close beside the  child and there were signs of someone having been  

  • there lately poor bob sat down in it and when  he had thought a little and composed himself  

  • he kissed the little face he was reconciled to  what had happened and went down again quite happy  

  • they drew about the fire and talked the girls  and mother working still bob told them of the  

  • extraordinary kindness of mr scrooge's nephew  whom he had scarcely seen but once and who  

  • meeting him in the street that day  and seeing that he looked a little  

  • just a little down you know said bob  inquired what had happened to distress him  

  • on which said bob for he is the  pleasantest spoken gentleman you ever heard  

  • i told him i am heartily sorry for it mr cratchit  he said and heartily sorry for your good wife  

  • bye-bye how he ever knew that i don't know  knew what my dear why that you were a good wife  

  • replied bob oh everybody knows that said peter  very well observed my boy cried bob i hope they do  

  • heartily sorry he said for your good wife if  i can be of service to you in any way he said  

  • giving me his card that's where i live pray come  to me now it wasn't cried bob for the sake of  

  • anything he might be able to do for us so much as  for his kind way that this was quite delightful  

  • it really seemed as if he had known our tiny  tim and felt with us i'm sure he's a good soul  

  • said mrs cratchit you would be surer of it my  dear returned bob if you saw and spoke to him  

  • i shouldn't be at all surprised mark what  i say if he got peter a better situation  

  • only hear that peter said mrs cratchit and then  cried one of the girls peter will be keeping  

  • company with someone and setting up for himself  get along with you retorted peter grinning it's  

  • just as likely as not said bob one of these days  though there's plenty of time for that my dear  

  • but however and whenever we part from one another  i am sure we shall none of us forget tiny tin  

  • shall we or this first parting that there  was among us never father cried they all  

  • and i know said bob i know my dears that when we  recollect how patient and how mild he was although  

  • he was a little little child we shall not quarrel  easily among ourselves and forget poor tiny tim in  

  • doing it no never father they all cried againam very happy said little father i am very happy

  • mr scratch had kissed him his daughters  kissed him the two young cratchits kissed  

  • him and peter and himself shook hands spirits  of tiny tim thy childish essence was from god  

  • specter said scrooge something informs  me that our parting moment is at hand  

  • i know it but i know not how tell me one man that  was whom we saw lying dead the ghost of christmas  

  • yet to come conveyed him as before though atdifferent time he thought indeed there seemed  

  • no order in these latter visions save that they  were in the future into the resorts of businessmen  

  • but showed him not himself indeed the spirit  did not stay for anything but went straight  

  • on as to the end just now desired until  besought by scrooge to terry for a moment  

  • this court said scrooge through which we hurry  now is where my place of occupation is and  

  • has been for a length of time i see the house  let me behold what i shall be in days to come  

  • the spirit stopped the hand was pointed  elsewhere the house is younger scrooge  

  • exclaimed why do you point away the  inexorable finger underwent no change

  • scrooge hastened to the window of his office  and looked in it was an office still but not his  

  • the furniture was not the same and the  figure in the chair was not himself  

  • the phantom pointed as before he joined it once  again and wondering why and whether he had gone  

  • accompanied it until they reached an iron  gate he paused to look round before entering  

  • a churchyard here then the wretched man whose name  he had now to learn lay underneath the ground it  

  • was a worthy place walled in by houses overrun by  grass and weeds the growth of vegetation's death  

  • not life choked up with too much burying fat with  repleted appetite a worthy place the spirit stood  

  • among the graves and pointed down to one he  advanced towards its trembling the phantom  

  • was exactly as it had been but he dreaded  that he saw new meaning in its solemn shape  

  • before i draw nearer to that stone to which  you point said scrooge answer me one question  

  • are these the shadows of the things that will  be or are they the shadows of things that may be  

  • only still the ghost pointed downward  to the grave by which it stood  

  • man's courses will foreshadow certain ends to  which if persevered in they must lead said scrooge  

  • but if the course is be departed from the ends  will change say it is thus with what you show me  

  • the spirit was unmovable as ever scrooge  crept towards it trembling as he went  

  • and following the finger read upon the stone of  the neglected grave his own name ebeneezer scrooge  

  • am i the man that lay upon the bed he cried upon  his knees the finger pointed from the grave to him  

  • and back again no spirit no no no the finger still  was there spirit he cried tightly clutching at its  

  • robe hear me i am not the man i was i will not be  the man i must have been but for this intercourse  

  • why show me this if i am past all hope for  the first time the hand appeared to shake  

  • good spirit he pursued as down upon the ground  he fell before it your nature intercedes for  

  • me and pities me assure me that i yet may change  these shadows you have shown me by an altered life  

  • the kind hand trembled i will honor christmas  in my heart and try to keep it all the year i  

  • will live in the past the present and the future  the spirits of all three shall strive within me  

  • i will not shut out the lessons that they teach  oh tell me i may sponge away the writing on this  

  • stone in his agony he caught the spectral hand  it sought to free itself but he was strong in  

  • his entreaty and detained it the spirit stronger  yet repulsed him holding up his hands in a last  

  • prayer to have his fate reversed he saw an  alteration in the phantom's hood and dress  

  • it shrunk collapsed and dwindled down  into a bed post end of stave four

  • stay five of a christmas carol the end of it

  • yes and the bedpost was his own the bed was his  own the room was his own best and happiest of all  

  • the time before him was his own to make amends in  

  • i will live in the past the present and the  future scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of  

  • bed the spirits of all three shall strive within  me oh jacob marley heaven and the christmas time  

  • be praised for this i say it on my kneesjacob on my knees he was so fluttered and  

  • so glowing with his good intentions that his  broken voice would scarcely answer to his call  

  • he had been sobbing violently in his conflict  with the spirit and his face was wet with tears  

  • they are not torn down cried scrooge folding  one of his bed curtains in his arms they are not  

  • torn down rings and all they are here i am here  the shadows of the things that would have been  

  • may be dispelled they will be i know they will his  hands were busy with his garments all this time  

  • turning them inside out putting them on upside  down tearing them mislaying them making them  

  • parties to every kind of extravagance  i i don't know what to do cried scrooge  

  • laughing and crying in the same breath and making  a perfect laccoon of himself with his stockings  

  • i am light as a feather i am as happy as an  angel i am married as a schoolboy i am as giddy  

  • as a drunken man a merry christmas to everybodyhappy new year to all the world hello there hello  

  • he had frisked into the sitting room and was  now standing there perfectly winded there's  

  • the saucepan that the gruel was in cried scrooge  starting off again and going round the fireplace  

  • there's the door by which the ghost of jacob  marley entered there's the corner where the  

  • ghost of christmas presents sat oh there's  the window where i saw the wandering spirits  

  • it's all right it's all true it all happened

  • for a man who had been out of practice for so many  years it was a splendid laugh a most illustrious  

  • laugh the father of a long long line of brilliant  laughs i don't know what day of the month it is  

  • said scrooge i don't know how long i've been among  the spirits i don't know anything i'm quite a baby  

  • never mind i don't care i'd rather  be a baby hello whoop a hello here  

  • he was checked in his transports by the churches  ringing out the lustiest peels he had ever heard  

  • clash clang hammer ding dong bell  bell dong ding hammered clang clash oh  

  • glorious glorious running to the window  he opened it and put out his head  

  • no fog no mist clear bright jovial stirring  cold cold piping for the blood to dance to  

  • golden sunlight heavenly sky sweet fresh air  mary bells so glorious glorious what's today  

  • cried scrooge calling downward to a boy in sunday  clothes who perhaps had loitered in to look about  

  • him i returned the boy with all his might of  wonder what's today my fine fellow said scrooge  

  • today replied the boy by a christmas day it's  christmas day said scrooge to himself i haven't  

  • missed it the spirits have done it all in  one night or they can do anything they like  

  • of course they can of course they can hello  hello my fine fellow hello return the boy do  

  • you know the poulterers in the next street but one  at the corner scrooge inquired i should hope i did  

  • replied the lad ah an intelligent boy said scrooge  a remarkable boy do you know whether they've saw  

  • the prize turkey that was hanging up there not  the little prize turkey the big one what the one  

  • as big as me returned the boy what a delightful  boy said scrooge it is a pleasure to talk to him  

  • yes my buck it's hanging there now replied the boy  is it said scrooge go and buy it walker exclaimed  

  • the boy no no said scrooge i am an earnest go and  buy it and tell him to bring it here that i may  

  • give them the direction where to take it come  back with the man and i'll give you a shilling  

  • come back with him in less than five minutes  and i'll give you half a crown the boy was off  

  • like a shot he must have had a steady hand attrigger who could have got a shot off half so fast

  • i'll send it to bob cratchits whispered scrooge  rubbing his hands and splitting with a laugh  

  • he shall know who sends it it's twice the size  of tiny tim joe miller never made such a joke  

  • as sending it to bob's will be the hand in  which he wrote the address was not a steady one  

  • but right he did somehow and went downstairs  to open the street door ready for the coming  

  • of the poulterer's man as he stood there  waiting his arrival the knocker caught his eye  

  • i shall love it as long as i live cried scrooge  patting it with his hand i scarcely ever looked at  

  • it before what an honest expression it has in his  face it's a wonderful knocker ah here's the turkey  

  • hello how are you merry christmas it was a turkey  it never could have stood upon his legs that bird  

  • he would have snapped them off short  in a minute like sticks of sealing wax  

  • it's impossible to carry that to camden  down said scrooge you must have a cab  

  • the chuckle with which he said this and the  chuckle with which he paid for the turkey  

  • and the chuckle with which he paid for the cab  and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy  

  • were only to be exceeded by the chuckle with  which he sat down breathless in his chair again  

  • and chuckled till he cried shaving was not an easy  task for his hand continued to shake very much  

  • and shaving requires attention even  when you don't dance while you're at it  

  • but if he had cut the end of his nose off he  would have put a piece of sticking plaster over  

  • it and been quite satisfied he dressed himself all  in his best and at last got out into the street  

  • the people were by this time pouring forth as  he had seen them with the ghost of christmas  

  • present and walking with his hands behind him  scrooge regarded everyone with a delighted smile  

  • he looked so irresistibly pleasant in  a word that three or four good humored  

  • fellows said good morning sir a merry  christmas to you and scrooge said often  

  • afterwards that of all the blithe sounds he had  ever heard those were the blithest in his ears  

  • he had not gone far when coming on towards him  he beheld the portly gentleman who had walked  

  • into his counting house the day before  and said scrooge and marty's i believe  

  • it sent a pang across his heart to think how this  old gentleman would look upon him when they met  

  • but he knew what path lay straight  before him and he took it my dear sir  

  • said scrooge quickening his pace and  taking the old gentleman by both his hands  

  • how do you do i hope you succeeded yesterday it  was very kind of you a merry christmas to you sir  

  • mr scrooge yes said scrooge that is my name  and i fear it may not be pleasant to you  

  • allow me to ask your pardon and will you have  the goodness here scrooge whispered in his ear  

  • lord bless me cried the gentleman as if his  breath were taken away my dear mr scrooge  

  • are you serious if you please  said scrooge not a farthing less  

  • a great many back payments are included in itassure you will you do me that favor my dear sir  

  • said the other shaking hands with him i  i don't know what to say to such munifice  

  • don't say anything please retorted scrooge  come and see me will you come and see me  

  • i will cried the old gentleman and it  was clear he meant to do it thank he  

  • said scrooge i am much obliged to  you i thank you 50 times bless you  

  • he went to church and walked about the streets  and watched the people hurrying to and fro and  

  • patted children on the head and questioned  beggars and looked down into the kitchens  

  • of houses and up to the windows and found  that everything could yield him pleasure  

  • he had never dreamed that any walk but that  anything could give him so much happiness  

  • in the afternoon he turned his steps towards his  nephew's house he passed the door a dozen times  

  • before he had the courage to go up and knock  but he made a dash and did it it's your master  

  • at home my dear said scrooge to the girl  nice girl very yes sir where is he my love  

  • said scrooge he's in the dining room sir along  with mistress i'll show you upstairs if you please  

  • thank you he knows me said scrooge with  his hand already on the dining room lock  

  • i'll go in here my dear he turned it gently  and sidled his face in round the door  

  • they were looking at the table which was spread  out in great array for these young housekeepers  

  • are always nervous on such points and like  to see that everything is right fred said  

  • scroon dear heart alive how his niece by marriage  started scrooge had forgotten for the moment about  

  • her sitting in the corner with the footstool  or he wouldn't have done it on any account  

  • why bless my soul cried fred who's that it is  i hear your uncle scrooge i have come to dinner  

  • will you let me in fred let him in it  is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off  

  • he was at home in five minutes nothing  could be harder his niece looked just  

  • the same so did topper when he came so  did the plump sister when she came so did  

  • everyone when they came wonderful party wonderful  games wonderful unanimity wonderful happiness

  • but he was early at the office next morning oh  he was early there if he could only be there  

  • first and catch bob cratchit coming in late  that was the thing he had set his heart upon  

  • and he did it yes he did the clock struck  nine no bob a quarter past no bob he was full  

  • 18 minutes and a half behind his time scrooge  sat with his door wide open that he might see  

  • him come into the tank his hat was off before  he opened the door his comforter too he was on  

  • his stool in a jiffy driving away with his pen  as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock  

  • hello crowd scrooge and his accustomed  voice as near as he could feign it what  

  • do you mean by coming here at this time  of day i am very sorry sir said bob  

  • i am behind my time you are repeated scrooge yes  i think you are step this way sir if you please

  • it's only once a year sir pleaded bob appearing  from the tank it shall not be repeated  

  • i was making brother mary yesterday sir  

  • now i'll tell you what my friend said scrooge i am  not going to stand this sort of thing any longer  

  • and therefore he continued leaping from his stool  and giving bob such a dig in the waistcoat that  

  • he staggered back into the tank again and  therefore i am going to raise your salary  

  • bob trembled and got a little nearer to the ruler  he had a momentary idea of knocking scrooge down  

  • with it holding him and calling to the people  in the court for help and a straight waistcoat  

  • a merry christmas bob said scrooge with  an earnestness that could not be mistaken  

  • as he clapped him on the back and a merrier  christmas bob my good fellow than i have given  

  • you for many a year i'll raise your salary and  endeavor to assist your struggling family and  

  • we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon  over a christmas bowl of smoking bishop bob up the  

  • fires and buy another coal scuttle before you dot  another eye bob cratchit scrooge was better than  

  • his word he did it all and infinitely more and to  tiny tim who did not die he was a second father  

  • he became as good a friend as good a master  and as good a man as the good old city knew  

  • or any other good old city town or borough in  the good old world some people laughed to see  

  • the alteration in him but he let them laugh and  little heated them for he was wise enough to know  

  • that nothing ever happened on this globe for good  and which some people did not have their fill of  

  • laughter in the outset and knowing that such as  these would be blind anyway he thought it quite  

  • as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in  greens as have the melody in less attractive forms  

  • his own heart laughed and that was quite enough  for him he had no further intercourse with spirits  

  • but lived upon the total abstinence principle  ever afterward and it was always said of him  

  • that he knew how to keep christmas well  if any man alive possessed the knowledge  

  • may that truly be said of us and all of us and  so as tiny tim observed god bless us everyone

  • end of a christmas carol by charles dickens

  • pride and prejudice by jane austen  the great gatsby by f scott fitzgerald

  • it was the best of times it was the  worst of times the art of war by tsun tzu

a christmas carol by charles  dickens read by bob neufeld

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A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Audiobook with holidays music)(A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens (Audiobook with holidays music))

  • 21 9
    林宜悉 に公開 2023 年 10 月 11 日
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