This is the even-handed dealing of the world.’ he said. ` There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty ; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth.’ Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit pauses a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn’t know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often `came down’ handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

I’ll send it to Bob Cratchit’s.’ whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. ` He shan’t know who sends it. It’s twice the size of Tiny Tim . Joe Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob’s will be.’These are but shadows of the things that have been,’ said the Ghost. `They have no consciousness of us.’ About Ignorance and Want : “This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy.” And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside; and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father, and been a spring-time in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. I wish to be left alone,’ said Scrooge . `Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned -- they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there.’

Yes, my dear ,’ returned Bob. `I wish you could have gone. It would have done you good to see how green a place it is. But you’ll see it often. I promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child.’ cried Bob. `My little child.’

CONTENTS

The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

Spirit.’ said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. ` I see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is this.’ Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself. The Phantom pointed as before. Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, `Poor boy.’ and cried again. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute, but it seemed an hour . The bells ceased as they had begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant’s cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains. What the half- drunken woman whom I told you of last night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a week’s delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying, then.’

Belle,’ said the husband, turning to his wife with a smile,’ I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.’ What then.’ he retorted. `Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then. I am not changed towards you.’ His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making them parties to every kind of extravagance. There are some upon this earth of yours,’ returned the Spirit,’ who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us and all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge their doings on themselves, not us.’ Whose else’s do you think.’ replied the woman. ` He isn’t likely to take cold without them, I dare say.’