2023-12-20_Replay_838_A_Christmas_Carol_by_Charles

00:00:00.000 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance, a show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge,

00:00:03.340 | skills, insight, and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now while

00:00:09.540 | building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.

00:00:14.460 | My name is Joshua Sheets.

00:00:15.460 | I'm your host today.

00:00:16.460 | You'll notice that my emphasis is on living a rich life now, a meaningful life now, and

00:00:27.700 | on the word insight.

00:00:30.720 | You'll understand that today I want to talk about what it means to live a rich and meaningful

00:00:35.640 | life and then I want to use a classic resource to draw some of the lessons.

00:00:40.440 | As I record this, it is Tuesday, December 21, 2021 for all the number aficionados, 12,

00:00:48.020 | 21, 21, which is of course a fun number, and I want to share with you today a classic tale

00:00:54.220 | of what it means to balance money with other aspects of your life.

00:01:00.300 | The tale is A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens, a very well-known story, but in my experience,

00:01:07.960 | for those who are aware of The Christmas Carol, it's much more likely that your exposure

00:01:12.820 | to this story will have come from a theatrical production.

00:01:17.320 | It's a very commonly performed play.

00:01:19.920 | Last year, my wife and I went and enjoyed a stage production of A Christmas Carol, but

00:01:24.960 | although I've seen a number of stage productions and enjoyed them all, and I think they work

00:01:29.720 | hard to convey the truths, the meaning behind this particular story, as is quite common,

00:01:36.680 | those stage productions can't, by virtue of the way that they're presented, they simply

00:01:42.480 | cannot articulate all of the original intent of the author.

00:01:46.840 | And when Charles Dickens wrote this particular story, he was writing about money and about

00:01:52.240 | life.

00:01:53.880 | And as I was rereading this story this year with my children, we were going through and

00:01:57.960 | reading it to them, I was just struck by how perfect it was as a useful parable for us

00:02:05.480 | here at Radical Personal Finance.

00:02:06.920 | And so in today's episode, I want to read to you this story.

00:02:11.560 | I want to encourage you, if you've read it recently, great, or read the story, listen

00:02:16.860 | to it again.

00:02:17.860 | But I want to encourage you, many of you may find this difficult, but I will do my best

00:02:22.080 | to read it in a way that is engaging.

00:02:23.920 | If my young children can engage with it, even though the words may be unfamiliar at times

00:02:29.100 | or the sentence construction a little bit different than what we're accustomed to, then

00:02:33.680 | I am quite confident that you would enjoy it.

00:02:36.280 | And I want you to listen for the commentary on money and think about, as we consider the

00:02:42.220 | experiences that Scrooge himself goes through, I want you to think about the meaning and

00:02:47.980 | how you can apply these lessons to your own life, especially as is normal with a book,

00:02:54.020 | we get to interact with the thoughts and the feelings of the protagonist.

00:02:57.680 | I think this is such a valuable parable for us to consider, both now in the Christmas

00:03:02.180 | season and later.

00:03:05.100 | So enjoy my particular reading of "A Christmas Carol in Prose" being "A Ghost Story of Christmas"

00:03:13.340 | by Charles Dickens.

00:03:19.140 | Stave one, Marley's ghost.

00:03:22.800 | Marley was dead to begin with.

00:03:26.820 | There is no doubt whatever about that.

00:03:29.100 | The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and

00:03:33.820 | the chief mourner.

00:03:35.540 | Scrooge signed it.

00:03:36.700 | And Scrooge's name was good upon change for anything he chose to put his hand to.

00:03:41.220 | Old Marley was as dead as a doornail.

00:03:45.260 | Mind, I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge what there is particularly

00:03:49.580 | dead about a doornail.

00:03:51.340 | I might have been inclined myself to regard a coffin nail as the deadest piece of iron

00:03:56.620 | mongery in the trade.

00:03:58.400 | But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile, and my unhallowed hands shall not

00:04:04.700 | disturb it, or the country's done for.

00:04:07.440 | You will therefore permit me to repeat emphatically that Marley was as dead as a doornail.

00:04:16.440 | Scrooge knew he was dead?

00:04:17.440 | Of course he did.

00:04:18.960 | How could it be otherwise?

00:04:20.720 | Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years.

00:04:24.360 | Scrooge was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee,

00:04:34.040 | his sole friend, and sole mourner.

00:04:38.560 | And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent

00:04:44.080 | man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnized it with an undoubted bargain.

00:04:51.080 | The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started from.

00:04:54.640 | There is no doubt that Marley was dead.

00:04:59.120 | This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going

00:05:03.440 | to relate.

00:05:04.600 | If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died before the play began, there would

00:05:09.600 | be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon

00:05:14.060 | his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning

00:05:19.440 | out after dark in a breezy spot, say St. Paul's churchyard for instance, literally to astonish

00:05:24.580 | his son's weak mind.

00:05:26.840 | Scrooge never painted out old Marley's name.

00:05:29.360 | There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse door, Scrooge and Marley.

00:05:35.440 | The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley.

00:05:39.840 | Sometimes people knew to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but

00:05:44.000 | he answered to both names, it was all the same to him.

00:05:47.000 | Oh, but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge, a squeezing, wrenching,

00:05:53.080 | grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner, hard and sharp as flint, from which

00:05:59.520 | no steel had ever struck out generous fire, secret and self-contained and solitary as

00:06:06.040 | an oyster.

00:06:07.320 | The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shriveled his cheek,

00:06:14.000 | stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue, and spoke out shrewdly in

00:06:20.920 | his grating voice.

00:06:23.080 | A frosty rhyme was on his head and on his eyebrows and his wiry chin.

00:06:28.560 | He carried his own low temperature always about with him.

00:06:32.700 | He iced his office in the dog days and didn't thaw at one degree at Christmas.

00:06:39.200 | External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.

00:06:42.840 | No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him, no wind that blew was bitterer than he,

00:06:50.000 | no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty.

00:06:56.160 | Foul weather didn't know where to have him.

00:06:59.000 | The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only

00:07:03.980 | one respect.

00:07:05.600 | They often came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

00:07:12.160 | Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say with gladsome looks, "My dear Scrooge, how

00:07:16.160 | are you?

00:07:17.160 | When will you come to see me?"

00:07:18.880 | No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was o'clock,

00:07:25.600 | no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to such and such a place

00:07:30.200 | of Scrooge.

00:07:32.040 | Even the blind men's dogs appeared to know him, and when they saw him coming on would

00:07:36.960 | tug their owners into doorways and up courts, and then would wag their tails as though they

00:07:42.960 | said, "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, Dark Master."

00:07:47.600 | But what did Scrooge care?

00:07:49.520 | It was the very thing he liked, to edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning

00:07:56.960 | all human sympathy to keep its distance was what the Knowing Ones called nuts to Scrooge.

00:08:05.200 | Once upon a time, of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve, old Scrooge sat

00:08:11.440 | busy in his counting house.

00:08:14.000 | It was cold, bleak, biting weather, foggy with all, and he could hear the people in

00:08:21.000 | the court outside go wheezing up and down, beating their hands upon their breasts and

00:08:26.040 | stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them.

00:08:29.600 | The city clocks had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already.

00:08:34.320 | It had not been light all day, and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighboring

00:08:38.480 | offices like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air.

00:08:43.520 | The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense without that, although

00:08:49.520 | the court was of the narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.

00:08:55.520 | To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything, one might have thought

00:09:00.680 | that nature lived hard by and was brewing on a large scale.

00:09:05.700 | The door of Scrooge's counting house was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk,

00:09:10.400 | who in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying letters.

00:09:17.640 | Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire was so very much smaller that it looked

00:09:23.800 | like one coal.

00:09:25.760 | But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal box in his own room, and so

00:09:29.900 | surely as the clerk came in with a shovel, the master predicted that it would be necessary

00:09:34.600 | for them to part.

00:09:36.400 | Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter and tried to imagine himself at the candle,

00:09:41.600 | in which effort, not being a man of strong imagination, he failed.

00:09:46.480 | "A Merry Christmas, Uncle!

00:09:48.520 | God save you!" cried a cheerful voice.

00:09:51.320 | It was the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was the

00:09:55.520 | first intimation he had of his approach.

00:09:58.480 | "Bah!" said Scrooge, "humbug!"

00:10:02.060 | He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's,

00:10:07.160 | that he was all in a glow.

00:10:08.960 | His face was ruddy and handsome, his eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

00:10:14.720 | "Christmas, a humbug, Uncle!" said Scrooge's nephew.

00:10:18.000 | "You don't mean that, I'm sure."

00:10:20.640 | "I do," said Scrooge.

00:10:22.680 | "Merry Christmas!

00:10:24.320 | What right have you to be merry?

00:10:26.760 | What reason have you to be merry?

00:10:30.280 | You're poor enough!"

00:10:31.760 | "Come then," returned the nephew gaily, "what right have you to be dismal?

00:10:36.960 | What right have you to be morose?

00:10:39.480 | You're rich enough!"

00:10:41.700 | Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment said, "Bah!" again, and

00:10:47.720 | followed it up with, "Humbug!"

00:10:49.720 | "Don't be cross, Uncle," said the nephew.

00:10:52.880 | "What else can I be?"

00:10:55.080 | returned the uncle, "when I live in such a world of fools as this?

00:10:59.360 | Merry Christmas!

00:11:01.200 | Out upon merry Christmas!

00:11:03.600 | What's Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money, a time for finding

00:11:09.160 | yourself a year older but not an hour richer, a time for balancing your books and having

00:11:15.360 | every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you?

00:11:20.520 | If I could work my will," said Scrooge indignantly, "every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas'

00:11:28.160 | on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through

00:11:33.720 | his heart, he should!"

00:11:35.640 | "Uncle!" pleaded the nephew.

00:11:38.320 | "Nephew," returned the uncle sternly, "keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep

00:11:44.680 | it in mine."

00:11:45.680 | "Keep it!" repeated Scrooge's nephew, "but you don't keep it!"

00:11:50.400 | "Let me leave it alone then," said Scrooge, "much good may it do you, much good it has

00:11:56.840 | ever done you!"

00:11:58.840 | "There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited,

00:12:04.600 | I dare say," returned the nephew, "Christmas among the rest, but I am sure I have always

00:12:10.160 | thought of Christmas time when it has come round apart from the veneration due its sacred

00:12:14.700 | name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that, as a good time,

00:12:19.840 | a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time, the only time I know of in the long calendar

00:12:27.320 | of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely

00:12:33.600 | and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave,

00:12:38.160 | and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.

00:12:41.720 | And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket,

00:12:47.040 | I believe that it has done me good and will do me good, and I say God bless it!"

00:12:55.400 | The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded, becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,

00:12:59.940 | he poked the fire and extinguished the last frail spark forever.

00:13:03.880 | "Let me hear another sound from you," said Scrooge, "and you'll keep your Christmas

00:13:11.880 | by losing your situation."

00:13:13.840 | "You're quite a powerful speaker, sir," he added, turning to his nephew, "I wonder you

00:13:21.640 | don't go into Parliament.

00:13:24.720 | Don't be angry, uncle, come dine with us tomorrow."

00:13:28.560 | Scrooge said that he would see him, yes, indeed he did.

00:13:33.040 | He went the whole length of the expression and said that he would see him in that extremity

00:13:38.680 | first.

00:13:39.680 | "But why," cried Scrooge's nephew, "why?"

00:13:44.040 | "Why did you get married?" said Scrooge.

00:13:47.840 | "Because I fell in love."

00:13:50.080 | "Because you fell in love," growled Scrooge, as if that were the only thing in the world

00:13:56.240 | more ridiculous than a merry Christmas.

00:13:59.240 | "Good afternoon."

00:14:00.920 | "Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened.

00:14:05.680 | Why give it as a reason for not coming now?"

00:14:09.320 | "Good afternoon," said Scrooge, "I want nothing from you, I ask nothing of you.

00:14:17.500 | Why cannot we be friends?"

00:14:20.000 | "Good afternoon," said Scrooge, "I am sorry with all my heart to find you so resolute.

00:14:28.500 | We have never had any quarrel, to which I have been a party, but I have made the trial

00:14:33.320 | in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas humor to the last.

00:14:38.400 | So a merry Christmas, uncle."

00:14:41.520 | "Good afternoon," said Scrooge, "and a happy new year."

00:14:45.640 | "Good afternoon," said Scrooge.

00:14:48.600 | His nephew left the room without an angry word notwithstanding.

00:14:53.200 | He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who,

00:14:56.680 | cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge, for he returned them cordially.

00:15:01.080 | "There is another fellow," muttered Scrooge, who overheard him, "my clerk, with fifteen

00:15:07.280 | shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas.

00:15:12.480 | I'll retire to bedlam."

00:15:15.380 | This lunatic in letting Scrooge's nephew out had let two other people in.

00:15:19.200 | They were a portly gentleman, pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,

00:15:23.840 | in Scrooge's office.

00:15:24.840 | They had books and papers in their hands and bowed to him.

00:15:28.360 | "Scrooge and Marley's, I believe," said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list.

00:15:31.880 | "Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley?"

00:15:35.800 | "Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge replied.

00:15:40.320 | "He died seven years ago, this very night."

00:15:44.160 | "We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner," said

00:15:49.360 | the gentleman, presenting his credentials.

00:15:51.800 | It certainly was, for they had been two kindred spirits.

00:15:56.160 | At the ominous word "liberality," Scrooge frowned and shook his head and handed the

00:16:04.400 | credentials back.

00:16:05.560 | "At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge," said the gentleman, taking up

00:16:09.320 | a pen, "it is more than usually desirable that we should make some slight provision

00:16:13.600 | for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time.

00:16:17.880 | Many thousands are in want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands are in want of common

00:16:22.600 | comforts, sir."

00:16:23.960 | "Are there no prisons?" asked Scrooge.

00:16:27.560 | "Plenty of prisons," said the gentleman, laying down the pen again.

00:16:30.960 | "And the union workhouses?" demanded Scrooge.

00:16:34.200 | "Are they still in operation?"

00:16:36.360 | "They are still," returned the gentleman.

00:16:38.880 | "I wish I could say they were not."

00:16:41.360 | "The treadmill and the poor law are in full vigour then?" said Scrooge.

00:16:46.480 | "Both very busy, sir."

00:16:48.880 | "Oh!

00:16:49.880 | I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in

00:16:54.320 | their useful course," said Scrooge.

00:16:56.840 | "I am very glad to hear it."

00:16:59.880 | "Under the impression that they scarcely furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to

00:17:04.560 | the multitude," returned the gentleman, "a few of us are endeavouring to raise a

00:17:09.160 | fund to buy the poor some meat and drink and means of warmth.

00:17:14.440 | We choose this time because it is a time, of all others, when want is keenly felt and

00:17:19.960 | abundance rejoices.

00:17:21.820 | What shall I put you down for?"

00:17:24.200 | "Nothing," Scrooge replied.

00:17:26.440 | "You wish to be anonymous?"

00:17:28.400 | "I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge.

00:17:32.400 | "Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.

00:17:36.000 | I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry.

00:17:41.960 | I help to support the establishments I have mentioned.

00:17:45.520 | They cost enough, and those who are badly off must go there.

00:17:50.480 | Many can't go there, and many would rather die."

00:17:54.160 | "If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the

00:18:01.000 | surplus population.

00:18:02.680 | Besides, excuse me, I don't know that."

00:18:05.920 | "But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

00:18:08.640 | "It's not my business," Scrooge returned.

00:18:12.000 | "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other

00:18:17.320 | people's.

00:18:18.320 | Mine occupies me constantly.

00:18:21.080 | Good afternoon, gentlemen."

00:18:23.720 | Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the gentleman withdrew.

00:18:29.480 | Scrooge resumed his labors with an improved opinion of himself, and in a more facetious

00:18:34.880 | temper than was usual with him.

00:18:37.960 | Meanwhile, the fog and darkness thickened so that people ran about with flaring links,

00:18:44.720 | proffering their services to go before horses in carriages and conduct them on their way.

00:18:50.760 | The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slyly down at

00:18:56.640 | Scrooge out of a Gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the hours and

00:19:02.480 | quarters in the clouds with tremulous vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering

00:19:07.820 | in its frozen head up there.

00:19:10.160 | The cold became intense.

00:19:13.000 | In the main street, at the corner of the court, some laborers were repairing the gas pipes

00:19:17.480 | and had lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men and boys

00:19:21.720 | were gathered, warming their hands and winking their eyes before the blaze in rapture.

00:19:27.680 | The water plug, being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed and turned

00:19:32.880 | to misanthropic ice.

00:19:35.680 | The brightness of the shops, where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the lamp heat of the

00:19:39.840 | windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed.

00:19:43.880 | Poulterers and grocers' trades became a splendid joke, a glorious pageant, with which

00:19:49.080 | it was next to impossible to believe that such dull principles as bargain and sale had

00:19:55.380 | anything to do.

00:19:56.840 | The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty mansion house, gave orders to his fifty cooks

00:20:01.520 | and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's household should, and even the little tailor,

00:20:06.620 | whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in

00:20:12.080 | the streets, stirred up tomorrow's pudding in his garret while his lean wife and the

00:20:16.400 | baby sallied out to buy the beef.

00:20:19.240 | Foggier yet and colder, piercing, searching, biting cold.

00:20:27.680 | If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the evil spirit's nose with a touch of such

00:20:32.360 | weather as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared

00:20:37.880 | to lusty purpose.

00:20:39.520 | The owner of one's scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are

00:20:44.920 | gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol,

00:20:50.800 | but at the first sound of "God bless you, merry gentlemen, may nothing you dismay,"

00:20:56.160 | Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that the singer fled in terror,

00:21:01.000 | leaving the keyhole to the fog and even more congenial frost.

00:21:05.680 | At length, the hour of shutting up the counting house arrived.

00:21:10.480 | With an ill will, Scrooge dismounted from his stool and tacitly admitted the fact to

00:21:17.720 | the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed his candle out and put on his hat.

00:21:22.720 | "You'll want all day tomorrow, I suppose," said Scrooge.

00:21:27.400 | "If quite convenient, sir."

00:21:29.360 | "It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair.

00:21:33.400 | If I was to stop half a crown for it, you'd think yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?"

00:21:38.760 | The clerk smiled faintly.

00:21:40.800 | "And yet," said Scrooge, "you don't think me ill-used when I pay a day's wages for

00:21:48.160 | no work?"

00:21:49.800 | The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

00:21:52.280 | "A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every 25th of December," said Scrooge, buttoning

00:21:57.880 | his greatcoat to the chin.

00:21:59.240 | "But I suppose you must have the whole day.

00:22:02.040 | Be here all the earlier next morning."

00:22:04.760 | The clerk promised that he would, and Scrooge walked out with a growl.

00:22:10.380 | The office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his white

00:22:14.320 | comforter dangling below his waist, for he boasted no greatcoat, went down a slide on

00:22:19.200 | Corn Hill at the end of a lane of boys twenty times in honor of its being Christmas Eve,

00:22:24.060 | and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt to play at Blindman's Buff.

00:22:29.440 | Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern, and having read all

00:22:36.400 | the newspapers and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker's book, went home

00:22:41.160 | to bed.

00:22:42.480 | He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner.

00:22:48.040 | They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile of building-up-a-yard, where it had so

00:22:54.300 | little business to be that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when

00:22:59.280 | it was a young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses and forgotten the way out

00:23:03.600 | again.

00:23:04.600 | It was old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other

00:23:10.160 | rooms being all let out as offices.

00:23:12.800 | The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain to grope with

00:23:17.920 | his hands.

00:23:19.320 | The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house that it seemed as

00:23:24.120 | if the genius of the weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.

00:23:29.080 | Now it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door

00:23:34.360 | except that it was very large.

00:23:37.440 | It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it night and morning during his whole residence

00:23:42.480 | in that place, also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man

00:23:49.120 | in the City of London, even including—which is a bold word—the Corporation Alderman

00:23:56.400 | and Livery.

00:23:58.120 | Let it also be borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since

00:24:03.640 | his last mention of his seven-years-dead partner that afternoon.

00:24:08.320 | And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Scrooge, having

00:24:12.840 | his key in the lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate

00:24:19.320 | process of change, not a knocker but Marley's face.

00:24:28.160 | It was not an impenetrable shadow as the other objects in the yard were, but had a dismal

00:24:33.400 | light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar.

00:24:37.200 | It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look, with ghostly

00:24:42.320 | spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead.

00:24:45.800 | The hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air, and though the eyes were wide

00:24:51.880 | open, they were perfectly motionless.

00:24:55.600 | That and its livid color made it horrible, but its horror seemed to be in spite of the

00:24:59.920 | face and beyond its control, rather than a part of its own expression.

00:25:04.780 | As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.

00:25:09.560 | To say that he was not startled or that his blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation

00:25:14.060 | to which it had been a stranger from infancy would be untrue, but he put his hand upon

00:25:20.240 | the key he had relinquished, turned it sturdily, walked in and lighted the candle.

00:25:24.920 | He did pause with a moment's ear-resolution before he shut the door, and he did look cautiously

00:25:32.340 | behind it first, as if he half expected to be terrified with the sight of Marley's

00:25:38.020 | pigtail sticking out into the hall.

00:25:40.640 | But there was nothing on the back of the door except the screws and nuts that held the knocker

00:25:44.560 | on, so he said, "Poo-poo," and closed it with a bang.

00:25:49.320 | The sound resounded through the house like thunder.

00:25:53.280 | Every room above and every cask in the wine merchant's cellars below appeared to have

00:25:57.080 | a separate peal of echoes of its own.

00:26:00.720 | George was not a man to be frightened by echoes.

00:26:03.540 | He fastened the door and walked across the hall and up the stairs, slowly, too, trimming

00:26:08.180 | his candle as he went.

00:26:10.780 | You may talk vaguely about driving a coach and six up a good old flight of stairs or

00:26:16.340 | through a bad young act of parliament, but I mean to say you might have got a hearse

00:26:21.340 | up that staircase and taken it broadwise with a splinter bar towards the wall and the door

00:26:26.580 | towards the balustrades and done it easy.

00:26:30.060 | There was plenty of width for that and room to spare, which is perhaps the reason why

00:26:34.240 | Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him in the gloom.

00:26:39.340 | Half a dozen gas lamps out of the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so you may

00:26:43.820 | suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's dip.

00:26:48.060 | Up Scrooge went, not carrying a button for that.

00:26:50.820 | "Darkness is cheap," and Scrooge liked it.

00:26:54.380 | But before he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms to see that all was right.

00:26:59.560 | He had just enough recollection of the face to desire to do that.

00:27:04.820 | Sitting room, bedroom, lumber room, all as they should be.

00:27:10.760 | Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa, a small fire in the grate, spoon and basin

00:27:14.620 | ready, and the little saucepan of gruel, Scrooge had a cold in his head, upon the hob.

00:27:21.300 | Nobody under the bed, nobody in the closet, nobody in his dressing gown, which was hanging

00:27:24.220 | up in a suspicious attitude against the wall.

00:27:26.980 | Lumber room as usual, old fire guard, old shoes, two fish baskets, washing stand on

00:27:32.660 | three legs, and a poker.

00:27:35.840 | Quite satisfied, he closed his door and locked himself in, double locked himself in, which

00:27:40.040 | was not his custom.

00:27:41.960 | Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat, put on his dressing gown and slippers

00:27:47.160 | and his nightcap, and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.

00:27:52.040 | It was a very low fire indeed, nothing on such a bitter night.

00:27:56.060 | He was obliged to sit close to it and brood over it before he could extract the least

00:28:02.480 | sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.

00:28:06.420 | The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round

00:28:12.000 | with quaint Dutch tiles designed to illustrate the scriptures.

00:28:17.040 | There were canes and ables, pharaoh's daughters, queens of Sheba, angelic messengers descending

00:28:23.580 | through the air on clouds like feather beds, Abraham's, Belshazzar's, apostles putting

00:28:29.920 | off to sea in butter boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts.

00:28:35.000 | And yet, that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient prophet's rod

00:28:42.000 | and swallowed up the whole.

00:28:44.040 | If each smooth tile had been a blanket first, with power to shape some picture on its surface

00:28:48.800 | from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would have been a copy of old Marley's

00:28:53.520 | head on every one.

00:28:55.320 | "Humbug!" said Scrooge and walked across the room.

00:28:58.960 | After several turns, he sat down again.

00:29:00.960 | As he threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused

00:29:06.720 | bell that hung in the room and communicated, for some purpose now forgotten, with a chamber

00:29:11.980 | in the highest story of the building.

00:29:14.720 | It was with great astonishment and with a strange, inexplicable dread that, as he looked,

00:29:23.120 | he saw this bell begin to swing.

00:29:26.600 | It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound, but soon it rang out loudly

00:29:32.640 | and so did every bell in the house.

00:29:35.580 | This might have lasted half a minute or a minute, but it seemed an hour.

00:29:39.520 | The bells ceased as they had begun, together.

00:29:44.600 | They were succeeded by a clanking noise deep down below, as if some person were dragging

00:29:53.760 | a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant's cellar.

00:29:59.360 | Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as

00:30:05.480 | dragging chains.

00:30:08.480 | The cellar door flew open with a booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder on

00:30:12.480 | the floors below, then coming up the stairs, then coming straight towards his door.

00:30:16.600 | "It's Humbug still," said Scrooge.

00:30:18.360 | "I won't believe it."

00:30:20.040 | His color changed, though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door and

00:30:24.680 | passed into the room before his eyes.

00:30:27.520 | Upon its coming in, the dying flame leaped up as though it cried, "I know him!

00:30:32.400 | Marley's ghost!" and fell again.

00:30:37.800 | The same face, the very same.

00:30:43.240 | Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights, and boots, the tassels on the ladder bristling

00:30:49.000 | like his pigtail, and his coat skirts, and the hair upon his head.

00:30:52.760 | The chain he drew was clasped about his middle.

00:30:55.920 | It was long and wound about him like a tail, and it was made, for Scrooge observed it closely,

00:31:02.200 | of cash boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.

00:31:10.120 | His body was transparent, so that Scrooge, observing him and looking through his waistcoat,

00:31:15.120 | could see the two buttons on his coat behind.

00:31:19.000 | Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels, but he had never believed it

00:31:23.600 | until now.

00:31:24.600 | No, nor did he believe it even now, though he looked the phantom through and through

00:31:28.240 | and saw it standing before him, though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold

00:31:32.680 | eyes and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound around its head and chin, which

00:31:37.960 | wrapper he had not observed before.

00:31:39.560 | He was still incredulous and fought against his senses.

00:31:43.160 | "How now," said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.

00:31:46.600 | "What do you want with me?

00:31:48.400 | Much?"

00:31:49.400 | Marley's voice, no doubt about it.

00:31:51.000 | "Who are you?"

00:31:52.000 | "Ask me who I was."

00:31:54.040 | "Who were you then?" said Scrooge, raising his voice.

00:31:57.840 | "You're particular for a shade," he was going to say to a shade, but substituted

00:32:02.320 | this is more appropriate.

00:32:03.520 | "In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley."

00:32:06.840 | "Can you… can you sit down?" asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him.

00:32:14.080 | "I can."

00:32:15.080 | "Do it then."

00:32:17.520 | Scrooge asked the question because he didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might

00:32:21.880 | find himself in a condition to take a chair and felt that in the event of its being impossible,

00:32:27.720 | it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation.

00:32:31.600 | But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used

00:32:35.960 | to it.

00:32:36.960 | "You don't believe in me," observed the ghost.

00:32:40.240 | "I don't," said Scrooge, "what evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of

00:32:46.120 | your senses?"

00:32:47.120 | "I don't know," said Scrooge, "why do you doubt your senses?"

00:32:52.680 | "Because," said Scrooge, "a little thing affects them, a slight disorder of the stomach

00:32:58.000 | makes them cheats.

00:32:59.520 | You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment

00:33:06.920 | of an underdone potato.

00:33:08.920 | There's more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are."

00:33:14.760 | Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes, nor did he feel in his heart by any

00:33:19.240 | means waggish then.

00:33:21.520 | The truth is that he tried to be smart as a means of distracting his own attention and

00:33:27.760 | keeping down his terror, for the specter's voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

00:33:35.720 | To sit, staring at those fixed, glazed eyes in silence for a moment, would play, Scrooge

00:33:43.560 | felt, the very deuce with him.

00:33:45.520 | There was something very awful, too, in the specter's being provided with an infernal

00:33:50.960 | atmosphere of its own.

00:33:53.200 | Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case, for though the ghost

00:33:57.280 | sat perfectly motionless, its hair and skirts and tassels were still agitated as by the

00:34:04.680 | hot vapor from an oven.

00:34:06.440 | "You see this toothpick," said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge, for the reason

00:34:11.040 | just to sign and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the vision's stony

00:34:14.680 | gaze from himself.

00:34:15.920 | "I do," replied the ghost.

00:34:18.320 | "You're not looking at it," said Scrooge, "but I see it," said the ghost, "notwithstanding."

00:34:23.920 | "Well," returned Scrooge, "I have but to swallow this, and be, for the rest of my

00:34:29.760 | days, persecuted by a legion of goblins, all of my own creation.

00:34:34.800 | Humbug, I tell you, humbug!"

00:34:37.800 | At this the spirit raised a frightful cry and shook its chain with such a dismal and

00:34:43.020 | appalling noise that Scrooge held on tight to his chair to save himself from falling

00:34:48.080 | in a swoon.

00:34:49.200 | But how much greater was his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round its

00:34:53.360 | head as if it were too warm to wear indoors, its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast.

00:35:00.200 | Scrooge fell upon his knees and clasped his hands before his face.

00:35:03.320 | "Mercy," he said, "dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?"

00:35:06.880 | "Man of the worldly mind," replied the ghost, "do you believe in me or not?"

00:35:11.600 | "I do," said Scrooge, "I must, but why do spirits walk the earth and why do they come

00:35:16.200 | to me?"

00:35:17.200 | "It is required of every man," the ghost returned, "that the spirit within him should

00:35:23.300 | walk abroad among his fellow men and travel far and wide, and if that spirit goes not

00:35:29.280 | forth in life it is condemned to do so after death.

00:35:32.760 | It is doomed to wander through the world, oh woe is me, and witness what it cannot share

00:35:40.200 | but might have shared on earth and turned to happiness."

00:35:45.960 | Then the specter raised a cry and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.

00:35:51.600 | "You are fettered," said Scrooge, trembling, "tell me why."

00:35:57.080 | "I wear the chain I forged in life," replied the ghost, "I made it link by link and yard

00:36:05.400 | by yard.

00:36:06.880 | I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it.

00:36:13.460 | Is its pattern strange to you?"

00:36:17.560 | Scrooge trembled more and more.

00:36:20.560 | "Or would you know," pursued the ghost, "the weight and length of the strong coil

00:36:25.880 | you bear yourself?

00:36:28.080 | It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas eves ago.

00:36:33.680 | You have labored on it since.

00:36:36.280 | It is a ponderous chain."

00:36:41.680 | Scrooge glanced about him on the floor in the expectation of finding himself surrounded

00:36:46.920 | by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable, but he could see nothing.

00:36:53.640 | "Jacob," he said imploringly, "old Jacob Marley, tell me more.

00:36:58.560 | Speak comfort to me, Jacob."

00:37:00.120 | "I have none to give," the ghost replied.

00:37:03.000 | "It comes from other regions," Ebenezer Scrooge, "and is conveyed by other ministers

00:37:10.280 | to other kinds of men.

00:37:13.200 | Nor can I tell you what I would.

00:37:15.400 | A very little more is all permitted to me.

00:37:18.760 | I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere.

00:37:23.840 | My spirit never walked beyond our counting house, mark me.

00:37:28.360 | In life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole, and weary

00:37:36.020 | journeys lie before me."

00:37:39.000 | It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches'

00:37:45.160 | pocket.

00:37:46.160 | Pondering on what the ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes or

00:37:52.240 | getting off his knees.

00:37:54.080 | "You must have been very slow about it, Jacob," Scrooge observed in a business-like manner,

00:38:00.720 | though with humility and deference.

00:38:03.640 | "Slow?" the ghost repeated.

00:38:05.960 | "Seven years dead," mused Scrooge, "and traveling all the time."

00:38:09.880 | "The whole time," said the ghost, "no rest, no peace, incessant torture of remorse."

00:38:19.840 | "You travel fast?" said Scrooge.

00:38:24.160 | "On the wings of the wind," replied the ghost.

00:38:27.960 | "You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years," said Scrooge.

00:38:34.400 | The ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry and clanked its chain so hideously in

00:38:39.440 | the dead silence of the night that the ward would have been justified in indicting it

00:38:44.120 | for a nuisance.

00:38:46.040 | "Oh, captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know that ages

00:38:53.640 | of incessant labor by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before

00:39:00.520 | the good of which it is susceptible is all developed.

00:39:03.740 | Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may

00:39:11.040 | be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness.

00:39:18.040 | Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused.

00:39:25.800 | Yet, such was I. Oh, such was I."

00:39:30.360 | "But you were always a good man of business, Jacob," faltered Scrooge, who now began

00:39:35.480 | to apply this to himself.

00:39:38.100 | "Business," cried the ghost, wringing its hands again, "mankind was my business.

00:39:44.520 | The common welfare was my business.

00:39:47.640 | Charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence were all my business.

00:39:55.500 | The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business."

00:40:02.780 | It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were the cause of all its unavailing

00:40:08.900 | grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.

00:40:12.380 | "At this time of the rolling year," the specter said, "I suffer most.

00:40:18.660 | Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never raise

00:40:24.500 | them to that blessed star which led the wise men to a poor abode?

00:40:30.500 | Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me?"

00:40:35.980 | Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the specter going on at this rate, and began to

00:40:41.340 | quake exceedingly.

00:40:42.620 | "Hear me," cried the ghost, "my time is nearly gone."

00:40:47.020 | "I will," said Scrooge, "but don't be hard upon me.

00:40:51.340 | Don't be flowery, Jacob.

00:40:53.460 | How is it that I appear before you in a shape that you can see, I may not tell.

00:40:59.380 | I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day."

00:41:05.860 | It was not an agreeable idea.

00:41:09.820 | Scrooge shivered, and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

00:41:14.060 | "That is no light part of my penance," pursued the ghost.

00:41:18.340 | "I am here tonight to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my

00:41:26.180 | fate.

00:41:27.180 | A chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer."

00:41:31.340 | "You were always a good friend to me," said Scrooge, "thank ye."

00:41:35.580 | "You will be haunted," resumed the ghost, "by three spirits."

00:41:41.900 | Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the ghost's had done.

00:41:46.500 | "Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob?" he demanded in a faltering voice.

00:41:52.620 | "It is."

00:41:54.180 | "I think I'd rather not," said Scrooge.

00:41:58.300 | "Without their visits," said the ghost, "you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.

00:42:04.860 | Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one."

00:42:08.980 | "Good night.

00:42:10.620 | Take 'em all at once and have it over, Jacob," hinted Scrooge.

00:42:13.900 | "Expect the second on the next night, at the same hour.

00:42:18.300 | The third upon the next night, when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate.

00:42:24.780 | Look to see me no more, and look that, for your own sake.

00:42:29.300 | You remember what has passed between us."

00:42:33.060 | When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table and bound

00:42:38.660 | it round its head as before.

00:42:41.420 | Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by

00:42:46.180 | the bandage.

00:42:47.580 | He ventured to raise his eyes again and found his supernatural visitor confronting him

00:42:53.900 | in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.

00:43:00.820 | The apparition walked backward from him, and at every step it took the window raised itself

00:43:06.820 | a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.

00:43:12.500 | It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did.

00:43:15.300 | When they were within two paces of each other, Marley's ghost held up its hand, warning

00:43:19.420 | him to come no nearer.

00:43:22.180 | Scrooge stopped, not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear, for on the raising

00:43:28.300 | of the hand he became sensible of confused noises in the air, incoherent sounds of lamentation

00:43:35.020 | and regret, wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory.

00:43:40.500 | The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge and floated out

00:43:45.300 | upon the bleak, dark night.

00:43:49.660 | Scrooge followed to the window, desperate in his curiosity.

00:43:52.580 | He looked out.

00:43:54.060 | The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste and moaning

00:43:59.780 | as they went.

00:44:01.180 | Every one of them wore chains like Marley's ghost.

00:44:04.420 | Some few, they might be guilty governments, were linked together.

00:44:08.900 | None were free.

00:44:10.980 | Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.

00:44:13.900 | He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron

00:44:19.980 | safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman

00:44:26.580 | with an infant whom it saw below upon a doorstep.

00:44:30.340 | The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere for good in human

00:44:38.260 | matters and had lost the power forever.

00:44:45.820 | Whether these creatures faded into mist or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell.

00:44:52.340 | But they and their spirit voices faded together, and the night became as it had been when he

00:44:57.820 | walked home.

00:45:00.260 | Scrooge closed the window and examined the door by which the ghost had entered.

00:45:04.500 | It was double-locked, as he had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts were undisturbed.

00:45:11.420 | He tried to say, "Humbug," but stopped at the first syllable.

00:45:15.940 | And being from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse

00:45:24.380 | of the invisible world, or the dull conversation of the ghost, or the lateness of the hour

00:45:30.180 | much in need of repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the

00:45:39.300 | instant.

00:45:44.020 | Stave II.

00:45:46.020 | The First of the Three Spirits.

00:45:50.140 | When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish

00:45:55.620 | the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber.

00:46:00.380 | He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes when the chimes of a

00:46:05.820 | neighboring church struck the four quarters.

00:46:09.100 | So he listened for the hour.

00:46:11.020 | To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and from seven

00:46:16.700 | to eight, and regularly up to twelve, then stopped.

00:46:21.260 | Twelve!

00:46:22.260 | It was past two when he went to bed.

00:46:23.820 | The clock was wrong.

00:46:24.820 | An icicle must have gotten into the works.

00:46:26.940 | Twelve!

00:46:27.940 | He touched the spring of his repeater to correct this most preposterous clock.

00:46:32.140 | Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped.

00:46:36.540 | "Why, it is impossible," said Scrooge, "that I can have slept through a whole day

00:46:40.580 | and far into another night.

00:46:41.780 | It isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon."

00:46:45.560 | The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed and groped his way to the window.

00:46:50.060 | He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing gown before he could

00:46:53.580 | see anything, and could see very little then.

00:46:57.060 | All he could make out was that it was still very foggy and extremely cold, and that there

00:47:02.540 | was no noise of people running to and fro and making a great stir as there unquestionably

00:47:07.820 | would have been if night had beaten off bright day and taken possession of the world.

00:47:13.180 | This was a great relief, because three days after sight of this first day of exchange

00:47:16.880 | pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order, and so forth, would have become a mere United

00:47:20.840 | States security if there were no days to count by.

00:47:24.400 | Scrooge went to bed again, and thought and thought and thought it over and over and over

00:47:28.240 | and could make nothing of it.

00:47:30.260 | The more he thought, the more perplexed he was, and the more he endeavored not to think,

00:47:33.560 | the more he thought.

00:47:35.320 | Marley's ghost bothered him exceedingly.

00:47:37.620 | Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his

00:47:42.080 | mind flew back again like a strong spring released to its first position, and presented

00:47:47.760 | the same problem to be worked all through—was it a dream or not?

00:47:52.920 | Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone three-quarters more, when he remembered,

00:47:57.800 | on a sudden, that the ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one.

00:48:01.780 | He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past, and considering that he could no more

00:48:07.560 | go to sleep than go to heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

00:48:14.680 | The quarter was so long that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze

00:48:21.080 | unconsciously and missed the clock, a length that broke upon his listening ear.

00:48:27.760 | "Ding, dong, a quarter past," said Scrooge, counting.

00:48:33.560 | "Ding, dong, half-past," said Scrooge.

00:48:37.880 | "Ding, dong, a quarter to it," said Scrooge.

00:48:42.600 | "Ding, dong, the hour itself," said Scrooge triumphantly, "and nothing else."

00:48:48.240 | He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy

00:48:56.560 | "One," light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed were

00:49:03.400 | drawn.

00:49:04.400 | The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a hand, not the curtains at

00:49:07.560 | his feet nor the curtains at his back, but those to which his face was addressed.

00:49:11.240 | The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, and Scrooge, starting up into a half-recumbent

00:49:15.400 | attitude, found himself face to face with the unearthly visitor who drew them, as close

00:49:19.680 | to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

00:49:24.200 | It was a strange figure, like a child, but not so like a child as like an old man, viewed

00:49:29.920 | through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from

00:49:34.240 | the view and being diminished to a child's proportions.

00:49:37.600 | Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age, and yet

00:49:41.800 | the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin.

00:49:45.980 | The arms were very long and muscular, the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon

00:49:51.120 | strength.

00:49:52.120 | Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were like those upper members bare.

00:49:56.480 | It wore a tunic of the purest white, and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen

00:50:01.480 | of which was beautiful.

00:50:03.340 | It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand, and, in singular contradiction of that

00:50:07.880 | wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers.

00:50:12.120 | But the strangest thing about it was that from the crown of its head there sprung a

00:50:15.960 | bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible, and which was doubtless the occasion

00:50:23.580 | of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap which it now held under

00:50:29.360 | its arm.

00:50:30.920 | Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not its

00:50:36.160 | strangest quality.

00:50:38.040 | For as its belt sparkled and glittered, now in one part and now in another, and what was

00:50:43.720 | light one instant, at another time was dark, so the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness,

00:50:50.760 | being now a thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs, now a pair of legs

00:50:55.740 | without a head, now a head without a body, of which dissolving parts no outline would

00:51:00.080 | be visible in the dense gloom wherein they melted away.

00:51:03.160 | And in the very wonder of this it would be itself again, distinct and clear as ever.

00:51:06.800 | "Are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked Scrooge.

00:51:11.440 | "I am."

00:51:13.280 | The voice was soft and gentle, singularly low as if instead of being so close beside

00:51:19.600 | him it were at a distance.

00:51:21.240 | "Who and what are you?"

00:51:23.640 | Scrooge demanded.

00:51:24.640 | "I am the ghost of Christmas Past."

00:51:27.080 | "Long past?"

00:51:28.920 | Inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish stature.

00:51:33.080 | "No, your past."

00:51:36.440 | Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him, but

00:51:42.200 | he had a special desire to see the spirit in his cap, and begged him to be covered.

00:51:48.040 | "What!" exclaimed the ghost, "would you so soon put out with worldly hands the light

00:51:53.400 | I give?

00:51:54.480 | Is it not enough that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and forced me

00:51:59.280 | through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?"

00:52:03.640 | Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend, or any knowledge of having willfully

00:52:08.520 | bonneted the spirit at any period of his life.

00:52:11.680 | He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

00:52:14.560 | "Your welfare," said the ghost.

00:52:17.400 | Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a night of unbroken

00:52:20.980 | rest would have been more conducive to that end.

00:52:23.800 | The spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately, "Your reclamation,

00:52:27.400 | then.

00:52:28.400 | Take heed."

00:52:29.400 | It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm.

00:52:32.920 | "Rise and walk with me."

00:52:35.080 | It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the weather and the hour were not

00:52:38.240 | adapted to pedestrian purposes, that bed was warm and the thermometer a long way below

00:52:42.840 | freezing, that he was clad but lightly in his slippers, dressing gown, and nightcap,

00:52:46.720 | and that he had a cold upon him at that time.

00:52:49.600 | The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, was not to be resisted.

00:52:53.480 | He rose, but, finding that the spirit made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

00:52:59.400 | "I am a mortal," Scrooge remonstrated, "and liable to fall."

00:53:03.320 | "Bear but a touch of my hand, there," said the spirit, laying it upon his heart,

00:53:08.280 | "and you shall be upheld in more than this."

00:53:11.120 | As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road

00:53:15.320 | with fields on either hand.

00:53:17.160 | The city had entirely vanished.

00:53:19.760 | Not a vestige of it was to be seen.

00:53:21.640 | The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold winter day with

00:53:25.840 | snow upon the ground.

00:53:27.200 | "Good heaven," said Scrooge, clasping his hands together as he looked about him, "I

00:53:31.760 | was bred in this place.

00:53:33.520 | I was a boar here."

00:53:35.280 | The spirit gazed upon him mildly.

00:53:38.280 | Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present

00:53:41.920 | to the old man's sense of feeling.

00:53:43.900 | He was conscious of a thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand

00:53:48.400 | thoughts and hopes and joys and cares long, long forgotten.

00:53:52.040 | "Your lip is trembling," said the ghost, "and what is that upon your cheek?"

00:53:56.760 | Scrooge muttered with an unusual catching in his voice that it was a pimple, and begged

00:54:02.160 | the ghost to lead him where he would.

00:54:04.680 | "You recollect the way?"

00:54:06.680 | inquired the spirit.

00:54:07.680 | "Remember it!" cried Scrooge with fervor.

00:54:09.360 | "I could walk it blindfold."

00:54:10.840 | "Strange to have forgotten it for so many years," observed the ghost.

00:54:15.040 | "Let us go on."

00:54:17.000 | They walked along the road, Scrooge recognizing every gate and post and tree, until a little

00:54:21.920 | market town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.

00:54:26.640 | Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them, with boys upon their backs,

00:54:30.640 | who called to other boys in country gigs and carts driven by farmers.

00:54:34.600 | All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other until the broadfields

00:54:38.200 | were so full of merry music that the crisp air laughed to hear it.

00:54:42.160 | "These are but shadows of the things that have been," said the ghost.

00:54:45.840 | "They have no consciousness of us."

00:54:48.440 | The jocund travelers came on, and as they came, Scrooge knew and named them every one.

00:54:53.320 | Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them?

00:54:55.920 | Why did his cold eye glisten and his heart leap up as they went past?

00:54:59.520 | Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other "Merry Christmas!" as

00:55:03.360 | they parted at crossroads and byways for their several homes?

00:55:07.220 | What was Merry Christmas to Scrooge?

00:55:09.240 | Out upon Merry Christmas, what good had it ever done to him?

00:55:11.960 | "The school is not quite deserted," said the ghost.

00:55:15.440 | "A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still."

00:55:22.240 | Scrooge said he knew it, and he sobbed.

00:55:27.440 | They left the high road by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull

00:55:31.760 | red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola on the roof and a bell hanging in it.

00:55:36.880 | It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes, for the spacious offices were little used,

00:55:43.080 | their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken and their gates decayed, fowls clucked

00:55:48.840 | and strutted in the stables, and the coach houses and sheds were overrun with grass.

00:55:54.920 | Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state within, for entering the dreary hall and glancing

00:56:01.280 | through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast.

00:56:08.820 | There was an earthy savor in the air, a chilly barrenness in the place which associated itself

00:56:14.240 | somehow with too much getting up by candlelight and not too much to eat.

00:56:20.480 | They went, the ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house.

00:56:25.500 | It opened before them and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by

00:56:32.120 | lines of plain deal forms and desks.

00:56:36.440 | But one of these, a lonely boy, was reading near a feeble fire, and Scrooge sat down upon

00:56:43.320 | a form and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

00:56:49.520 | Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the paneling,

00:56:56.220 | not a drip from the half-thawed water spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among

00:57:02.160 | the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse

00:57:07.960 | door, no, not a clicking in the fire but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening

00:57:12.880 | influence and gave a freer passage to his tears.

00:57:18.880 | The spirit touched him on the arm and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading.

00:57:25.000 | Suddenly, a man in foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look at, stood outside

00:57:30.960 | the window with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with

00:57:35.440 | wood.

00:57:36.440 | "Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy.

00:57:38.680 | "It's dear, old, honest Ali Baba!

00:57:40.880 | Yes, yes, I know.

00:57:42.400 | One Christmas time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone, he did come, for

00:57:47.000 | the first time, just like that.

00:57:49.600 | Poor boy!"

00:57:50.600 | "And Valentine," said Scrooge, "and his wild brother Orson, there they go!

00:57:55.120 | And what's his name, who was put down in his drawers asleep at the gate of Damascus?

00:57:58.320 | Don't you see him?"

00:57:59.320 | "Sultan's groom, turned upside down by the genie, there he is upon his head!

00:58:03.120 | Serve him right, I'm glad of it!

00:58:04.440 | What business had he to be married to the princess?"

00:58:06.960 | To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such subjects, in a most

00:58:10.840 | extraordinary voice, between laughing and crying, and to see his heightened and excited

00:58:14.960 | face would have been a surprise to his business friends in the city, indeed.

00:58:18.600 | "There's the parrot!" cried Scrooge, green body and yellow tail, with a thing like

00:58:22.240 | a lettuce growing out of the top of his head, "there he is!

00:58:24.880 | Poor Robinson Crusoe!" he called him, when he came home again after sailing round the

00:58:28.800 | island.

00:58:29.800 | "Poor Robin Crusoe!

00:58:30.800 | Where have you been, Robin Crusoe?"

00:58:31.800 | The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't, it was the parrot, you know!

00:58:35.080 | "There goes Friday, running for his life through the little creek!

00:58:38.360 | Hello!

00:58:39.360 | Hello!"

00:58:40.360 | Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said in pity before

00:58:44.560 | his former self, "Poor boy!" and cried again.

00:58:49.160 | "I wish," Scrooge muttered, putting his hands in his pocket, and looking about him

00:58:55.000 | after drying his eyes with his cuff, "but it's too late now."

00:59:00.040 | "What is the matter?" asked the spirit.

00:59:03.640 | "Nothing," said Scrooge, "nothing.

00:59:07.360 | There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night.

00:59:10.400 | I should like to have given him something, that's all."

00:59:13.480 | The ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand, saying as it did so, "Let us see

00:59:18.960 | another Christmas."

00:59:19.960 | Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker

00:59:27.760 | and more dirty.

00:59:29.600 | The panels shrunk, the windows cracked, fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the

00:59:37.200 | naked laths were shown instead.

00:59:39.600 | But how all this was brought about Scrooge knew no more than you do.

00:59:43.200 | He only knew that it was quite correct, that everything had happened so, that there he

00:59:47.240 | was, alone, again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

00:59:54.440 | He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.

01:00:00.720 | Scrooge looked at the ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards

01:00:05.320 | the door.

01:00:06.800 | It opened, and a little girl, much younger than the boy, came darting in and putting

01:00:10.320 | her arms about his neck, and often kissing him, addressed him as her "dear, dear brother."

01:00:14.960 | "I have come to bring you home, dear brother," said the child, clapping her tiny hands and

01:00:18.800 | bending down to laugh, "to bring you home, home, home."

01:00:21.840 | "Home, little fan?" returned the boy.

01:00:23.880 | "Yes," said the child, brimful of glee, "home, for good and all, home, forever and ever.

01:00:29.800 | Father is so much kinder than he used to be.

01:00:31.760 | That home's like heaven.

01:00:33.160 | He spoke so gently to me one dear night, when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid

01:00:36.920 | to ask him once more if you might come home.

01:00:40.720 | And he said, 'Yes, you should,' and sent me and a coach to bring you.

01:00:44.480 | And you're to be a man!" said the child, opening her eyes, "and are never to come back here.

01:00:49.320 | But first we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the

01:00:53.160 | world."

01:00:54.160 | "You are quite a woman, little fan!" exclaimed the boy.

01:00:57.580 | She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his head, but being too little, laughed

01:01:02.100 | again and stood on tiptoe to embrace him.

01:01:04.840 | Then she began to drag him in her childish eagerness towards the door, and he, nothing

01:01:09.280 | loath to go, accompanied her.

01:01:11.320 | A terrible voice in the hall cried, "Bring down Master Scrooge's box there!"

01:01:15.920 | And in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with

01:01:19.720 | a ferocious condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking hands

01:01:24.160 | with him.

01:01:25.160 | He then conveyed him and his sister into the various old well of a shivering best parlor

01:01:29.400 | that ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall and the celestial and terrestrial globes

01:01:34.040 | in the windows were waxy with cold.

01:01:36.720 | Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a block of curiously heavy cake,

01:01:42.880 | and administered installments of those dainties to the young people, at the same time sending

01:01:46.920 | out a meager servant to offer a glass of something to the postboy, who answered that he thanked

01:01:52.160 | the gentleman, but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had rather not.

01:01:58.520 | Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to the top of the chaise, the children

01:02:03.160 | bade the schoolmaster good-bye right willingly, and getting into it drove gaily down the garden

01:02:07.840 | sweep, the quick wheels dashing the hoarfrost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens

01:02:12.840 | like spray.

01:02:14.480 | "Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have withered," said the ghost, "but

01:02:19.720 | she had a large heart."

01:02:21.200 | "So she had!" cried Scrooge.

01:02:23.000 | "You're right, I will not gainsay its spirit, God forbid!"

01:02:26.080 | "She died a woman," said the ghost, "and had, as I think, children."

01:02:30.120 | "One child," Scrooge returned.

01:02:32.720 | "True," said the ghost, "your nephew."

01:02:36.480 | Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind and answered briefly, "Yes."

01:02:42.720 | Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy

01:02:46.620 | thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed, where shadowy carts and

01:02:52.080 | coaches battled for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were.

01:02:57.080 | It was made plain enough by the dressing of the shops that here, too, it was Christmas

01:03:00.900 | time again, but it was evening and the streets were lighted up.

01:03:04.080 | The ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

01:03:08.120 | "Know it," said Scrooge, "was I apprenticed here?"

01:03:11.080 | They went in.

01:03:12.080 | At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig sitting behind such a high desk that if he

01:03:15.960 | had been two inches tall he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried

01:03:19.840 | in great excitement, "Why, it's old Fezziwig!

01:03:22.640 | Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again!"

01:03:25.120 | Old Fezziwig laid down his pen and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour

01:03:28.480 | of seven.

01:03:29.480 | He rubbed his hands, adjusted his capacious waistcoat, laughed all over himself from his

01:03:33.800 | shoes to his organ of benevolence, and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial

01:03:39.440 | voice, "Yo-ho there, Ebenezer!

01:03:42.800 | Dick!"

01:03:43.800 | Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow

01:03:47.880 | apprentice.

01:03:48.880 | "Dick Wilkins, to be sure," said Scrooge to the ghost.

01:03:51.040 | "Bless me, yes, there he is!

01:03:52.660 | He was very much attached to me, was Dick?

01:03:54.720 | Poor Dick!

01:03:55.720 | Dear, dear!"

01:03:56.720 | "Yo-ho, my boys," said Fezziwig, "no more work tonight, Christmas Eve!"

01:04:00.560 | "Dick!

01:04:01.560 | Christmas!

01:04:02.560 | Ebenezer!"

01:04:03.560 | "Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig with a sharp clap of his hands, "before

01:04:06.480 | a man can say Jack Robinson!"

01:04:08.600 | You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it.

01:04:11.240 | They charged into the street with the shutters, one, two, three, had 'em up in their places,

01:04:15.360 | four, five, six, barred 'em and pinned 'em, seven, eight, nine, and came back before you

01:04:19.280 | could have got to twelve, panting like racehorses.

01:04:21.560 | "Hilly-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the high desk with wonderful agility.

01:04:25.760 | "Clear away, my lads, and let's have lots of room here!

01:04:28.360 | Hilly-ho, Dick!

01:04:29.360 | Drop it, Ebenezer!"

01:04:30.360 | "Clear away!"

01:04:31.360 | There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared away or couldn't have cleared away with old

01:04:33.520 | Fezziwig looking on.

01:04:34.840 | It was done in a minute.

01:04:36.000 | Every movable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from public life forevermore.

01:04:39.620 | The floor was swept in water, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon the fire, and

01:04:42.840 | the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry and bright a ballroom as you would desire

01:04:47.560 | to see upon a winter's night.

01:04:49.360 | In came a fiddler with a music book and went up to the lofty desk and made an orchestra

01:04:52.680 | of it and tuned like fifty stomachaches.

01:04:55.460 | In came Mrs. Fezziwig, one vast, substantial smile.

01:04:59.280 | In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable.

01:05:02.880 | In came the six young followers whose hearts they broke.

01:05:05.920 | In came all the young men and women employed in the business.

01:05:08.800 | In came the housemaid with her cousin, the baker.

01:05:11.600 | In came the cook with her brother's particular friend, the milkman.

01:05:14.860 | In came the boy from over the way who was suspected of not having bored enough from

01:05:18.200 | his master, trying to hide himself behind the girl from next door, but one who was proved

01:05:23.040 | to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.

01:05:25.440 | And they all came, one after another, some shyly, some boldly, some gracefully, some

01:05:30.240 | awkwardly, some pushing, some pooling.

01:05:32.840 | In they all came, any how and every how.

01:05:36.200 | Away they all went, twenty couple at once, hands half round and back again the other

01:05:39.800 | way, down the middle and up again, round and round in various stages of affectionate grouping.

01:05:44.880 | Old top couple always turning up in the wrong place, new top couple starting off again as

01:05:48.480 | soon as they got there, all top couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them.

01:05:52.880 | When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried

01:05:56.800 | out, "Well done," and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially

01:06:01.360 | provided for that purpose.

01:06:02.980 | But scorning rest upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no

01:06:08.400 | dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home exhausted on a shutter, and he

01:06:13.200 | were a brand new man resolved to beat him out of sight or perish.

01:06:17.880 | There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more dances, and there was cake, and there

01:06:22.240 | was negus, and there was a great piece of cold roast, and there was a great piece of

01:06:26.000 | cold boiled, and there were mince pies and plenty of beer.

01:06:29.280 | But the great effect of the evening came after the roast and boiled, when the fiddler, an

01:06:33.040 | artful dog, mind, the sort of man who knew his business better than you or I could have

01:06:36.720 | told it him, struck up Sir Roger de Coverley, then old Fezziwig stood out to dance with

01:06:41.440 | Mrs. Fezziwig, top couple too, with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them, three

01:06:45.360 | or four and twenty pair of partners, people who were not to be trifled with, people who

01:06:49.000 | would dance and had no notion of walking.

01:06:51.600 | But if they had been twice as many, ah, four times, old Fezziwig would have been a match

01:06:55.060 | for them, and so would Mrs. Fezziwig.

01:06:57.480 | As to her, she was worthy to be his partner in every sense of the term, if that's not

01:07:02.880 | high praise, tell me higher and I'll use it.

01:07:05.160 | A positive light appeared to issue from Fezziwig's calves, they shone in every part of the dance

01:07:10.920 | like moons.

01:07:12.320 | You couldn't have predicted at any given time what would have become of them next.

01:07:15.820 | And when old Fezziwig and Mrs. Fezziwig had gone all through the dance, advance and retire,

01:07:19.720 | both hands to your partner, bow and curtsy, corkscrew, thread the needle, and back again

01:07:22.760 | to your place, Fezziwig cut, cut so deftly that he appeared to wink with his legs and

01:07:27.440 | came upon his feet again without a stagger.

01:07:30.720 | When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.

01:07:34.760 | Mr. and Mrs. Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side of the door, and shaking

01:07:38.160 | hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a merry

01:07:42.600 | Christmas.

01:07:43.760 | When everybody had retired but the two prentices, they did the same to them, and thus the cheerful

01:07:48.120 | voices died away and the lads were left to their beds, which were under a counter in

01:07:51.760 | the back shop.

01:07:53.480 | During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits.

01:07:58.580 | His heart and soul were in the scene and with his former self.

01:08:01.960 | He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest

01:08:07.880 | agitation.

01:08:09.080 | It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick returned from

01:08:12.880 | them, that he remembered the ghost and became conscious that it was looking full upon him,

01:08:16.960 | while the light upon its head burnt very clear.

01:08:19.160 | "A small matter," said the ghost, "to make these silly folks so full of gratitude."

01:08:24.200 | "Small!"

01:08:25.440 | echoed Scrooge.

01:08:26.760 | The spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices who were pouring out their

01:08:30.160 | hearts in praise of Fezziwig, and when he had done so said, "Why, is it not?

01:08:35.800 | He has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money, three or four perhaps.

01:08:40.320 | Is that so much that he deserves this praise?"

01:08:42.560 | "It isn't that," said Scrooge, heeded by the remark, and speaking unconsciously like

01:08:46.240 | his former, not his latter self.

01:08:47.880 | "It isn't that, spirit.

01:08:49.520 | He has the power to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service light or burdensome, a

01:08:56.320 | pleasure or a toil.

01:08:58.560 | Say that his power lies in words and looks, in things so slight and insignificant that

01:09:05.380 | it is impossible to add and count 'em up.

01:09:07.440 | What then?

01:09:08.440 | The happiness he gives is quite as great as if it cost a fortune."

01:09:13.600 | He felt the spirit's glance and stopped.

01:09:16.600 | "What is the matter?" asked the ghost.

01:09:19.960 | "Nothing particular," said Scrooge.

01:09:22.800 | "Something, I think?"

01:09:25.080 | "No," said Scrooge, "no.

01:09:28.760 | I should like to be able to say a word or two to my clerk just now, that's all."

01:09:34.640 | His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish, and Scrooge and

01:09:39.200 | the ghost again stood side by side in the open air.

01:09:42.560 | "My time grows short," observed the spirit, "quick."

01:09:47.160 | This was not addressed to Scrooge or to anyone whom he could see, but it produced an immediate

01:09:51.000 | effect, for again Scrooge saw himself.

01:09:54.300 | He was older now, a man in the prime of life.

01:09:58.120 | His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years, but it had begun to wear the

01:10:03.620 | signs of care and avarice.

01:10:06.920 | There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that

01:10:13.860 | had taken root and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall.

01:10:18.880 | He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young girl in a morning dress, in whose

01:10:25.200 | eyes there were tears which sparkled in the light that shone out of the ghost of Christmas

01:10:30.040 | past.

01:10:31.040 | "It matters little," she said softly, "to you very little.

01:10:36.560 | Another idol has displaced me, and if it can cheer and comfort you in time to come, as

01:10:41.400 | I would have tried to do, I have no just cause to grieve."

01:10:45.200 | "What idol has displaced you?" he rejoined.

01:10:48.980 | "A golden one."

01:10:50.840 | "This is the even-handed dealing of the world," he said.

01:10:54.240 | "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty, and there is nothing it professes

01:10:58.720 | to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth."

01:11:01.600 | "You fear the world too much," she answered gently.

01:11:06.200 | "All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being beyond the chance of its sordid

01:11:12.000 | reproach.

01:11:13.000 | I have seen your nobler aspirations fall off, one by one, until the master-passion gain

01:11:22.440 | engrosses you, have I not?"

01:11:25.000 | "What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed

01:11:30.120 | towards you."

01:11:31.120 | She shook her head.

01:11:33.280 | "Am I?"

01:11:34.880 | "Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were both poor, and content to be so, until

01:11:42.560 | in good season we could improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed.

01:11:50.080 | When it was made, you were another man."

01:11:53.240 | "I was a boy," he said impatiently.

01:11:56.240 | "Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you are," she returned.

01:12:01.520 | "I am. That which promised happiness when we were one in heart is fraught with misery

01:12:09.400 | now that we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of this, I will not say. It

01:12:15.600 | is enough that I have thought of it, and can release you."

01:12:20.640 | "Have I ever sought release?"

01:12:22.880 | "In words, no. Never."

01:12:25.440 | "In what, then?"

01:12:26.840 | "In a changed nature, in an altered spirit, in another atmosphere of life, another hope

01:12:35.320 | as its great end, in everything that made my love of any worth or value in your sight.

01:12:41.880 | If this had never been between us," said the girl, looking mildly but with steadiness upon

01:12:48.240 | him, "tell me, would you seek me out and try to win me now?"

01:12:54.040 | "Ah, no."

01:12:55.960 | He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition in spite of himself.

01:13:00.160 | But he said with a struggle, "You think not."

01:13:03.160 | "I would gladly think otherwise if I could," she answered. "Heaven knows. When I have learned

01:13:08.860 | a truth like this, I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you were free today, tomorrow,

01:13:15.680 | yesterday, can even I believe that you would choose a dowerless girl, you who in your very

01:13:21.120 | confidence with her, weigh everything by gain, or choosing her if for a moment you were false

01:13:28.760 | enough to your one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your repentance and

01:13:34.840 | regret would surely follow? I do, and I release you, with a full heart, for the love of him

01:13:44.020 | you once were."

01:13:46.160 | He was about to speak, but with her head turned away from him she resumed. "You may, the memory

01:13:52.240 | of what is past half makes me hope you will, have pain in this, a very, very brief time,

01:14:00.600 | and you will dismiss the recollection of it gladly as an unprofitable dream, from which

01:14:07.060 | it happened well that you awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen."

01:14:13.200 | She left him and they parted. "Spirit," said Scrooge, "show me no more. Conduct me home.

01:14:20.040 | Why do you delight to torture me?"

01:14:22.040 | "One shadow more," exclaimed the ghost. "No more!" cried Scrooge. "No more! I don't wish

01:14:27.540 | to see it! Show me no more!"

01:14:29.960 | But the relentless ghost pinioned him in both his arms and forced him to observe what happened

01:14:35.080 | next. They were in another scene and place, a room not very large or handsome, but full

01:14:41.640 | of comfort. Near to the winter fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that

01:14:48.300 | Scrooge believed it was the same until he saw her, now a comely matron sitting opposite

01:14:54.560 | her daughter. The noise in this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children there

01:15:01.920 | than Scrooge and his agitated state of mind could count, and unlike the celebrated herd

01:15:06.440 | in the poem, they were not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every

01:15:11.880 | child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief,

01:15:18.480 | but no one seemed to care. On the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily and

01:15:23.360 | enjoyed it very much, and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports, got pillaged

01:15:28.160 | by the young brigands most ruthlessly.

01:15:31.320 | What would I not have given to be one of them? Though I never could have been so rude, no,

01:15:35.800 | I wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that braided hair and torn it

01:15:40.680 | down, and for the precious little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless

01:15:44.280 | my soul, to save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they did, bold young

01:15:49.640 | brood, I couldn't have done it. I should have expected my arm to have grown round it

01:15:54.120 | for a punishment and never come straight again, and yet I should have dearly liked Ione to

01:15:59.720 | have touched her lips, to have questioned her that she might have opened them, to have

01:16:04.760 | looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes and never raised a blush, to have let loose

01:16:09.960 | waves of hair, an inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price. In short, I should

01:16:15.480 | have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest license of a child, and yet to have

01:16:21.400 | been man enough to know its value. But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such

01:16:25.640 | a rush immediately ensued that she, with laughing face and plundered dress, was borne towards

01:16:31.440 | it, the center of a flushed and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who

01:16:36.240 | came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys and presents. Then the shouting and the

01:16:42.160 | struggling and the onslaught that was made on the defenseless porter, the scaling him

01:16:47.080 | with chairs for ladders to dive into his pockets, despoil him of brown paper parcels, hold on

01:16:53.280 | tight by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pummel his back and kick his legs in irrepressible

01:16:58.560 | affection, the shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package

01:17:02.800 | was received, the terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting

01:17:07.600 | a doll's frying pan into his mouth and was more than suspected of having swallowed a

01:17:11.600 | fictitious turkey glued on a wooden platter, the immense relief of finding this a false

01:17:16.720 | alarm, the joy and gratitude and ecstasy, they are all indescribable alike. It is enough

01:17:25.200 | that by degrees the children and their emotions got out of the parlor and by one stare at

01:17:30.160 | a time up to the top of the house where they went to bed, and so subsided. And now Scrooge

01:17:37.600 | looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter

01:17:42.920 | leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside, and when he

01:17:48.560 | thought that such another creature quite as graceful and as full of promise might have

01:17:52.920 | called him father, and been a springtime in the haggard winter of his life, his sight

01:18:00.880 | grew very dim indeed.

01:18:02.840 | "Bell," said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, "I saw an old friend of yours

01:18:07.200 | this afternoon."

01:18:08.200 | "Who was it?"

01:18:09.640 | "Guess."

01:18:10.640 | "How can I? Tut, don't I know?" she added in the same breath, laughing as he laughed.

01:18:15.040 | "Mr. Scrooge."

01:18:16.040 | "Mr. Scrooge it was. I passed his office window, and as it was not shut up and he had a candle

01:18:21.400 | inside I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point of death, I hear,

01:18:27.160 | and there he sat alone, quite alone in the world, I do believe."

01:18:30.920 | "Spirit," said Scrooge in a broken voice, "remove me from this place."

01:18:36.760 | "I told you these were shadows of the things that have been," said the ghost, "that they

01:18:43.040 | are what they are. Do not blame me."

01:18:45.320 | "Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear it!"

01:18:48.440 | He turned upon the ghost and seeing that it looked upon him with a face in which in some

01:18:52.600 | strange way there were fragments of all the faces that had shown him, wrestled with it,

01:18:57.760 | "Leave me! Take me back! Haunt me no longer!"

01:19:01.120 | In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle, in which the ghost with no visible resistance

01:19:05.560 | on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its

01:19:10.480 | light was burning high and bright, and dimly connecting that with its influence over him,

01:19:15.800 | he seized the extinguisher cap and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head. The

01:19:22.120 | spirit dropped beneath it so that the extinguisher covered its whole form, but though Scrooge

01:19:26.920 | pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light which streamed from under

01:19:31.820 | it in an unbroken flood upon the ground. He was conscious of being exhausted and overcome

01:19:38.120 | by an irresistible drowsiness and further of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap

01:19:44.280 | a parting squeeze in which his hand relaxed and had barely time to reel to bed before

01:19:50.440 | he sank into a heavy sleep.

01:19:56.880 | Stave III, the second of the three spirits. Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough

01:20:03.480 | snore and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told

01:20:09.040 | that the bell was again upon the stroke of one. He felt that he was restored to consciousness

01:20:14.480 | in the right nick of time for the special purpose of holding a conference with the second

01:20:18.760 | messenger dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that

01:20:23.720 | he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new specter

01:20:30.200 | would draw back, he put them every one aside with his own hands and lying down again established

01:20:36.040 | a sharp lookout all round the bed, for he wished to challenge the spirit on the moment

01:20:42.000 | of its appearance and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous. Gentlemen of

01:20:47.440 | the free and easy sort, who plumed themselves on being acquainted with a move or two and

01:20:53.240 | being usually equal to the time of day, expressed the wide range of their capacity for adventure

01:20:58.800 | by observing that they are good for anything from pitch and toss to manslaughter, between

01:21:05.040 | which opposite extremes no doubt there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of

01:21:09.600 | subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as heartily as this, I don't mind calling

01:21:15.160 | on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances and

01:21:20.480 | that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. Now,

01:21:28.160 | being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing and

01:21:34.520 | consequently when the bell struck one and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent

01:21:39.200 | fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by yet nothing came.

01:21:48.080 | All this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and center of a blaze of ruddy light

01:21:52.960 | which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour in which being only light was more

01:21:58.140 | alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant or would be at,

01:22:04.480 | and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case

01:22:08.560 | of spontaneous combustion without having the consolation of knowing it. At last, however,

01:22:14.140 | he began to think as you or I would have thought at first, for it is always the person not

01:22:18.800 | in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it and would unquestionably

01:22:23.280 | have done it too. At last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this

01:22:27.560 | ghostly light might be in the adjoining room from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed

01:22:33.080 | to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled

01:22:38.540 | in his slippers to the door. The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called

01:22:43.140 | him by his name and bade him enter. He obeyed. It was his own room. There was no doubt about

01:22:52.240 | that, but it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceilings were so hung with

01:22:57.540 | living green that it looked a perfect grove from every part of which bright gleaming berries

01:23:04.220 | glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light as if so

01:23:10.400 | many little mirrors had been scattered there and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the

01:23:14.940 | chimneys as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's,

01:23:20.860 | or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor to form a kind of throne

01:23:27.380 | were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking pigs, long wreaths

01:23:35.000 | of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked

01:23:41.180 | apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth cakes, and seething bowls of punch

01:23:48.040 | that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch there

01:23:54.660 | sat a jolly giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch in shape not unlike Plenty's

01:24:01.940 | horn and held it up high up to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round the door.

01:24:07.140 | "Come in!" exclaimed the ghost. "Come in and know me better, man!" Scrooge entered

01:24:12.140 | timidly and hung his head before the spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been,

01:24:17.740 | and though the spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. "I

01:24:23.220 | am the ghost of Christmas present!" said the spirit. "Look upon me!" Scrooge

01:24:28.420 | reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe or mantle bordered with white fur.

01:24:36.540 | This garment hung so loosely on the figure that its capacious breast was bare, as if

01:24:41.460 | disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the

01:24:47.140 | ample folds of the garment, were also bare, and on its head it wore no other covering

01:24:51.380 | than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were

01:24:57.740 | long and free, free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,

01:25:04.660 | its unconstrained demeanor, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique

01:25:10.060 | scabbard, but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

01:25:15.020 | "You have never seen the like of me before!" exclaimed the spirit. "Never!" Scrooge

01:25:20.340 | made answer to it. "Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family, meaning,

01:25:25.220 | for I am very young, my elder brother is born in these later years," pursued the phantom.

01:25:30.260 | "I don't think I have," said Scrooge. "I'm afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers,

01:25:35.620 | spirit?"

01:25:36.620 | "More than 1,800," said the ghost.

01:25:38.980 | "A tremendous family to provide for," muttered Scrooge. The ghost of Christmas present rose.

01:25:45.420 | "Spirit," said Scrooge submissively, "conduct me where you will."

01:25:49.460 | I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now. Tonight,

01:25:54.660 | if you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it.

01:25:57.620 | "Touch my robe!" Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast. Holly, mistletoe, red berries,

01:26:04.660 | ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,

01:26:09.940 | fruit, and punch all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ready glow, the

01:26:14.740 | hour of night, and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where, for the

01:26:19.460 | weather was severe, the people made a rough but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music,

01:26:24.560 | in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings and from the tops

01:26:27.940 | of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into

01:26:32.340 | the road below, and splitting into artificial little snowstorms.

01:26:37.020 | The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows blacker, contrasting with the

01:26:41.740 | smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground,

01:26:46.820 | which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts

01:26:51.900 | and wagons, furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times, where the great

01:26:57.160 | streets branched off and made intricate channels hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and

01:27:02.540 | icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,

01:27:10.060 | half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if

01:27:16.540 | all the chimneys in Great Britain had by one consent caught fire and were blazing away

01:27:21.500 | to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the

01:27:26.180 | town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad, that the clearest summer air and brightest

01:27:33.140 | summer sun might have endeavored to diffuse in vain? For the people who were shoveling

01:27:38.620 | away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee, calling out to one another from the

01:27:43.540 | parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball, better-natured missile far than

01:27:48.860 | many a wordy jest, laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went

01:27:53.860 | wrong. The poultry shops were still half open, and the fruterers were radiant in their glory.

01:27:59.920 | There were great, round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of

01:28:04.900 | jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors and tumbling out into the street in their

01:28:09.740 | apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish onions, shining in the

01:28:16.340 | fatness of their growth like Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness

01:28:22.500 | at the girls as they went by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were

01:28:27.740 | pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids. There were bunches of grapes made

01:28:33.260 | in the shopkeeper's benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths

01:28:38.580 | might water gratis as they passed. There were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling

01:28:45.300 | in their fragrance ancient walks among the woods and pleasant shufflings ankle-deep through

01:28:50.380 | withered leaves. There were Norfolk biffins, squat and swarthy, setting off the yellow

01:28:56.020 | of the oranges and lemons, and in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently

01:29:01.440 | entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The

01:29:06.380 | very gold and silver fish set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members

01:29:11.900 | of a dull and stagnant-blooded race appeared to know that there was something going on,

01:29:17.100 | and to a fish went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless

01:29:23.100 | excitement. The grocers—oh, the grocers!—nearly closed with perhaps two shutters down or one,

01:29:30.940 | but through those gaps such glimpses. It was not alone that the scales descending on the

01:29:36.040 | counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that

01:29:41.320 | the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended

01:29:45.520 | scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins were

01:29:49.880 | so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and

01:29:55.760 | great, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruit so caked and spotted with molten

01:30:01.080 | sugar as to make the coldest lookers on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it

01:30:07.000 | that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness

01:30:12.960 | from their highly decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas

01:30:17.760 | dress. But the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the

01:30:22.400 | day that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets

01:30:26.960 | wildly and left their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to fetch them, and committed

01:30:31.600 | hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humor possible, while the grocer and his people

01:30:36.440 | were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons

01:30:40.540 | behind might have been their own worn outside for general inspection and for Christmas dolls

01:30:47.000 | to peck at it if they chose. But soon the steeples called good people all to church

01:30:52.800 | and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and with

01:30:57.520 | their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of by-streets, lanes,

01:31:04.000 | and nameless turnings innumerable people carrying their dinners to the baker's shops. The sight

01:31:09.400 | of these poor revelers appeared to interest the spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge

01:31:14.000 | beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled

01:31:19.220 | incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for

01:31:24.200 | once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner carriers who had jostled

01:31:28.800 | each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humor was restored

01:31:33.480 | directly, for they said, "It was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day." And so it

01:31:37.960 | was. God love it, so it was. In time the bells ceased and the bakers were shut up, and yet

01:31:45.480 | there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking

01:31:50.720 | in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven, where the pavement smoked as if its

01:31:56.800 | stones were cooking too. "Is there a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle from your torch?"

01:32:03.840 | asked Scrooge. "There is. My own." "Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?"

01:32:10.200 | asked Scrooge. "To any kindly given. To a poor one, most." "Why to a poor one, most?"

01:32:17.400 | asked Scrooge. "Because it needs it most." "Spirit," said Scrooge after a moment's thought,

01:32:25.120 | "I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these

01:32:29.920 | people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment." "I," cried the Spirit, "you would deprive

01:32:36.120 | them of their means of dining every seventh day, often the only day on which they can

01:32:40.800 | be said to dine at all," said Scrooge. "Wouldn't you?" "I," cried the Spirit, "you seek

01:32:47.840 | to close these places on the seventh day?" said Scrooge. "And it comes to the same thing."

01:32:53.080 | "I seek," exclaimed the Spirit, "forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your

01:32:58.520 | name or at least in that of your family," said Scrooge. "There are some upon this earth

01:33:03.280 | of yours," returned the Spirit, "who lay claim to know us and who do their deeds of

01:33:08.280 | passion, pride, ill will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange

01:33:16.960 | to us and all our kith and kin as if they have never lived. Remember that and charge

01:33:22.480 | their doings on themselves, not us." Scrooge promised that he would, and they went on,

01:33:29.600 | invisible as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality

01:33:35.140 | of the ghost, which Scrooge had observed at the baker's, that notwithstanding his gigantic

01:33:40.200 | size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease, and that he stood beneath

01:33:44.760 | a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature as it was possible he

01:33:49.440 | could have done in any lofty hall. And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in

01:33:54.480 | showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature,

01:34:00.120 | and his sympathy with all poor men that led him straight to Scrooge's clerks. For there

01:34:04.800 | he went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe, and on the threshold of the door

01:34:10.080 | the Spirit smiled, and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of

01:34:15.400 | his torch. Think of that. Bob had but fifteen, Bob, a week for himself. He pocketed on Saturdays

01:34:22.240 | but fifteen copies of his Christian name, and yet the ghost of Christmas present blessed

01:34:27.120 | his four-roomed house. Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly in

01:34:34.160 | a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for

01:34:38.840 | six pence. And she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters,

01:34:44.120 | also brave in ribbons, while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan

01:34:48.520 | of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar, Bob's private property

01:34:53.760 | conferred upon his son, and heir in honour of the day, into his mouth rejoiced to find

01:34:58.640 | himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks.

01:35:04.600 | And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the

01:35:08.800 | bakers they had smelt the goose, and known it for their own, and basking in luxurious

01:35:14.200 | thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master

01:35:20.000 | Peter Cratchit to the skies, while he, not proud, although his collars nearly choked

01:35:24.640 | him, blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up, knocked loudly at the saucepan

01:35:29.720 | lid, to be let out and peeled.

01:35:31.640 | "What has ever got your precious father, then?" said Mrs. Cratchit. "And your brother, Tiny

01:35:36.680 | Tim, and Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an hour."

01:35:40.280 | "Here's Martha, mother," said a girl, appearing as she spoke.

01:35:43.400 | "Here's Martha, mother," cried the two young Cratchits. "Hurrah! There's such a goose,

01:35:48.080 | Martha!"

01:35:49.080 | "Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are," said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing

01:35:53.120 | her a dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

01:35:57.960 | "We'd a deal of work to finish up last night," replied the girl, "and had to clear away this

01:36:02.560 | morning, mother."

01:36:03.560 | "Well, never mind, so long as you're come," said Mrs. Cratchit. "Sit ye down before the

01:36:07.520 | fire, my dear, and have a warm, Lord bless ye."

01:36:10.080 | "No, no, there's father coming," cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at

01:36:13.920 | once. "Hide, Martha, hide!"

01:36:15.640 | So Martha hid herself, and in came Little Bob, the father, with at least three feet

01:36:19.720 | of comforter, exclusive of the fringe, hanging down before him, and his threadbare clothes

01:36:24.420 | darned up and brushed to look seasonable, and Tiny Tim upon his shoulder. Alas, for

01:36:29.880 | Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.

01:36:34.920 | "Why, where's our Martha?" cried Bob Cratchit, looking round.

01:36:38.560 | "Not coming," said Mrs. Cratchit.

01:36:40.600 | "Not coming!" said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits, for he had been Tim's

01:36:45.640 | blood horse all the way from church, and had come home rampant. "Not coming upon Christmas

01:36:50.640 | Day!"

01:36:51.720 | Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only in jokes, so she came out prematurely

01:36:55.680 | from behind the closet door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled

01:37:00.360 | Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash house, that he might hear the pudding singing in

01:37:04.240 | the copper.

01:37:05.240 | "And how did little Tim behave?" asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on

01:37:09.520 | his credulity, and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

01:37:13.080 | "As good as gold," said Bob, "and better. Somehow he gets thoughtful, sitting by himself

01:37:17.960 | so much, and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home, that

01:37:22.360 | he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be

01:37:25.640 | pleasant to them to remember, upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk and blind

01:37:30.640 | men see."

01:37:32.240 | Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that

01:37:37.640 | Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. His act of little crutch was heard upon the floor,

01:37:43.580 | and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister

01:37:48.880 | to his stool before the fire, and while Bob, turning up his cuffs, as if, poor fellow,

01:37:54.920 | they were capable of being made more shabby, compounded some hot mixture in a jug with

01:38:00.080 | gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round, and put it on the hob to simmer, Master Peter

01:38:05.800 | and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned

01:38:11.000 | in high procession.

01:38:13.080 | Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose, the rarest of all birds, a feathered

01:38:18.160 | phenomenon to which a black swan was a matter of course, and in truth it was something very

01:38:23.160 | like it in that house. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy, ready beforehand in a little saucepan,

01:38:28.480 | hissing hot. Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor. Miss Belinda sweetened

01:38:33.600 | up the applesauce. Martha dusted the hot plates. Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner

01:38:38.940 | at the table. The two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves,

01:38:44.120 | and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should

01:38:48.740 | shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on

01:38:53.800 | and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause as Mrs. Cratchit, looking

01:38:59.640 | slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast. But when she did,

01:39:06.220 | and when the long-expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose

01:39:11.460 | all around the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table

01:39:16.840 | with the handle of his knife and feebly cried, "Hurrah!" There never was such a goose.

01:39:23.260 | Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and flavor,

01:39:28.160 | size, and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration. Eeked out by applesauce and mashed

01:39:34.320 | potatoes, it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family. Indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said

01:39:38.560 | with great delight, surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish, they hadn't ate

01:39:42.480 | it all at last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest Cratchits in particular were

01:39:47.440 | steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss

01:39:53.280 | Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone, too nervous to bear witness, to take the pudding

01:39:57.880 | up and bring it in. Suppose it should not be done enough. Suppose it should break in

01:40:02.280 | turning out. Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the backyard and stolen

01:40:06.160 | it while they were merry with the goose, a supposition at which the two young Cratchits

01:40:09.800 | became livid. All sorts of horrors were supposed. "Ello!" A great deal of steam. The pudding

01:40:15.920 | was out of the copper. A smell like a washing day. That was the cloth. A smell like an eating

01:40:20.520 | house and the pastry cooks next door to each other with a laundress next door to that.

01:40:25.200 | That was the pudding. In half a minute, Mrs. Cratchit entered, flushed but smiling proudly,

01:40:30.240 | with the pudding like a speckled cannonball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half

01:40:36.280 | a quarter of ignited brandy and bedite with Christmas holly stuck into the top.

01:40:41.320 | "Oh, what a wonderful pudding," Bob Cratchit said, and calmly, too, that he regarded it

01:40:45.520 | as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that

01:40:51.520 | now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity

01:40:56.040 | of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all

01:41:01.560 | a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit

01:41:07.240 | would have blushed to hint at such a thing. At last, the dinner was all done, the cloth

01:41:12.280 | was cleared, the hearth swept, and the fire made up, the compound and the jug being tasted

01:41:16.980 | and considered perfect. Apples and oranges were put upon the table and a shovelful of

01:41:20.880 | chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit

01:41:26.240 | called a circle, meaning half a one, and above Cratchit's elbow stood the family display

01:41:30.720 | of glass, two tumblers, and a custard cup without a handle. These held the hot stuff

01:41:35.880 | from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done, and Bob served it out with

01:41:41.320 | beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob

01:41:46.680 | proposed, "A merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us," which all the family

01:41:52.440 | re-echoed. "God bless us, everyone," said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close

01:41:58.700 | to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his as

01:42:03.520 | if he loved the child and wished to keep him by his side and dreaded that he might be taken

01:42:07.720 | from him. "Spirit," said Scrooge with an interest he had never felt before, "tell

01:42:13.120 | me if Tiny Tim will live." "I see a vacant seat," replied the ghost, "in the poor

01:42:18.000 | chimney corner and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain

01:42:23.360 | unaltered by the future, the child will die." "No, no," said Scrooge. "Oh, no, kind

01:42:29.360 | spirit. Say he will be spared." "If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none

01:42:35.880 | other of my race," returned the ghost, "will find him here. What then? If he be like to

01:42:41.920 | die, he had better do it and decrease the surplus population." Scrooge hung his head

01:42:48.240 | to hear his own words quoted by the spirit and was overcome with penitence and grief.

01:42:52.760 | "Man," said the ghost, "if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked

01:42:58.600 | Kent until you have discovered what the surplus is and where it is. Will you decide what men

01:43:04.680 | shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of heaven you are more worthless

01:43:10.520 | and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God, to hear the insect

01:43:16.700 | on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust."

01:43:24.000 | Scrooge bent before the ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast his eyes upon the ground.

01:43:31.000 | But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name. "Mr. Scrooge," said Bob, "I'll

01:43:37.440 | give you Mr. Scrooge, the founder of the feast."

01:43:40.760 | "The founder of the feast indeed," cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. "I wish I had

01:43:45.680 | him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good

01:43:49.560 | appetite for it. My dear," said Bob, "the children, Christmas Day."

01:43:55.000 | "It should be Christmas Day, I'm sure," said she, "on which one drinks the health

01:43:59.360 | of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge. You know he is, Robert.

01:44:06.160 | Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow."

01:44:08.600 | "My dear," was Bob's mild answer, "Christmas Day."

01:44:13.920 | "I'll drink his health for your sake and the day's," said Mrs. Cratchit, "not

01:44:19.800 | for his. Long life to him. A merry Christmas and a happy New Year. He'll be very merry

01:44:24.920 | and very happy, I have no doubt."

01:44:27.800 | The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had

01:44:32.600 | no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care two pence for it. Scrooge

01:44:40.640 | was the ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party,

01:44:47.560 | which was not dispelled for full five minutes. After it had passed away, they were ten times

01:44:53.300 | merrier than before from the mere relief of Scrooge the baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit

01:44:59.960 | told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in if

01:45:04.960 | it obtained full five and six pence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously

01:45:09.840 | at the idea of Peter as being a man of business, and Peter himself looking thoughtfully at

01:45:15.400 | the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments

01:45:20.880 | he should favor when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was

01:45:25.760 | a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and

01:45:30.360 | how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed tomorrow morning

01:45:34.760 | for a good long rest, tomorrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen

01:45:41.080 | a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as Peter,

01:45:46.080 | at which Peter pulled up his collar so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you

01:45:49.520 | had been there. All this time the chestnuts in the jug went round and round, and by and

01:45:54.760 | by they had a song about a lost child travelling in the snow from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive

01:45:59.920 | little voice and sang it very well indeed. There was nothing of high mark in this. They

01:46:05.000 | were not a handsome family, they were not well dressed, their shoes were far from being

01:46:10.080 | waterproof, their clothes were scanty, and Peter might have known, and very likely did,

01:46:15.080 | the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another

01:46:21.600 | and contented with the time, and when they faded and looked happier yet in the bright

01:46:26.600 | sprinklings of the spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially

01:46:32.560 | on Tiny Tim until the last. By this time it was getting dark and snowing pretty heavily,

01:46:37.680 | and as Scrooge and the spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires

01:46:41.080 | in kitchens, parlours, and all sorts of rooms was wonderful. Here the flickering of the

01:46:46.800 | blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot plates baking through and through

01:46:52.000 | before the fire, and deep red curtains ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.

01:46:57.840 | There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters,

01:47:01.520 | brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here again were shadows

01:47:05.560 | on the window blind of guests assembling, and there a group of handsome girls, all hooded

01:47:10.160 | and fur booted, and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near neighbour's

01:47:15.160 | house, where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter, artful witches, well they

01:47:19.720 | knew it, in a glow. But if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to

01:47:24.240 | friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome

01:47:27.680 | when they got there, instead of every house expecting company and piling up its fires

01:47:31.800 | half chimney high. Blessings on it how the ghost exulted, how it bared its breadth of

01:47:37.280 | breast and opened its capacious palm and floated on outpouring with a generous hand its bright

01:47:43.280 | and harmless mirth on everything within its reach. The very lamplighter who ran on before

01:47:48.160 | dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere,

01:47:53.400 | laughed out loudly as the spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had

01:47:58.120 | any company but Christmas. And now, without a word of warning from the ghost, they stood

01:48:03.000 | upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about, as though

01:48:09.280 | it were the burial place of giants, and water spread itself wheresoever it listed, or would

01:48:14.560 | have done so but for the frost that held it prisoner, and nothing grew but moss and firs

01:48:19.800 | and coarse-rank grass. Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red,

01:48:26.960 | which glared upon the desolation for an instant like a sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower,

01:48:34.560 | lower yet, was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. "What place is this?" asked

01:48:40.880 | Scrooge. "A place where miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth," returned

01:48:47.240 | the spirit. "But they know me, see?" A light shone from the window of a hut, and

01:48:52.360 | swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found

01:48:57.440 | a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire, an old, old man and woman, with their

01:49:02.560 | children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked

01:49:06.720 | out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the

01:49:11.360 | howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song. It had

01:49:15.560 | been a very old song when he was a boy, and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.

01:49:20.400 | So surely as they raised their voices the old man got quite blithe and loud, and so

01:49:25.240 | surely as they stopped his vigour sank again. The spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge

01:49:31.200 | hold his robe, and passing on above the moor, sped wither, not to see, to see. To Scrooge's

01:49:39.880 | horror looking back he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks behind them,

01:49:44.800 | and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water as it rolled and roared and raged

01:49:48.920 | among the dreadful caverns it had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth. Built

01:49:54.080 | upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed

01:49:59.720 | and dashed, the wild year through there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed

01:50:05.200 | clung to its base, and storm-birds, born of the wind one might suppose, as seaweed of

01:50:10.440 | the water, rose and fell about it like the waves they skimmed. But even here two men

01:50:15.440 | who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall

01:50:19.760 | shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough

01:50:24.520 | table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog,

01:50:29.640 | and one of them, the elder too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather,

01:50:34.400 | as the figurehead of an old ship might be, struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale

01:50:38.800 | in itself. Again the ghosts sped on, above the black and heaving sea, on, on, until being

01:50:45.640 | far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore they lighted on a ship. They stood beside

01:50:50.280 | the helmsmen at the wheel, the lookout and the bow, the officers who had the watch, dark,

01:50:55.680 | ghostly figures in their several stations, but every man among them hummed a Christmas

01:50:59.600 | tune, or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his companion of some

01:51:04.400 | bygone Christmas day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, walking

01:51:10.740 | or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day

01:51:16.320 | in the year, and had shared to some extent in its festivities, and had remembered those

01:51:21.360 | he cared for at a distance, and had known that they were delighted to remember him.

01:51:26.980 | It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind, and

01:51:30.880 | thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown

01:51:36.080 | abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as death. It was a great surprise to Scrooge,

01:51:42.560 | while thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge

01:51:48.000 | to recognize it as his own nephews, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room,

01:51:56.160 | with the spirit standing smiling by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving

01:52:01.720 | affability. "Ha, ha, ha!" laughed Scrooge's nephew. "Ha, ha, ha! If you should happen

01:52:08.240 | by any unlikely chance to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew,

01:52:13.400 | all I can say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate

01:52:18.760 | his acquaintance." It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things that while there

01:52:24.880 | is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious

01:52:32.520 | as laughter and good humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides

01:52:37.920 | rolling his head and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge's

01:52:43.040 | niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he, and their assembled friends, being not

01:52:47.960 | a bit behind hand, roared out lustily. "Ha, ha, ha! He said that Christmas was a humbug

01:52:55.320 | as I live!" cried Scrooge's nephew. "He believed it too!" "More shame for him,

01:53:00.960 | Fred," said Scrooge's niece indignantly. "Bless those women! They never do anything

01:53:04.680 | by halves. They are always in earnest." She was very pretty, exceedingly pretty, with

01:53:09.240 | a dimpled, surprised-looking capital face, a ripe little mouth that seemed made to be

01:53:13.320 | kissed, as no doubt it was, all kinds of good little dots about her chin that melted into

01:53:17.800 | one another when she laughed, and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's

01:53:23.680 | head. Altogether, she was what you would have called provoking, you know, but satisfactory

01:53:29.560 | too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory. "He's a comical old fellow," said Scrooge's

01:53:34.400 | nephew. "That's the truth, and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offenses carry

01:53:38.800 | their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him."

01:53:42.200 | "I am sure he is very rich, Fred," hinted Scrooge's niece. "At least you always tell

01:53:47.360 | me so." "What of that, my dear," said Scrooge's nephew. "His wealth is of no

01:53:52.400 | use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it.

01:53:57.600 | He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking that he's ever going to benefit us with it."

01:54:04.440 | "I have no patience with him," observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters

01:54:09.840 | and all the other ladies expressed the same opinion.

01:54:12.320 | "Oh, I have," said Scrooge's nephew. "I'm sorry for him. I couldn't be angry

01:54:17.440 | with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself, always. Here he takes it into

01:54:23.840 | his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequences?

01:54:29.560 | He don't lose much of a dinner."

01:54:30.800 | "Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner," interrupted Scrooge's niece. "Everybody

01:54:36.040 | else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they

01:54:40.000 | had just had dinner, and, with the dessert upon the table, were clustered round the fire

01:54:43.880 | by lamplight."

01:54:44.880 | "Well, I'm very glad to hear it," said Scrooge's nephew, "because I haven't

01:54:48.680 | great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper?"

01:54:53.400 | Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered

01:54:57.120 | that a bachelor was a wretched outcast who had no right to express an opinion on the

01:55:01.640 | subject, whereat Scrooge's niece's sister, the plump one with the lace tucker, not the

01:55:06.920 | one with the roses, blushed.

01:55:08.720 | "Do go on, Fred," said Scrooge's niece, clasping her hands. "He never finishes

01:55:13.140 | what he begins to say. He is such a ridiculous fellow."

01:55:16.240 | Scrooge's nephew reveled in another laugh, and as it was impossible to keep the infection

01:55:20.800 | off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was

01:55:26.440 | unanimously followed.

01:55:27.760 | "I was only going to say," said Scrooge's nephew, "that the consequences of his taking

01:55:32.140 | a dislike to us and not making merry with us is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant

01:55:38.400 | moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he

01:55:43.760 | can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I

01:55:49.560 | mean to give him the same chance every year whether he likes it or not, for I pity him.

01:55:55.640 | He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it. I defy

01:56:00.760 | him if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after year, and saying, 'Uncle Scrooge,

01:56:07.960 | how are you?' If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,

01:56:12.640 | that's something, and I think I shook him yesterday."

01:56:16.440 | It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his "shaking" Scrooge, but being thoroughly

01:56:21.420 | good-natured and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate,

01:56:27.200 | he encouraged them in their merriment and passed the bottle joyously.

01:56:31.860 | After tea they had some music, for they were a musical family and knew what they were about

01:56:35.560 | when they sung a glee or catch, I can assure you, especially Topper, who could growl away

01:56:40.520 | in the bass like a good one and never swell the large veins in his forehead or get red

01:56:44.780 | in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp and played among other

01:56:48.840 | tunes a simple little air, a mere nothing (you might learn to whistle it in two minutes),

01:56:53.400 | which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding school as he had

01:56:57.640 | been reminded by the ghost of Christmas past. When this strain of music sounded, all the

01:57:03.440 | things that ghost had shown him came upon his mind. He softened more and more, and thought

01:57:10.000 | that if he could have listened to it often years ago, he might have cultivated the kindnesses

01:57:15.020 | of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's

01:57:20.600 | spade that buried Jacob Marley. But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a

01:57:26.800 | while they played at forfeits, for it is good to be children sometimes, and never better

01:57:30.860 | than at Christmas, when its mighty founder was a child himself. Stop! There was first

01:57:35.780 | a game at blind man's buff, of course there was, and I no more believe Topper was really

01:57:40.180 | blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is that it was a done thing between

01:57:45.020 | him and Scrooge's nephew, and that the ghost of Christmas present knew it. The way he went

01:57:49.920 | after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature,

01:57:55.200 | knocking down the fire irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering

01:57:59.480 | himself among the curtains. Wherever she went, there went he. He always knew where the plump

01:58:05.540 | sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him, as some

01:58:10.240 | of them did, on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavoring to seize you, which

01:58:14.560 | would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the

01:58:18.240 | direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair, and it really was

01:58:23.280 | not. But when at last he caught her, when, in spite of all her silken rustlings and her

01:58:27.920 | rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner whence there was no escape, then

01:58:32.920 | his conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to know her, his pretending

01:58:38.520 | that it was necessary to touch her headdress, and further to assure himself of her identity

01:58:42.360 | by pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain about her neck, was vile,

01:58:47.800 | monstrous, no doubt she told him her opinion of it, when, another blind man being in office,

01:58:52.880 | they were so very confidential together, behind the curtains. Scrooge's niece was not one

01:58:58.040 | of the blind man's buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool

01:59:02.680 | in a snug corner, where the ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the

01:59:07.200 | forfeits and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet. Likewise

01:59:12.400 | at the game of how, when, and where, she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's

01:59:17.160 | nephew beat her sisters hollow, though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have

01:59:21.560 | told you. There might have been twenty people there, young and old, but they all played,

01:59:26.320 | and so did Scrooge, for wholly forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on,

01:59:31.040 | that his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with his guess quite

01:59:34.920 | loud, and very often guessed quite right too, for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel

01:59:39.640 | warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge, blunt as he took it in his head

01:59:44.120 | to be. The ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with

01:59:49.120 | such favor that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed.

01:59:53.920 | But this, the spirit said, could not be done.

01:59:56.800 | "Here is a new game," said Scrooge. "One half hour, spirit, only one!"

02:00:01.560 | It was a game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something and the rest

02:00:06.080 | must find out what, he only answering to their questions, yes or no, as the case was. The

02:00:11.760 | brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking

02:00:15.720 | of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled

02:00:21.440 | and grunted sometimes and talked sometimes and lived in London and walked about the streets

02:00:25.240 | and wasn't made a show of and wasn't led by anybody and didn't live in a menagerie and

02:00:29.400 | was never killed in a market and was not a horse or an ass or a cow or a bull or a tiger

02:00:33.600 | or a dog or a pig or a cat or a bear.

02:00:36.560 | At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter

02:00:41.160 | and was so inexpressibly tickled that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp.

02:00:45.960 | At last, the plump sister falling into a similar state cried out, "I've found it out! I know

02:00:50.880 | what it is, Fred! I know what it is!" "What is it?" cried Fred. "It's your Uncle Scrooge!"

02:00:57.520 | Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected

02:01:02.320 | that the reply to, "Is it a bear?" ought to have been, "Yes," inasmuch as an answer

02:01:06.880 | in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing

02:01:11.160 | they had ever had any tendency that way.

02:01:13.600 | "He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure," said Fred, "and it would be ungrateful

02:01:19.840 | not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine, ready to our hand at the moment,

02:01:25.880 | and I say, 'Uncle Scrooge!'" "Well, Uncle Scrooge!" they cried.

02:01:30.760 | "A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, whatever he is," said Scrooge's

02:01:35.640 | nephew. "He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it nevertheless. Uncle Scrooge!"

02:01:43.560 | Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart that he would have

02:01:48.760 | pledged the unconscious company in return, and thanked them in an audible speech if the

02:01:53.880 | ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word

02:01:58.920 | spoken by his nephew, and he and the spirit were again upon their travels.

02:02:03.120 | Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy

02:02:08.000 | end. The spirit stood beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands, and

02:02:13.320 | they were close at home; by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope;

02:02:17.720 | by poverty, and it was rich; in almshouse, hospital, and jail; in miseries every refuge,

02:02:24.000 | where vain man in his little brief authority had not made fast the door and barred the

02:02:28.080 | spirit out, he left his blessing and taught Scrooge his precepts.

02:02:34.160 | It was a long night, if it were only a night, but Scrooge had his doubts of this, because

02:02:38.720 | the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together.

02:02:43.960 | It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the ghost grew

02:02:49.480 | older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it until they

02:02:55.440 | left a children's twelfth-night party, when, looking at the spirit as they stood together

02:02:59.520 | in an open place, he noticed that its hair was gray.

02:03:03.200 | "Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge.

02:03:06.680 | "My life upon this globe is very brief," replied the ghost. "It ends tonight."

02:03:11.600 | "Tonight!" cried Scrooge. "Tonight at midnight! Hark! The time is drawing near!"

02:03:17.080 | The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.

02:03:20.720 | "Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask," said Scrooge, looking intently at

02:03:25.760 | the spirit's robe, "but I see something strange and not belonging to yourself protruding

02:03:30.060 | from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw?"

02:03:33.520 | "It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it," was the spirit's sorrowful

02:03:38.160 | reply. "Look here!" From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children, wretched,

02:03:45.400 | abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet and clung upon the

02:03:53.000 | outside of its garment.

02:03:54.480 | "Oh man, look here! Look, look, down here!" exclaimed the ghost.

02:03:59.360 | They were a boy and a girl, yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but prostrate too

02:04:06.120 | in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their features out and touched

02:04:10.640 | them with its freshest tints, a stale and shriveled hand like that of age had pinched

02:04:16.480 | and twisted them and pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat enthroned, devils

02:04:22.480 | lurked and glared out menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity

02:04:28.800 | in any grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has monsters half so horrible

02:04:34.560 | and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to him in this way, he tried

02:04:40.040 | to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves rather than be parties to

02:04:46.040 | a lie of such enormous magnitude.

02:04:48.360 | "Spirit, are they yours?" Scrooge could say no more.

02:04:51.880 | "They are man's," said the spirit, looking down upon them. "And they cling to me, appealing

02:04:56.600 | from their fathers. This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both and all

02:05:02.720 | of their degree, but most of all, beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which

02:05:08.400 | is doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it," cried the spirit, stretching out its

02:05:13.960 | hand towards the city. "Slander those who tell it ye. Admit it for your factious purposes

02:05:19.640 | and make it worse, and bide the end."

02:05:22.360 | "Have they no refuge or resource?" Cried Scrooge.

02:05:25.400 | "Are there no prisons?" Said the spirit, turning on him for the last time with his

02:05:29.360 | own words. "Are there no workhouses?" The bell struck twelve.

02:05:35.360 | Scrooge looked about him for the ghost and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate,

02:05:40.520 | he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a

02:05:46.800 | solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.

02:06:01.880 | STAVE IV. THE LAST OF THE SPIRITS

02:06:06.520 | The phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down upon

02:06:14.960 | his knee, for in the very air through which this spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom

02:06:21.760 | and mystery. It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed its head, its face,

02:06:28.680 | its form, and left nothing of it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it would

02:06:35.280 | have been difficult to detach its figure from the night and separate it from the darkness

02:06:40.080 | by which it was surrounded. He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside him,

02:06:46.480 | and that its mysterious presence filled him with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for

02:06:52.760 | the spirit neither spoke nor moved. "I am in the presence of the ghost of Christmas

02:07:00.640 | yet to come," said Scrooge. The spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand. "You

02:07:10.040 | are about to show me shadows of the things that have not happened but will happen in

02:07:14.040 | the time before us," Scrooge pursued. "Is that so, spirit?"

02:07:17.880 | The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in its folds, as if the spirit

02:07:24.040 | had inclined its head. That was the only answer he received. Although well used to ghostly

02:07:31.760 | company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath

02:07:37.320 | him and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The spirit

02:07:42.120 | paused a moment as observing his condition and giving him time to recover. But Scrooge

02:07:46.800 | was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with a vague, uncertain horror to know that

02:07:51.160 | behind the dusky shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him while he, though

02:07:57.360 | he stretched his own to the utmost, could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great

02:08:02.360 | heap of black. "Ghost of the future!" he exclaimed. "I fear you more than any specter

02:08:08.880 | I have seen, but as I know your purpose is to do me good and as I hope to live to be

02:08:13.080 | another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company and do it with a thankful

02:08:18.480 | heart. Will you not speak to me?" It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight

02:08:27.420 | before them. "Lead on!" said Scrooge. "Lead on! The night is waning fast and it

02:08:33.320 | is precious time to me, I know. Lead on, spirit!" The phantom moved away as it had

02:08:39.480 | come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress which bore him up, he

02:08:44.760 | thought, and carried him along. They scarcely seemed to enter the city, but the city rather

02:08:49.640 | seemed to spring up about them and encompass them of its own act. But there they were,

02:08:54.960 | in the heart of it, on change, amongst the merchants who hurried up and down and chinked

02:08:59.280 | the money in their pockets and conversed in groups and looked at their watches and trifled

02:09:05.120 | thoughtfully with their great gold seals and so forth, as Scrooge had seen them often.

02:09:12.160 | The spirit stopped beside one little knot of businessmen. Observing that the hand was

02:09:18.020 | pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk.

02:09:22.640 | "No," said a great fat man with a monstrous chin. "I don't know much about it, either

02:09:28.480 | way. I only know he's dead." "When did he die?" inquired another. "Last

02:09:32.700 | night, I believe." "Why, what was the matter with him?" asked a third, taking

02:09:36.880 | a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff box. "I thought he'd never die."

02:09:43.040 | "God knows," said the first, with a yawn. "What has he done with his money?"

02:09:47.920 | asked a red-faced gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his nose that shook

02:09:54.360 | like the gills of a turkey cock. "I haven't heard," said the man with a large

02:09:59.520 | chin, yawning again. "Left it to his company, perhaps."

02:10:02.840 | "He hasn't left it to me, that's all I know." This pleasantry was received with

02:10:08.040 | a general laugh. "It's likely to be a very cheap funeral," said the same speaker,

02:10:13.400 | "for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose we make up a party and

02:10:18.840 | volunteer." "I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,"

02:10:23.200 | observed the gentleman with the excrescence on his nose, "but I must be fed if I make

02:10:28.600 | one." Another laugh. "Well, I am the most disinterested among you after all," said

02:10:34.760 | the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer

02:10:41.000 | to go if anybody else will. When I come to think of it I'm not at all sure that I wasn't

02:10:45.300 | his most particular friend, for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. Bye-bye."

02:10:51.400 | Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with other groups. Scrooge knew the

02:10:55.800 | men and looked towards the spirit for an explanation. The phantom glided on into a street, its

02:11:02.520 | finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking that the explanation

02:11:08.240 | might lie here. He knew these men also perfectly. They were men of business, very wealthy and

02:11:14.240 | of great importance. He had made a point always of standing well in their esteem. On a business

02:11:20.120 | point of view, that is, strictly in a business point of view.

02:11:23.120 | "How are you?" said one. "How are you?" returned the other.

02:11:26.440 | "Well," said the first, "old Scratch has got his own at last, eh? So I'm told,"

02:11:30.720 | returned the second. "Cold, isn't it? Seasonable for Christmastime. You're not

02:11:34.000 | a skater, I suppose? No, no, something else to think of. Good morning."

02:11:40.000 | Not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and their parting.

02:11:46.200 | Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the spirit should attach importance to

02:11:49.480 | conversations apparently so trivial, but feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose,

02:11:54.600 | he set himself to consider what it was likely to be. They could scarcely be supposed to

02:11:58.640 | have any bearing on the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was past and this ghost's

02:12:03.320 | province was the future. Nor could he think of anyone immediately connected with himself

02:12:07.800 | to whom he could apply them, but nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied they had some

02:12:12.960 | latent moral for his own improvement, he resolved to treasure up every word he heard and everything

02:12:18.040 | he saw, and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared, for he had an

02:12:22.880 | expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed and

02:12:27.120 | would render the solution of these riddles easy. He looked about in that very place for

02:12:31.840 | his own image, but another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the clock pointed

02:12:37.520 | to his usual time of day for being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes

02:12:43.100 | that poured in through the porch. It gave him little surprise, however, for he had been

02:12:48.120 | revolving in his mind a change of life, and thought and hoped he saw his newborn resolutions

02:12:53.880 | carried out in this. Quiet and dark beside him stood the phantom with its outstretched

02:13:00.400 | hand. When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand

02:13:05.520 | and its situation in reference to himself that the unseen eyes were looking at him keenly.

02:13:12.680 | It made him shudder and feel very cold. They left the busy scene and went into an obscure

02:13:19.440 | part of the town where Scrooge had never penetrated before, although he recognized its situation

02:13:24.920 | and its bad repute. The ways were foul and narrow, the shops and houses wretched, the

02:13:33.400 | people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and archways like so many cesspools

02:13:42.720 | disgorged their offenses of smell and dirt and life upon the straggling streets, and

02:13:50.240 | the whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth and misery. Far in this den of infamous

02:13:58.260 | resort there was a low-browed beetling shop below a penthouse roof where iron, old rags,

02:14:06.120 | bottles, bones, and greasy offal were bought. Upon the floor within were piled up heaps

02:14:12.160 | of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds.

02:14:21.000 | Secrets that few would like to scrutinize were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly

02:14:27.120 | rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt

02:14:34.440 | in by a charcoal stove made of old bricks was a gray-haired rascal, nearly seventy years

02:14:41.280 | of age, who had screened himself from the cold air without, by a frowsy curtaining of

02:14:47.160 | miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line, and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of calm

02:14:53.760 | retirement. Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this man, just as a woman

02:14:59.720 | with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop; but she had scarcely entered when another woman,

02:15:06.240 | similarly laden, came in too, and she was closely followed by a man in faded black,

02:15:11.720 | who was no less startled by the sight of them than they had been upon the recognition of

02:15:15.480 | each other. After a short period of blank astonishment in which the old man with the

02:15:20.720 | pipe had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh. "Let the charwoman alone to

02:15:27.080 | be the first," cried she who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone to be the

02:15:30.920 | second, and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's

02:15:35.600 | a chance, if we haven't all three met here without meaning it."

02:15:39.360 | "You couldn't have met in a better place," said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth.

02:15:44.320 | "Come into the parlor. You were made free of it long ago, you know, and the other two

02:15:48.320 | aren't strangers. Stop till I shut up the door of the shop. Ah, how it squeaks! There

02:15:53.080 | ain't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as its own hinges, I believe, and I'm sure

02:15:56.560 | there's no such old bones here as mine. Ha ha, we're all suitable to our calling. We're

02:16:01.680 | well matched. Come into the parlor, come into the parlor." The parlor was the space behind

02:16:06.280 | the screen of rags. The old man raked the fire together with an old stair rod, and having

02:16:11.560 | trimmed his smoky lamp, for it was night, with the stem of his pipe put it in his mouth

02:16:17.240 | again. While he did this, the woman who had already spoken threw her bundle on the floor,

02:16:22.760 | and sat down in a flaunting manner on a stool, crossing her elbows on her knees and looking

02:16:27.720 | with a bold defiance at the other two. "What odds, then? What odds, Mrs. Dilber?" said

02:16:33.760 | the woman. "Every person has a right to take care of themselves. He always did."

02:16:38.680 | "That's true, indeed," said the laundress. "No man more so."

02:16:42.480 | "Why, then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid, woman. Who's the wiser? We're

02:16:46.560 | not going to pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose."

02:16:48.920 | "No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber and the man together. "We should hope not."

02:16:53.040 | "Very well, then," cried the woman. "That's enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a

02:16:57.040 | few things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose."

02:16:59.600 | "No, indeed," said Mrs. Dilber, laughing. "If he wanted to keep him after he was dead,

02:17:04.480 | a wicked old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't he natural in his lifetime?

02:17:08.600 | If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with death

02:17:11.640 | instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone by himself."

02:17:16.440 | "It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said Mrs. Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."

02:17:21.920 | "I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied the woman, "and it should have been.

02:17:26.040 | You may depend upon it. If I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that bundle,

02:17:30.520 | old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid to be the

02:17:34.240 | first nor afraid for them to see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves

02:17:37.920 | before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle, Joe."

02:17:42.120 | But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this, and the man in faded black

02:17:47.080 | mounting the breach first produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil

02:17:54.160 | case, a pair of sleeve buttons, and a brooch of no great value were all. They were severally

02:18:00.000 | examined and appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed to give for each

02:18:05.180 | upon the wall and added them up into a total when he found there was nothing more to come.

02:18:10.320 | "That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't give another sixpence if I was to be boiled

02:18:14.400 | for not doing it. Who's next?"

02:18:16.560 | Mrs. Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old-fashioned

02:18:22.960 | silver teaspoons, a pair of sugar tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the

02:18:28.000 | wall in the same manner.

02:18:29.520 | "I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself,"

02:18:33.840 | said old Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me for another penny and made it an open

02:18:37.400 | question I'd repent of being so liberal and knock off half a crown."

02:18:40.000 | "And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first woman.

02:18:44.080 | Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience of opening it, and having unfastened

02:18:48.800 | a great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

02:18:53.000 | "What do you call this?" said Joe.

02:18:55.600 | "Bed-curtains."

02:18:56.600 | "Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!

02:19:02.360 | You don't mean to say you took 'em down rings and all with him lying there?" said Joe.

02:19:06.160 | "Yes, I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"

02:19:09.360 | "You were born to make your fortune," said Joe, "and you'll certainly do it. I certainly

02:19:15.500 | shan't hold my hand when I can get anything in it by reaching it out for the sake of such

02:19:19.060 | a man as he was, I promise you, Joe!" returned the woman, coolly. "Don't drop that oil upon

02:19:24.560 | the blankets now."

02:19:25.560 | "His blankets?" asked Joe.

02:19:27.800 | "Whose else's do you think?" replied the woman. "He isn't likely to take cold without 'em,

02:19:32.200 | I dare say."

02:19:33.200 | "I hope he didn't die of anything catching, eh?" said old Joe, stopping in his work and

02:19:37.880 | looking up.

02:19:38.880 | "Don't you be afraid of that," returned the woman. "I ain't so fond of his company that

02:19:42.240 | I'd loiter about him for such things if he did."

02:19:44.560 | "Ah, you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache, but you won't find a hole

02:19:48.080 | in it nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had and a fine one, too. They'd have wasted

02:19:52.720 | it if it hadn't been for me."

02:19:54.120 | "What do you call wasting of it?" asked old Joe.

02:19:57.000 | "Putting it on him to be buried and to be sure," replied the woman with a laugh. "Somebody

02:20:00.840 | was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If calico ain't good enough for such

02:20:04.040 | a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't

02:20:07.920 | look uglier than he did in that one."

02:20:10.520 | Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about their spoil in the

02:20:16.720 | scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and disgust

02:20:23.520 | which could hardly have been greater, though they had been obscene demons, marketing the

02:20:28.920 | corpse itself.

02:20:30.320 | "Ha ha!" laughed the same woman, when old Joe, producing a flannel bag with money in

02:20:35.360 | it, told out their several gains upon the ground. "This is the end of it, you see."

02:20:39.920 | He frightened everyone away from him when he was alive, to profit us when he was dead.

02:20:46.720 | "Ha ha ha ha! Spirit," said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot, "I see. I see. The case

02:20:54.680 | of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way now. Merciful heaven, what

02:20:59.720 | is this?"

02:21:01.200 | He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed, a bare, uncurtained

02:21:07.440 | bed, on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though

02:21:13.520 | it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. The room was very dark, too dark to be observed

02:21:19.880 | with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse,

02:21:24.800 | anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell

02:21:29.520 | straight upon the bed, and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for,

02:21:36.680 | was the body of this man.

02:21:39.160 | Scrooge glanced towards the phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was

02:21:44.640 | so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon

02:21:49.080 | Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be

02:21:53.640 | to do, and longed to do it, but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss

02:21:59.440 | the spectre at his side. "Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful death! Set up thine altar

02:22:06.920 | here and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command, for this is thy dominion.

02:22:14.120 | But of the loved, revered, and honoured head thou canst not turn one hair to thy dread

02:22:21.040 | purposes or make one feature odious. It is not that the hand is heavy and will fall down

02:22:27.720 | when released. It is not that the heart and pulse are still, but that the hand was open,

02:22:35.800 | generous and true, the heart brave, warm and tender, and the pulse a man's. Strike, shadow,

02:22:44.440 | strike, and see his good deeds springing from the wound to sow the world with life immortal."

02:22:52.720 | No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them when he looked

02:22:58.300 | upon the bed. He thought, "If this man could be raised up now, what would be his foremost

02:23:03.960 | thoughts? Avarice? Hard-dealing? Griping cares? They have brought him to a rich end. Truly,

02:23:11.960 | he lay in the dark, empty house with not a man, a woman, or a child to say that he was

02:23:17.080 | kind to me in this or that. And for the memory of one kind word, I will be kind to him."

02:23:22.560 | A cat was tearing at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearthstone.

02:23:28.560 | What they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so restless and disturbed, Scrooge

02:23:33.960 | did not dare to think. "Spirit," he said, "this is a fearful place. In leaving it I

02:23:40.680 | shall not leave its lesson. Trust me, let us go." Still the ghost pointed with an unmoved

02:23:45.440 | finger to the head. "I understand you," Scrooge returned, "and I would do it if I could, but

02:23:49.960 | I have not the power. Spirit, I have not the power." Again it seemed to look upon him.

02:23:55.640 | "If there is any person in the town who feels emotion caused by this man's death," said

02:24:02.480 | Scrooge, quite agonized, "show that person to me, Spirit. I beseech you." The phantom

02:24:08.240 | spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing, and withdrawing it, revealed

02:24:14.840 | a room by daylight where a mother and her children were. She was expecting someone,

02:24:21.080 | and with anxious eagerness, for she walked up and down the room, started at every sound,

02:24:26.840 | looked out from the window, glanced at the clock, tried but in vain to work with her

02:24:31.280 | needle and could hardly bear the voices of the children in their play. At length the

02:24:36.280 | long-expected knock was heard. She hurried to the door and met her husband, a man whose

02:24:43.240 | face was careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was a remarkable expression

02:24:48.760 | in it now, a kind of serious delight of which he felt ashamed and which he struggled to

02:24:53.880 | repress. He sat down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him by the fire, and when

02:24:59.000 | she asked him faintly what news, which was not until after a long silence, he appeared

02:25:03.880 | embarrassed how to answer. "Is it good," she said, "or bad," to help him. "Bad," he answered.

02:25:10.440 | "We are quite ruined." "No, there is hope yet, Caroline." "If he relents," she said

02:25:17.000 | amazed, "there is. Nothing is past hope if such a miracle has happened." "He is past

02:25:22.840 | relenting," said her husband. "He is dead." She was a mild and patient creature if her

02:25:31.360 | face spoke truth, but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she said so with

02:25:38.600 | clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next moment and was sorry, but the first was

02:25:44.440 | the emotion of her heart. What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last night said to

02:25:49.160 | me when I tried to see him and obtain a week's delay, and what I thought was a mere excuse

02:25:54.360 | to avoid me, turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill but dying then.

02:26:01.040 | To whom will our debt be transferred? I don't know, but before that time we shall be ready

02:26:05.600 | with the money, and even though we were not, it would be a bad fortune indeed to find so

02:26:10.040 | merciless a creditor in his successor. We may sleep tonight with light hearts, Caroline."

02:26:14.560 | "Yes, soften it as they would. Their hearts were lighter. The children's faces, hushed

02:26:21.800 | and clustered round to hear what they so little understood, were brighter, and it was a happier

02:26:26.840 | house for this man's death. The only emotion that the ghost could show him caused by the

02:26:31.720 | event was one of pleasure. 'Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,' said

02:26:37.280 | Scrooge, 'or that dark chamber spirit which we left just now will be forever present to

02:26:42.680 | me.' The ghost conducted him through several streets familiar to his feet, and as they

02:26:48.080 | went along Scrooge looked here and there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen.

02:26:53.400 | They entered poor Bob Cratchit's house, the dwelling he had visited before and found the

02:26:58.040 | mother and the children seated round the fire, quiet, very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits

02:27:05.160 | were as still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter, who had a book before

02:27:10.080 | him. The mother and her daughters were engaged in sewing, but surely they were very quiet,

02:27:14.840 | and he took a child and set him in the midst of them. Where had Scrooge heard those words?

02:27:19.200 | He had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them out as he and the spirit crossed

02:27:22.360 | the threshold. Why did he not go on?' The mother laid her work upon the table and put

02:27:26.760 | her hand up to her face. 'The colour hurts my eyes,' she said.

02:27:31.040 | 'The colour! Ah, poor tiny Tim!' 'They're better now again,' said Cratchit's wife. 'It

02:27:36.160 | makes them weak by candlelight, and I wouldn't show weak eyes to your father when he comes

02:27:39.520 | home for the world. It must be near his time.' 'Past it, rather,' Peter answered, shutting

02:27:44.280 | up his book. 'But I think he's walked a little slower than he used these few last evenings,

02:27:49.400 | mother.'

02:27:50.400 | They were very quiet again. At last, she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice that only

02:27:55.680 | faltered once, 'I have known him walk with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder very fast indeed.'

02:28:03.720 | 'And so have I!' cried Peter, often. 'And so have I!' exclaimed another. 'So had all.'

02:28:09.680 | 'But he was very light to carry,' she resumed, intent upon her work. 'And his father loved

02:28:14.760 | him so that it was no trouble, no trouble, and there was your father at the door!' She

02:28:18.720 | hurried out to meet him, and little Bob and his comforter—he had need of it, poor fellow—came

02:28:22.800 | in. His tea was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should help him to

02:28:26.800 | it most. Then the two young Cratchits got upon his knees and laid each child a little

02:28:31.080 | cheek against his face, as if they said, 'Don't mind it, father, don't be grieved.' Bob was

02:28:36.160 | very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to all the family. He looked at the work upon

02:28:40.080 | the table, and praised the industry and speed of Mrs. Cratchit and the girls. They would

02:28:44.600 | be done long before Sunday, he said.

02:28:47.040 | 'Sunday! You went to-day then, Robert?' said his wife.

02:28:49.720 | 'Yes, my dear,' returned Bob, 'I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good

02:28:53.800 | to see how green a place it is, but you'll see it often. I promised him that I would

02:28:57.000 | walk there on a Sunday. My little child, my little child!' cried Bob. 'My little child!'

02:29:04.320 | He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he could have helped it, he and his

02:29:08.800 | child would have been farther apart, perhaps, than they were. He left the room, and went

02:29:12.920 | upstairs into the room above, which was lighted cheerfully and hung with Christmas. There

02:29:18.400 | was a chair set close beside the child, and there were signs of someone having been there

02:29:23.320 | lately. Poor Bob sat down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed himself,

02:29:28.880 | he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what had happened, and went down again,

02:29:33.760 | quite happy. They drew about the fire and talked, the girls and mother working still.

02:29:39.160 | Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness of Mr. Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely

02:29:44.080 | seen but once, and who, meeting him in the street that day and seeing that he looked

02:29:48.560 | just a little down, you know, said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. 'On which?'

02:29:53.800 | said Bob. 'For he is the pleasantest spoken gentleman you ever heard,' I told him. 'I

02:29:57.760 | am heartily sorry for it, Mr. Cratchit,' he said, 'and heartily sorry for your good wife.'

02:30:02.880 | By the by, how he ever knew that, I don't know. 'Knew what, my dear?' 'Why, that you

02:30:07.720 | were a good wife,' replied Bob. 'Everybody knows that,' said Peter. 'Very well observed,

02:30:12.400 | my boy,' cried Bob. 'I hope they do. Heartily sorry,' he said, 'for your good wife. If

02:30:17.080 | I can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me his card, 'that's where I

02:30:21.560 | live. Pray come to me.' Now it wasn't, cried Bob, for the sake of anything he might be

02:30:26.060 | able to do for us, so much as for his kind way that this was quite delightful. It really

02:30:31.240 | seemed as if he had known our tiny Tim and felt with us. 'I'm sure he's a good soul,'

02:30:37.000 | said Mrs. Cratchit. 'You would be sure of it, my dear,' returned Bob, 'if you saw and

02:30:41.760 | spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised. Mark what I say if he got Peter a better situation.'

02:30:47.160 | 'Only hear that, Peter,' said Mrs. Cratchit. 'And then,' cried one of the girls, 'Peter

02:30:52.280 | will be keeping company with someone and setting up for himself. Get along with you,' retorted

02:30:56.960 | Peter, grinning. 'It's just as likely as not,' said Bob. 'One of these days, though

02:31:01.440 | there's plenty of time for that, my dear, but however and whenever we part from one

02:31:05.040 | another, I am sure we shall none of us forget poor tiny Tim, shall we? Or this first parting

02:31:09.760 | that there was amongst us?' 'Never, father,' cried they all. 'And I know,' said Bob, 'I

02:31:14.520 | know, my dears, that when we recollect how patient and how mild he was, although he was

02:31:19.160 | a little, little child, we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves and forget poor tiny

02:31:23.940 | Tim in doing it.' 'No, never, father,' they all cried again. 'I am very happy,' said little

02:31:30.240 | Bob. 'I am very happy.' Mrs. Cratchit kissed him, and his daughters kissed him. The two

02:31:36.040 | young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook hands. 'Spirit of tiny Tim,

02:31:42.360 | thy childish essence was from God.' 'Spectre,' said Scrooge, 'something informs me that our

02:31:49.720 | parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not how. Tell me what man that was

02:31:54.360 | whom we saw lying dead.' The ghost of Christmas yet to come conveyed him as before, though

02:31:59.600 | at a different time, he thought. Indeed, there seemed no order in these latter visions, save

02:32:04.640 | that they were in the future, into the resorts of businessmen, but showed him not himself.

02:32:09.600 | Indeed, the spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight on as to the end just now

02:32:13.760 | desired until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. 'This court,' said Scrooge,

02:32:19.080 | 'through which we hurry now is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length

02:32:23.240 | of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be in days to come.' The spirit stopped.

02:32:29.080 | The hand was pointed elsewhere. 'The house is yonder,' Scrooge exclaimed. 'Why do you

02:32:33.400 | point away?' The inexorable finger underwent no change. Scrooge hastened to the window

02:32:38.600 | of his office and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not

02:32:43.000 | the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The phantom pointed as before.

02:32:47.520 | He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither he had gone, accompanied it until

02:32:51.360 | they reached an iron gate. He paused to look round before entering. A churchyard. Here

02:32:56.600 | then, the wretched man whose name he had now to learn lay underneath the ground. It was

02:33:01.920 | a worthy place, walled in by houses, overrun by grass and weeds, the growth of vegetation's

02:33:08.080 | death, not life, choked up with too much burying, fat with repleted appetite. A worthy place.

02:33:15.100 | The spirit stood among the graves and pointed down to one. He advanced towards it, trembling.

02:33:22.240 | The phantom was exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning in its

02:33:26.520 | solemn shape. 'Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' said Scrooge,

02:33:31.240 | 'answer me one question. Are these the shadows of things that will be, or are they

02:33:36.160 | the shadow of things that may be only?' Still, the ghost pointed downward to the grave

02:33:43.400 | by which it stood. 'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends to which, if persevered

02:33:49.360 | in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the ends

02:33:54.280 | will change. Say it is thus with what you show me.' The spirit was immovable as ever.

02:34:04.300 | Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went, and following the finger read upon the

02:34:11.920 | stone of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

02:34:20.480 | 'Am I that man who lay upon the bed?' he cried upon his knees. The finger pointed

02:34:27.480 | from the grave to him and back again. 'No, spirit, no, no, no!' The finger still

02:34:34.320 | was there. 'Spirit!' he cried, tight clutching at its robe. 'Hear me! I am not

02:34:39.360 | the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this intercourse. Why show

02:34:45.200 | me this if I am past all hope?' For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 'Good

02:34:51.000 | spirit!' he pursued as down upon the ground he fell before it. 'Your nature intercedes

02:34:55.400 | for me and pities me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you have shown me

02:35:00.760 | by an altered life.' The kind hand trembled. 'I will honour Christmas in my heart and

02:35:07.280 | try to keep it all the year. I will live in the past, the present, and the future. The

02:35:12.840 | spirits of all three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they

02:35:17.200 | teach. Oh, tell me I may sponge away the writing on this stone!' In his agony he caught the

02:35:25.160 | spectral hand. It sought to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty and detained

02:35:30.200 | it. The spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him. Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have

02:35:35.920 | his fate reversed, he saw an alteration in the phantom's hood and dress. It shrunk,

02:35:43.440 | collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.

02:35:53.280 | Stave 5, the end of it. Yes, and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own. The room

02:35:59.280 | was his own. Best and happiest of all, the time before him was his own. To make amends

02:36:04.640 | in 'I will live in the past, the present, and the future,' Scrooge repeated as he scrambled

02:36:09.240 | out of bed, 'the spirits of all three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob Marley, heaven

02:36:14.280 | in the Christmas time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees!'

02:36:19.640 | He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions that his broken voice would

02:36:23.440 | scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the spirit

02:36:27.960 | and his face was wet with tears. 'They are not torn down,' cried Scrooge, folding one

02:36:32.600 | of his bed curtains in his arms. 'They are not torn down, rings and all. They are here.

02:36:36.720 | I am here. The shadow of the things that would have been may be dispelled. They will be.

02:36:41.120 | I know they will.' His hands were busy with his garments all this time, turning them inside

02:36:45.360 | out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties

02:36:48.560 | to every kind of extravagance. 'I don't know what to do,' cried Scrooge, laughing

02:36:52.400 | and crying in the same breath and making a perfect laucoon of himself with his stockings.

02:36:56.400 | 'I am as light as a feather. I am as happy as an angel. I am as merry as a schoolboy.

02:37:01.240 | I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to everybody. A happy new year to all the

02:37:06.800 | world. Hello there! Hello!' He had frisked into the sitting room and was now standing

02:37:12.160 | there, perfectly winded. 'There's the saucepan that the gruel was in,' cried Scrooge, starting

02:37:16.960 | off again and going around the fireplace. 'There's the door by which the ghost of

02:37:20.320 | Jacob Marley entered. There's the corner where the ghost of Christmas presents sat.

02:37:24.560 | There's the window where I saw the wandering spirits. It's all right. It's all true.

02:37:29.240 | It all happened.' Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many years,

02:37:34.480 | it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long, long line of

02:37:38.920 | brilliant laughs. 'I don't know what day of the month it is,' said Scrooge. 'I

02:37:43.080 | don't know how long I've been among the spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite

02:37:46.400 | a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hello! Hello there!' He was checked

02:37:52.080 | in his transports by the churches ringing out the lustiest peals he had ever heard.

02:37:56.360 | 'Clash! Clang! Hammer! Ding! Dong! Bell! Bell! Dong! Ding! Hammer! Clang! Clash! Glorious!

02:38:05.880 | Glorious!' Running to the window, he opened and put out his head. No fog. No mist. Clear.

02:38:10.760 | Bright. Jovial. Stirring. Cold. Cold. Piping for the blood to dance to. Golden sunlight.

02:38:17.000 | Heavenly sky. Sweet, fresh air. Merry bells! Glorious! Glorious! 'What's today?'

02:38:23.920 | replied Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes who perhaps had loitered

02:38:27.240 | in to look about him. 'Eh?' returned the boy with all his might of wonder. 'What's

02:38:31.880 | today, my fine young fellow?' said Scrooge. 'Today,' replied the boy. 'Why, Christmas

02:38:36.960 | Day!' 'It's Christmas Day,' said Scrooge to himself. 'I haven't missed it. The spirits

02:38:42.080 | have done it all in one night. They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of

02:38:45.040 | course they can. Hello, my fine fellow!' 'Hello!' returned the boy. 'Do you know

02:38:49.440 | the poulterers in the next street but one at the corner?' Scrooge inquired. 'I should

02:38:53.680 | hope I did,' replied the lad. 'An intelligent boy,' said Scrooge. 'A remarkable boy.

02:38:58.480 | Do you know whether they've sold the prized turkey that was hanging up there? Not the

02:39:01.680 | little prized turkey, the big one!' 'What? The one as big as me?' returned the boy.

02:39:05.840 | 'What a delightful boy,' said Scrooge. 'It's a pleasure to talk to him.' 'Yes,

02:39:09.880 | my buck!' 'It's hanging there now,' replied the boy. 'Is it?' said Scrooge. 'Go

02:39:14.520 | and buy it!' 'Walker!' exclaimed the boy. 'No, no!' said Scrooge. 'I'm in earnest.

02:39:21.480 | Go and buy it and tell him to bring it here, that I may give him the direction where to

02:39:24.680 | take it. Come back with the man and I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in

02:39:28.440 | less than five minutes and I'll give you half a crown.' The boy was off like a shot.

02:39:32.600 | He must have had a steady hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.

02:39:35.920 | 'I'll send it to Bob Cratchit,' whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands and splitting with

02:39:40.280 | a laugh. 'He shan't know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe Miller

02:39:45.160 | never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be.' The hand in which he wrote the

02:39:48.920 | address was not a steady one, but righted he did, somehow, and went downstairs to open

02:39:52.800 | the street door, ready for the coming of the polterer's man. As he stood there awaiting

02:39:56.420 | his arrival, the knocker caught his eye. 'I shall love it as long as I live,' cried

02:40:00.080 | Scrooge, patting it with his hand. 'I scarcely ever looked at it before. What an honest expression

02:40:04.820 | it has in its face. It's a wonderful knocker. Here's the turkey. Hello! How are you? Merry

02:40:10.520 | Christmas!' It was a turkey. He never could have stood upon its legs, that bird. He would

02:40:15.680 | have snapped them short off in a minute like sticks of sealing wax. 'Why, it's impossible

02:40:20.000 | to carry that to Camden Town,' said Scrooge. 'You must have a cab.' The chuckle with which

02:40:24.120 | he said this, and the chuckle with which he paid for the turkey, and the chuckle with

02:40:26.960 | which he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed the boy, were only

02:40:30.480 | to be exceeded by the chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair again and

02:40:33.760 | chuckled till he cried. Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to shake

02:40:38.320 | very much, and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while you are at

02:40:42.360 | it. But if he had cut the end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of sticking

02:40:45.600 | plaster over it and been quite satisfied. He dressed himself all in his best and at

02:40:49.880 | last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth as he had

02:40:53.720 | seen them with the ghost of Christmas present, and walking with his hands behind him. Scrooge

02:40:57.840 | regarded everyone with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant. In a word

02:41:03.040 | that three or four good-humored fellows said, 'Good morning, sir. Merry Christmas to you!'

02:41:07.100 | And Scrooge said often afterwards that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those

02:41:10.720 | were the blithest in his ears. He had not gone far when coming on towards him he beheld

02:41:14.920 | the portly gentleman who had walked into his counting house the day before and said, 'Scrooge

02:41:18.880 | and Marley's, I believe?' It sent a pang across his heart to think how this old gentleman

02:41:22.720 | would look upon him when they met, but he knew what path lay straight before him, and

02:41:26.160 | he took it. 'My dear sir,' said Scrooge, quickening his pace and taking the old gentleman

02:41:29.880 | by both his hands, 'how do you do? I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind

02:41:34.240 | of you. A Merry Christmas to you, sir.' 'Mr. Scrooge?' 'Yes,' said Scrooge, 'that

02:41:39.440 | is my name, and I fear it may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon, and will

02:41:44.220 | you have the goodness?' Here Scrooge whispered in his ear. 'Lord bless me!' cried the

02:41:48.560 | gentleman, as if his breath were taken away. 'My dear Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?'

02:41:52.760 | 'If you please,' said Scrooge, 'not a farthing less. A great many back-payments

02:41:56.680 | are included in it, I assure you. Will you do me that favor?'

02:41:59.680 | 'My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him, 'I don't know what to

02:42:03.240 | say to such munificent—'

02:42:04.240 | 'Don't say anything, please,' retorted Scrooge. 'Come and see me. Will you come

02:42:09.180 | and see me?'

02:42:10.180 | 'I will,' cried the old gentleman, and it was clear he meant to do it.

02:42:13.480 | 'Thank ye,' said Scrooge, 'I am much obliged to you. I thank you fifty times.

02:42:17.400 | Bless you!'

02:42:18.400 | He went to church, and walked about the streets, and watched the people hurrying to and fro,

02:42:22.220 | and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into the kitchens

02:42:25.600 | of houses and up to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure.

02:42:30.360 | He had never dreamed that any walk, that anything, could give him so much happiness.

02:42:35.460 | In the afternoon he turned his steps towards his nephew's house. He passed the door a

02:42:39.880 | dozen times before he had the courage to go up and knock, but he made a dash and did it.

02:42:44.640 | 'Is your master at home, my dear?' said Scrooge to the girl.

02:42:47.560 | 'Nice girl, very. Yes, sir.'

02:42:49.560 | 'Where is he, my love?' said Scrooge.

02:42:51.440 | 'He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll show you upstairs, if you

02:42:55.040 | please.'

02:42:56.040 | 'Thank ye, he knows me,' said Scrooge, with his hand already on the dining-room

02:42:58.440 | lock. 'I'll go in here, my dear.'

02:43:00.160 | He turned it gently and sidled his face in round the door. They were looking at the table,

02:43:03.960 | which was spread out in great array, for these young housekeepers are always nervous on such

02:43:07.360 | points and like to see that everything is right.

02:43:09.600 | 'Fred!' said Scrooge.

02:43:11.160 | Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started! Scrooge had forgotten for the moment

02:43:15.040 | about her sitting in the corner with a footstool, or he wouldn't have done it on any account.

02:43:18.280 | 'I bless my soul!' cried Fred. 'Who's that?'

02:43:21.160 | 'It's I, your Uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner. Will you let me in, Fred?'

02:43:25.520 | Let him in? It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off. He was at home in five minutes,

02:43:29.920 | nothing could be heartier. His niece looked just the same, so did Topper when he came,

02:43:34.160 | so did the plump sister when she came, so did everyone when they came. Wonderful party,

02:43:39.520 | wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness.

02:43:44.320 | But he was early at the office next morning. He was early there. If he could only be there

02:43:48.260 | first and catch Bob Cratchit coming late, that was the thing he had set his heart upon.

02:43:52.660 | And he did it, yes he did. The clock struck nine. No, Bob. A quarter passed. No, Bob.

02:43:57.920 | He was full eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his door wide open

02:44:03.220 | that he might see him come into the tank. His hat was off before he opened the door,

02:44:07.560 | his comforter too. He was on his stool in the jiffy, driving away with his pen as if

02:44:11.200 | he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. 'Hello,' growled Scrooge in his accustomed voice as

02:44:15.640 | near as he could feign it. 'What do you mean by coming here at this time of day?'

02:44:19.000 | 'I'm very sorry, sir,' said Bob. 'I am behind my time.'

02:44:22.240 | 'You are?' repeated Scrooge. 'Yes, I think you are. Step this way, sir, if you

02:44:27.480 | please.'

02:44:28.480 | 'It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing from the tank. 'It shall

02:44:31.880 | not be repeated. I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.'

02:44:34.680 | 'Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge. 'I am not going to stand

02:44:39.040 | this sort of thing any longer, and therefore,' he continued, leaping from his stool and giving

02:44:43.480 | Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again, 'and therefore

02:44:47.240 | I am about to raise your salary.'

02:44:49.640 | Bob trembled and got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a momentary idea of knocking

02:44:53.400 | Scrooge down with it, holding him and calling to the people in the court for help in a straight

02:44:57.280 | waistcoat.

02:44:58.280 | 'A merry Christmas, Bob,' said Scrooge with an earnestness that could not be mistaken

02:45:01.640 | as he clapped him on the back. 'A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I have

02:45:05.320 | given you for many a year. I'll raise your salary and endeavour to assist your struggling

02:45:09.720 | family, and we will discuss your affairs this very afternoon over a Christmas bowl of smoking,

02:45:15.200 | Bishop Bob. Make up the fires and buy another coal scuttle before you dot another I, Bob

02:45:19.560 | Cratchit.'

02:45:21.080 | Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all and infinitely more, and to Tiny Tim,

02:45:26.000 | who did not die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master,

02:45:31.940 | and as good a man as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough

02:45:36.400 | in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them

02:45:40.800 | laugh and little heeded them, for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened

02:45:44.800 | on this globe for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the

02:45:48.360 | outset, and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well

02:45:52.840 | that they should wrinkle up their eyes and grins, as have the malady and less attractive

02:45:56.880 | forms. His own heart laughed and that was quite enough for him. He had no further intercourse

02:46:01.920 | with spirits, but lived upon the total abstinence principle ever afterwards, and it was always

02:46:07.560 | said of him that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge.

02:46:14.640 | May that be truly said of us, and all of us. And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us

02:46:24.440 | all.

02:46:25.960 | [BLANK_AUDIO]

2023-12-20_Replay_838_A_Christmas_Carol_by_Charles_Dickens