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A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens · Classic Treasures - Must-Read Fiction Books

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  Speaker 1: A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Preface. I have endeavored
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  Speaker 1: in this ghostly little book to raise the ghost of
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  Speaker 1: an idea which shall not put my readers out of
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  Speaker 1: humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or
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  Speaker 1: with me. May it haunt their houses pleasantly, and no
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  Speaker 1: one wished to lay it their faithful friend and servant,
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  Speaker 1: Charles Dickens, December eighteen forty three, Stave one Marley's Ghost.
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  Speaker 1: Marley was dead to begin with. There is no doubt
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  Speaker 1: whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed
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  Speaker 1: by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.
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  Speaker 1: Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name was good upon change
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  Speaker 1: for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old
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  Speaker 1: Marley was as dead as as a door nail. Mind,
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  Speaker 1: I don't mean to say that I know of my
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  Speaker 1: own knowledge what there is particularly dead about a door nail.
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  Speaker 1: I might have been inclined myself to regard a coffin
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  Speaker 1: nail as the deadest piece of ironmongerree in the trade.
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  Speaker 1: But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile,
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  Speaker 1: and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it. For the
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  Speaker 1: country is done for. You will therefore permit me to
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  Speaker 1: repeat emphatically that Marley was as dead as a door nail.
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  Speaker 1: Scrooge knew he was dead, of course he did. How
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  Speaker 1: could it be otherwise. Scrooge and he were partners for
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  Speaker 1: I don't know how many years. Scrooge was his sole executor,
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  Speaker 1: his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee,
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  Speaker 1: his sole friend and sole mourner. And even Scrooge was
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  Speaker 1: not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but
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  Speaker 1: that he was an excellent man of business on the
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  Speaker 1: very day of the funeral and solemnized it with an
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  Speaker 1: undoubted bargain. The mention of Marty's funeral brings me back
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  Speaker 1: to the point I started from. There is no doubt
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  Speaker 1: that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or
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  Speaker 1: nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going
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  Speaker 1: to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's
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  Speaker 1: father died before the play began, there would be nothing
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  Speaker 1: more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night in
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  Speaker 1: an easterly wind upon his own ramparts than there would
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  Speaker 1: be in any other middle aged gentleman, rashly turning out
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  Speaker 1: after dark in a breezy spot, say Saint Paul's churchyard,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, literally to astonish his son's weak mind. Scrooge
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  Speaker 1: never painted out old Marley's name. There it stood years
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  Speaker 1: after words above the warehouse door, Scrooge and Marley. The
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  Speaker 1: firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new
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  Speaker 1: to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but
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  Speaker 1: he answered to both names. It was all the same
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  Speaker 1: to him. Oh but he was a tight fisted hand
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  Speaker 1: at the grindstone. Scrooge, a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, cuffettous,
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  Speaker 1: old sinner, hard and sharp as flint from which no
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  Speaker 1: steel had ever struck out, generous fire, secret and self contained,
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  Speaker 1: and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze
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  Speaker 1: his old features, nipped, his pointed nose, shriveled, his cheek
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  Speaker 1: stiffened his gait, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue,
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  Speaker 1: and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty
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  Speaker 1: rhyme was on his head, man, on his eyebrows and
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  Speaker 1: his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always
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  Speaker 1: about with him. He iced his office in the dog
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  Speaker 1: days and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. External
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  Speaker 1: heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth
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  Speaker 1: could warm, No wintry weather chill him. No wind that
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  Speaker 1: blew was betterer than he. No falling snow was more
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  Speaker 1: intent upon its purpose. No pelting rain less open to entreaty.
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  Speaker 1: Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest
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  Speaker 1: rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of
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  Speaker 1: the advantage over him in only one respect. They often
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  Speaker 1: came down handsomely, and Scrooge never did. Nobody ever stopped
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  Speaker 1: him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, my
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  Speaker 1: dear Scrooge, how are you Will you come to see me?
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  Speaker 1: The beggars implored him to bestow a trifle. No children
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  Speaker 1: asked him what it was o'clock. No man or woman
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  Speaker 1: ever once in all his life, inquired the way to
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  Speaker 1: such and such a place. Of Scrooge. Even the blind
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  Speaker 1: men's dogs appeared to know him, and when they saw
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  Speaker 1: him coming on, would tug their owners into doorways and
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  Speaker 1: up courts, and then it would wag their tails as
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  Speaker 1: though they said, no eye at all is better than
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  Speaker 1: an evil one, dark master. But what did Scrooge care?
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  Speaker 1: It was the very thing he liked to edge his
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  Speaker 1: way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human
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  Speaker 1: sympathy to keep its distance. Was what the knowing ones
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  Speaker 1: call nuts. To Scrooge, once upon a time, of all
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve, Old
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  Speaker 1: Scrooge sat busy in his counting house. It was cold, bleak,
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  Speaker 1: biting weather, foggy with awe, and he could hear the
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  Speaker 1: people in the court outside go wheezing up and down,
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  Speaker 1: beating their hands upon their breasts and stamping their feet
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  Speaker 1: upon the pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks
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  Speaker 1: had only just gone three, but it was quite dark already.
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  Speaker 1: It had not been light all day, and candles were
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  Speaker 1: flaring in the windows of the neighboring offices like ruddy
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  Speaker 1: smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog came pouring
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  Speaker 1: in at every chink and keyhole, and was so dense
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  Speaker 1: without that although the court was of the narrowest, the
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  Speaker 1: houses opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy cloud
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  Speaker 1: come drooping down, obscuring everything one might have thought that
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  Speaker 1: nature lived hard by and was brewing on a large scale.
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  Speaker 1: The door of Scrooge's counting house was open that he
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  Speaker 1: might keep his eye upon his clerk, who, in a
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  Speaker 1: dismal little cell beyond a sort of tank, was copying letters.
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  Speaker 1: Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire
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  Speaker 1: was so much smaller that it looked like one coal.
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  Speaker 1: But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal
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  Speaker 1: box in his own room, And so surely as the
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  Speaker 1: clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted that
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  Speaker 1: it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: clerk put on his white comforter and tried to warm
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  Speaker 1: himself at the candle, in which efforts, not being a
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  Speaker 1: man of a strong imagination, he failed. A Merry Christmas, Uncle,
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  Speaker 1: God save you, cried a cheerful voice. It was the
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  Speaker 1: voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly
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  Speaker 1: that this was the first first intimation he had of
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  Speaker 1: his approach. Bah, said Scrooge, humbug, He had so heated
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  Speaker 1: himself with his rapid walking in the fog and frost.
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  Speaker 1: This nephew of Scrooge's that he was all in a glow.
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  Speaker 1: His face was ruddy and handsome, his eyes sparkled, and
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  Speaker 1: his breath smoked again. Christmas A humbug, uncle, said Scrooge's nephew.
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  Speaker 1: You don't mean that. I am sure I do, said Scrooge.
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  Speaker 1: Merry Christmas. What right have you to be marry? What
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  Speaker 1: reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough? Come, then,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: returned the nephew gaily. What right have you to be dismal?
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  Speaker 1: What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough. Scrooge,
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  Speaker 1: having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment,
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  Speaker 1: said bah again, and followed it up with humbug. Don't
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  Speaker 1: be cross, uncle, said the nephew. But what else can
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  Speaker 1: I be, returned the uncle. When I live in such
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  Speaker 1: a world of fools as this, Merry Christmas? Out upon
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  Speaker 1: merry Christmas? What's Christmas time to you but a time
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  Speaker 1: for paying bills without money, A time for finding yourself
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  Speaker 1: a year older but not an hour richer, A time
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  Speaker 1: for balancing your books and having every item in em
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  Speaker 1: through a round dozen of months presented dead against you.
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  Speaker 1: If I could work my will, said Scrooge indignantly. Every
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  Speaker 1: idiot who goes about with merry Christmas on his lips,
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  Speaker 1: should be boiled with his own punning and buried with
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  Speaker 1: a stake of holly through his heart. He should, uncle,
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  Speaker 1: pleaded the nephew. Nephew returned the uncle sternly, keep Christmas
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  Speaker 1: in your own way, and let me keep it in mind.
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  Speaker 1: Keep it, repeated Scrooge's nephew. But you don't keep it,
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  Speaker 1: Let me leave it alone, then, said Scrooge. Much good
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  Speaker 1: may it do you? Much good has it ever done you?
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  Speaker 1: There are many things from which I might have derived
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  Speaker 1: good by which I have not profited. I dare say,
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  Speaker 1: returned the nephew, Christmas among the rest. But I am
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  Speaker 1: sure I have always thought of Christmas time when it
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  Speaker 1: has come round, apart from the veneration, do its sacred
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  Speaker 1: name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be
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  Speaker 1: apart from that, as a good time, a kind forgiving, charitable,
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  Speaker 1: pleasant time, the only time I know of in the
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  Speaker 1: long calendar of the year when men and women seem
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  Speaker 1: by one consent to open their shut up hearts freely,
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  Speaker 1: and to think of people below them as if they
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  Speaker 1: really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another
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  Speaker 1: race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, Uncle,
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  Speaker 1: though it has never put a scrap of gold or
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  Speaker 1: silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done
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  Speaker 1: me good and will do me good. And I say,
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  Speaker 1: God bless it. The clerk in the tank involuntarily applauded.
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  Speaker 1: Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety, he poked the fire
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  Speaker 1: and extinguished the last frail spark forever. Let me hear
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  Speaker 1: another sound from you, said Scrooge. And you'll keep your
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  Speaker 1: Christmas by losing your situation. You're quite a powerful speaker, sir,
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  Speaker 1: he added, turning to his nephew, I wonder you don't
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  Speaker 1: go into parliament. Don't be angry, uncle, come dine with
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  Speaker 1: us tomorrow. Scrooge said that he would see him. Yes,
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  Speaker 1: indeed he did. He went the whole length of the
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  Speaker 1: expression and said that he would see him in that
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  Speaker 1: extremity first. But why, cried Scrooge's nephew. Why why did
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  Speaker 1: you get married, said Scrooge, Because I fell in love,
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  Speaker 1: because you fell in love, growled Scrooge, as if that
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  Speaker 1: were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous
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  Speaker 1: than a merry Christmas. God afternoon. Nay, uncle, but you
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  Speaker 1: never came to see me before that happened. Why give
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  Speaker 1: it as a reason for not coming now? Good afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. I want nothing from you, I ask nothing
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  Speaker 1: of you. Why cannot we be for a end? Good afternoon,
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  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. I am sorry with all my heart to
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  Speaker 1: find you so resolute. We have never had any quarrel
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  Speaker 1: to which I have been a party, but I have
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  Speaker 1: made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I'll keep
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  Speaker 1: my Christmas humor to the last. So a merry Christmas, uncle,
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  Speaker 1: Good afternoon, said Scrooge, and a happy you know YEA
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  Speaker 1: good afternoon, said Scrooge. His nephew left the room without
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  Speaker 1: an angry word, Notwithstanding he stopped at the outer door
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  Speaker 1: to bestore the greetings of the season on the clerk, who,
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  Speaker 1: cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge, for he
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  Speaker 1: returned them cordially. There's another fellow, muttered Scrooge, who overheard him,
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  Speaker 1: my clerk with fifteen shillings a week and a wife
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  Speaker 1: and family talking about a man merry Christmas. I'll retire
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  Speaker 1: to bedlam. This lunatic in letting Scrooge's nephew outs had
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: let two other people in They were portly gentlemen, pleasant
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  Speaker 1: to behold, and now stood with their hats off in
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  Speaker 1: Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in their hands,
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  Speaker 1: and bowed to him. Scrooge and Marleys, I believe, said
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  Speaker 1: one of the gentlemen, referring to his list, Have I
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  Speaker 1: the pleasure of addressing mister Scrooge or mister Marley. Mister
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  Speaker 1: Marley has been dead these seven years, Scrooge replied, he
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  Speaker 1: died seven years ago this very night. We have no
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: said the gentleman presenting his credentials. It certainly was, for
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  Speaker 1: they had been two kindreds spirits. At the ominous word liberality,
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  Speaker 1: Scrooge frowned and shook his head and handed the credentials back.
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  Speaker 1: Hath this festive season of the year, mister Scrooge, said
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the gentleman, taking up a pen. It is more than
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  Speaker 1: usually desirable that we should make some slight provision for
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time.
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: Many thousands are in want of common necessaries. Hundreds of
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: thousands are in want of common comforts. Sir, are there
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: no prisons? Asked Scrooge. Oh, plenty of prisons, said the gentleman,
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: laying down the pen again. And the union workhouses, demanded Scrooge,
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: are they still in operation? They are still, returned the gentleman.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: I wish I could say they were not. The treadmill
• 15:59
  Speaker 1: and the poor law or in full vigor, then, said Scrooge,
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: both very busy, sir Ah, I was afraid, from what
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: you said at first, that something had occurred to stop
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  Speaker 1: them in their useful course, said Scrooge. I'm very glad
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: to hear it, under the impression that they scarcely furnish
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  Speaker 1: question cheer of mind or body to the multitude, returned
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  Speaker 1: the gentleman. A few of us are endeavoring to raise
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink
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  Speaker 1: and means of warmth. We choose this time because it
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: is a time of all others, when want is keenly felt,
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: and abundance rejoices. What shall we put you down for nothing?
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: Scrooge replied, Ah, you wish to remain anonymous. I wish
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  Speaker 1: to be left alone, said Scrooge. Since you ask me
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: what I am I wish, gentlemen, that is my answer.
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  Speaker 1: I don't make marry myself for Christmas, and I can't
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: afford to make idle people marry. I help to support
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: the establishments I have mentioned a cost enough, and those
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: who are badly off must go there. Oh many can't
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: go there, and many would rather die. If they would
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: rather die, said Scrooge, they had better do it and
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: decrease the surplus population. Besides, excuse me, I don't know that,
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: but you might know it, observed the gentleman. It's not
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: my business, Scrooge returned. It's enough for a man to
• 17:46
  Speaker 1: understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen. Seeing clearly that
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: it would be here useless to pursue their points, the
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labors with an improved opinion
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: usual with him. Meanwhile, the fog and darkness thickened, so
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that people ran about with flaring lyns, proffering their services
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: to go before horses and carriages and conduct them on
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: their way. The ancient tower of a church, whose gruff
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: old bell was always peeping slyly down at Scrooge out
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: of a gothic window in the wall, became invisible and
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: struck the hours and quarters in the clouds with tremulous
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: vibrations afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: frozen head. Up there, the cold became intense. In the
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: main street. At the corner of the court, some laborers
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: were repairing the gas pipes, and had lighted a great
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: fire and a brazier, round which a party of ragged
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: men and boys were gathered, warming their hands and winking
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: their eyes before the blaze in rapture. The water plug,
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: being left in solitude, its overflowings sullenly congealed and turned
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: to misanthropic ice. The brightness of the shops, where holly
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: sprigs and berries crackled in the lap heat of the
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: windows made pale faces ruddy as they passed poulterers and grocers.
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: Trades became a splendid joke, a glorious pageant with which
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: it was next to impossible to believe that such dull
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: principles as bargain and sale had anything to do. The
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion House,
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Christmas as a lord mayor's household should. And even the
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: little tailor, whom he had fined five shillings on the
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: previous Monday for being drunken bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: up tomorrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean wife
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: and the baby sallied out to buy the beef. Foggy
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: are yet and colder, piercing, searching, biting cold. If the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: good Saint Dunstan had but nipped the evil spirit's nose
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: with a touch of such weather as that, instead of
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: using its familiar weapons, then indeed he would have roared
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: to lusty purpose. The owner of one scant young nose,
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: gnawed and mumbled by the hungry cold as bones are
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: gnawed by dogs, stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: him with a Christmas carol. But at the first sound
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: of God, Bless you, Mary, gentlemen, may nothing you dismay,
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action that
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: fog an even more congenial frost. At length, the hour
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: of shutting up the counting house arrived with an ill will.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: Scrooge dismounted from his stool and tacitly admitted the fact
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: to the expectant clerk in the tank, who instantly snuffed
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: his candle out and put on his hat. You'll want
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: all day tomorrow, I suppose, said Scrooge, if quite convenient, sir.
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: It's not convenient, said Scrooge. And it's not fair. If
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: I was to stop half a crown for it, you'd
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: think yourself ill used. I'll be bound. The clerk smiled faintly,
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: and yet said Scrooge, you don't think me ill used
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: when I pay a day's wages for no work. The
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: clerk observed that it was only once a year, A
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty fifth
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: of December, said Scrooge, buttoning his greatcoat to the chin.
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: But I suppose you must have the whole day be
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: here all the earlier next morning. The clerk promised that
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: he would, and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: office was closed in a twinkling, and the clerk, with
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: waist for he boasted no greatcoat, went down a slide
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: on Cornhill at the end of a lane of boys
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: twenty times in honor of its being Christmas Eve, and
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: could pelt to play at blind Man's buff Scrooge took
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern, and, having
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: read all the newspapers and beguiled the rest of the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: evening with his banker's book, went home to bed. He
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner.
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: They were a gloomy suite of rooms in a lowering
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: pile of building up a yard where it had so
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: little business to be that one could scarcely help fancying.
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: It must have run there when it was a young house,
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: playing at hide and seekret other houses, and forgotten the
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: way out again. It was old enough now and dreary
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: enough for nobody lived in it but Scrooge, the other
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: rooms being all let out as offices. The yard was
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: so dark that even Scrooge, who knew us every stone,
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: was fain to grope with his hands. The fog and
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house,
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: that it seemed as if the genius of the weather
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: sat in mournful meditation on the threshold. Now it is
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: a fact that there was nothing at all particular about
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: the knocker on the door, except that it was very large.
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: It was also a fact that Scrooge had seen it
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: night and morning during his whole residence in that place.
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: Also that Scrooge had as little of what is called
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: fancy about him as any man in the city of London,
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: even including which is a bold word, the corporation, Alderman
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: and Livery. Let it also be bored in mind that
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley since his
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: last mention of his seven years dead partner that afternoon.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: And then let any man explain to me, if he can,
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: how it happened that Scrooge, having his key in the
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: lock of the door, saw in the knocker, without its
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: undergoing any intermediate process of change, not a knocker, but
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: Marley's face. Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: with the other objects of the hardware, but had a
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: at Scrooge as Marley used to look, with ghostly spectacles
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: turned up on his ghostly forehead. The hair was curiously stirred,
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: as if by breath or hot air, and though the
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: eyes were wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That and
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: its livid color made it horrible, but its horror seemed
• 25:33
  Speaker 1: to be in spite of the face and beyond its control,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: rather than a part of its own expression. As Scrooge
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it was a knocker again.
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: To say that he was not startled, or that his
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: blood was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: it had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished,
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle. He
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: did pause with a moment's irresolution before he shut the door,
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: and he did look cautiously behind it first, as if
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: he half expected to be terrified with the sight of
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Mary's pigdale sticking out into the hall. But there was
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: nothing on the back of the door except the screws
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: and nuts that held the knocker on. So he said pooh, pooh,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: and closed it with a bang. The sound resounded through
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: the house like thunder. Every room above and every cask
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: in the wine merchant cellars below appeared to have a
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: separate peal of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: a man to be frightened by echoes. He fastened the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: door and walked across the hall and up the stairs, slowly, too,
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: trimming his candle as he went. You may talk vaguely
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: about driving a coach and six up a good old
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: flight of stairs, or through a bad young act of Parliament,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: but I mean to say you might have got a
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: hearse up that staircase and taken it broadwise with a
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: splinter bar towards the wall, and the door towards the balustrades,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: and done it easy. There was plenty of width for that,
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: and room despair, which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before him.
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: In the gloom. Half a dozen gas lamps out of
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well, so
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: you may suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge's
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: dip up. Scrooge went, not caring a button for that
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: darkness is cheap, and Scrooge l liked it. But before
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: to see that all was right. He had just enough
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: recollection of the face to desire to do that. Sitting room, bedroom,
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: lumber room, all as they should be. Nobody under the table,
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: nobody under the sofa, a small fire in the grate,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: spoon and basin ready, and a little saucepan of gruel.
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Scrooge had a coal in his head upon the hob
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: Nobody under the bed, Nobody in the closet, Nobody in
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: his dressing gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: attitude against the wall. Lumber room as usual, old fireguard,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: old shoes, two fish baskets, washing stand on three legs,
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: and a poker. Quite satisfied, he closed his door and
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: locked himself in, double locked himself in, which was not
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: his custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off his cravat,
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: put on his dressing gown and slippers and his nightcap,
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: and sat down before the fire to take his gruel.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: It was a very low fire, indeed nothing on such
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: a bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: it and brood over it before he could extract the
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: least sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint Dutch
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: tiles designed to illustrate the scriptures. There were canes and abels,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: Pharaoh's daughters, queens of Sheba, angelic messengers descending through the
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: air on clouds like feather beds, Abrahams, Belshazars, apostles pulling
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: off to sea in butter boats, hundreds of figures to
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: attract his thoughts. And yet that face of Marley, seven
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: years dead, came like the ancient prophets rod and swallowed
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: blank at first, with power to shape some picture on
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: would have been a copy of old Marley's head on
• 30:13
  Speaker 1: every one. Hump Bug, said Scrooge, and walked across the room.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: After several turns, he sat down again. As he threw
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: his head back in the chair, his glance happened to
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: rest upon a bell, a disused bell that hung in
• 30:32
  Speaker 1: the room and communicated for some purpose now forgotten, with
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: a chamber in the highest story of the building. It
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: was with great astonishment and with a strange, inexplicable dread,
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: that as he looked he saw this bell begin to swing.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely
• 30:55
  Speaker 1: made a sound, But soon it rang out loudly, and
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: so did every bell in the house. This might have
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: lasted half a minute or a minute, but it seemed
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: an hour. The bells ceased as they had begun together.
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: They were succeeded by a clanking noise deep down below,
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: the casks in the wine merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described
• 31:31
  Speaker 1: as dragging chains. The cellar door flew open with a
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: booming sound, and then he heard the noise much louder,
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: on the floors below, then coming up the stairs, then
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: coming straight towards his door. Ah, it's humbug, still said Scrooge.
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: I won't believe it. His color changed, though, when, without
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: a pause, it came came on through the heavy door
• 32:02
  Speaker 1: and passed into the room before his eyes. Upon its
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: coming in the dying flame leaped up as though it cried,
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: I know him, Marley's ghost, and fell again the same face,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: the very same Marley in his pigtail, usual waistcoats, tights
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: and boots, the tassels on the latter bristling like his
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: pigtail in his coat skirts, and the hair upon his head.
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: The chain he drew was clasped about his middle. It
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: was long and wound about him like a tail, and
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: it was made for Scrooge observed it closely of cash boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds,
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: and heavy purses wrought in steel. His body was transparent,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: so that Scrooge, observing him, had looked through his waistcoat,
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: could see the two buttons on his coat behind. Scrooge
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels,
• 33:09
  Speaker 1: but he had never believed it until now. No, nor
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: did he believe it even now. Though he looked the
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him,
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: Though he felt the chilling influence of its death, cold eyes,
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: about its head and chin, which rapper he had not
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: observed before, he was still incredulous and fought against his senses.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Oh now, said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever. What
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: do you want with me, Marge Marley's voice, No doubt
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: about it. Who are you? Ask me? Who I was?
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: Who were you? Then, said Scrooge, braising his voice. Your
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: particular for a shade. He was going to say, too,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: a shade, but substituted this as more appropriate in life.
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: I was your partner, Jacob Marley. Can you can you
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: sit down? Asked Scrooge, looking doubtfully at him. I can.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: We'll do it. Then. Scrooge asked the question because he
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: didn't know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: in a condition to take a chair, and felt that
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: in the event of its being impossible, it might involve
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: the necessity of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: down on the opposite side of the fireplace as if
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: he were quite used to it. You don't believe in me,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: observed the ghost. I don't, said Scrooge. What evidence would
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: you have of my reality beyond that of your senses?
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: I don't know, said Scrooge. Why do you doubt your senses? Because,
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, a little thing affects them A slight disorder
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: of a stomach makes them cheats. You may be an
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: undigested bit of beef, a blood of mustard, a crumb
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes,
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish.
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: Then the truth is that he tried to be smart
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: down his terror. For the specter's voice disturbed the very
• 35:59
  Speaker 1: marrow in his bones. To sit staring at those fixed,
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: glazed eyes in silence for a moment would play. Scrooge
• 36:08
  Speaker 1: felt the very deuce with him. There was something very awful, too,
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: in the specter's being provided with an infernal atmosphere of
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: its own. Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: was clearly the case, for though the ghost sat perfectly motionless,
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: its hair and skirts and tassels were still agitated, as
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: by the hot vapor from an oven. You see this, toothpick,
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, returning quickly to the charge. But the reason
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: just assigned and wishing, though it were only for a second,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: to divert the vision's stony gaze from himself. I do,
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: replied the ghost. You are not looking at it, said Scrooge.
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: But I see it, said the ghost. Notwithstanding, well, returned Scrooge,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: I have but to swallow this and be for the
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins,
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: all of my own creation. Humbug, I tell you, umbag.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: At this, the spirit raised a frightful cry and shook
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise that
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: Scrooge held on tight to his chair to save himself
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: his horror when the phantom, taking off the bandage round
• 37:37
  Speaker 1: its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors,
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast. Scrooge fell
• 37:47
  Speaker 1: upon his knees and clasped his hands before his face. Mercy,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: he said, dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? Man
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: of the worldly mind, replied the ghost. Do you believe
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: in me or not? I do, said Scrooge. I must,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: But why do spirits walk the earth? And why do
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: they come to me. It is required of every man.
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: The ghost returned that the spirit within him should walk
• 38:25
  Speaker 1: abroad among his fellow men, and travel far and wide.
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: And if that spirit goes not forth in life, it
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: is condemned to do so. After death. It is doomed
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: to wander through the world. Ah wo is me and
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: witness what it cannot share but might have shed on
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: earth and turned to happiness again. The specter raised a
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: cry and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands.
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: You are fettered, said Scrooge, trembling. Tell me why I
• 39:09
  Speaker 1: wear the chain I forged in life, replied the ghost.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: I made it link by link and yard by yard.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: I girded it on of my own free will, and
• 39:24
  Speaker 1: of my own free will I wore it is its
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: pattern strange? Do you, Scrooge trembled more and more, or
• 39:35
  Speaker 1: would you know? Pursued the ghost the weight and length
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: of the strong coil you bear yourself. It was full,
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: as heavy and long as this seven Christmas eves ago.
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: You have labored on it, since it is a ponderous chain.
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: Scrooge glanced about him on the f in the expectation
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms
• 40:06
  Speaker 1: of iron cable. But he could see nothing, Jacob, he said, imploringly,
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: I have none to give, the ghost replied. It comes
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: from other regions, have been asius crewed, and is conveyed
• 40:32
  Speaker 1: by other ministers to other kinds of men. Nor can
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: I tell you what I would? A very little more
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: is permitted to me. I cannot rest. I cannot say,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked beyond our
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: counting house mark me in life. My spirit never rove
• 40:58
  Speaker 1: to beyond the narrow limits of our on a changing hole,
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: and weary journeys lie before me. It was a habit
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: with Scrooge. Whenever he became thoughtful to put his hands
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: in his breeches pockets, pondering on what the ghost had said,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: He did so now, but without lifting up his eyes
• 41:19
  Speaker 1: or getting off his knees. You must have been very
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: slow about it, Jacob, Scrooge observed, in a business like manner,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: though with humility and deference. Slow, the ghost repeated, seven
• 41:36
  Speaker 1: years dead, mused Scrooge, and traveling all the time the
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: whole time, said the ghost, no rest, no peace, incessant
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: torture of remorse. You travel fast, said Scrooge. On the
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: wings of the wind, replied the ghost. You might have
• 41:59
  Speaker 1: got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. The ghost, on hearing this, set up another
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: cry and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: silence of the night that the ward would have been
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: justified in indicting it for a nuisance. Oh, captive, bound
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: and double ironed, cried the phantom. Not to know that
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: ages of incessant labor by immortal creatures for this earth
• 42:33
  Speaker 1: must pass into eternity for the good of which it
• 42:36
  Speaker 1: is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: Christian spirit, working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: may be, will find its mortal life too short for
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: space of regrets can make amends for one life's uppertunity misused.
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: Yet such was I, Oh, such was I. But you
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: were always a good man of business, Jacob, faltered Scrooge,
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: who now began to apply this to himself business, cried
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: the ghost, wringing his hands again. Mankind was my business.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: The common welfare was my business. Charity, mercy for barons,
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: and benevolence were all my business. The dealings of my
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: trade were about a drop of water in the comprehensive
• 43:46
  Speaker 1: ocean of my business. It held up its chain at
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: arm's length, as if that were the cause of all
• 43:55
  Speaker 1: its unavailing grief, and flung it heavily upon the ground again.
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: At this time of the rolling year, the specter said,
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: I suffer most. Why did I walk through the crowds
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: of fellow beings with my eyes turned down, and never
• 44:17
  Speaker 1: raised them to that blessed star which led the wise
• 44:21
  Speaker 1: men to a poor abird. Were there no poor homes
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: to which its light would have conducted me? Scrooge was
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: very dismayed to hear the specter go on at this rate,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: and began to quake exceedingly hear me, cried the ghost.
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: My time is nearly gone, I will, said Scrooge. But
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: don't be hard upon me. Don't be flowery Jacob. Pray
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: how it is that I appear before you in a
• 44:59
  Speaker 1: shape that you can see, I may not tell I
• 45:04
  Speaker 1: have sat invisible beside you many and many a day.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: It was not an agreeable idea Scrooge shivered and wiped
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: the perspiration from his brow. That is no light part
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of my penance, pursued the ghost. I am here tonight
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: to warn you that you have yet a chance and
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: hope of escaping my fate, A chance and hope of
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: my procuring Ebenezer. You were always a good friend to me,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. Thankee, you will be haunted, resumed the ghost
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: by three spirits. Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: the ghosts had done. Is that the chance and hope
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: you mentioned, Jacob, he demanded in a faltering voice. It
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: is I. I think I'd better not, said Scrooge. Without
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: their visits, said the ghost, You cannot hope to shun
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: the path I tread. Expect the first to morrow, when
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: the bell tolds one. Couldn't I take them all at
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: once and have it over, Jacob hinted Scrooge. Expect the
• 46:31
  Speaker 1: second on the next night, at the same hour. The
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: third upon the next night, when the last stroke of
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see me no more,
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: and look that for your own sake, you remember what
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: has passed between us. When it had said these words,
• 46:54
  Speaker 1: the specter took its wrapper from the table and bound
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: it round its head as before. Scrooge knew this by
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his
• 47:09
  Speaker 1: eyes again and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: an erect attitude. With its chain wound over and about
• 47:19
  Speaker 1: its arm. The apparition walked backward from him, and at
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: every step it took the window raised itself a little,
• 47:29
  Speaker 1: so that when the specter reached it it was wide open.
• 47:33
  Speaker 1: It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: were within two paces of each other. Marley's ghost held
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped,
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear,
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: for on the raising of the hand he became sensible
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: of confused noises in the air, incoherent sounds of lamentation
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: and regret, wailing inexpressibly sorrowful and self accusatory. The specter,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: and floated out upon the bleak, dark night. Scrooge followed
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: to the window. Desperate in his curiosity, he looked out.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: of them wore chains like Marley's ghost. Some few, they
• 48:37
  Speaker 1: might be of guilty governments, were linked together. None were free.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives.
• 48:47
  Speaker 1: He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: a white waistcoat with a monstrous iron safe attached to
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: his ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: of wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: upon a door step. The misery with them all was
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: clearly that they sought to interfere for good in human matters,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: and had lost the power forever. Whether these creatures faded
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: into mist or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell.
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: But they and their spirit voices faded together, and the
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: night became as it had been when he walked home.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: Scrooge closed the window and examined the door by which
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: the ghost had entered. It was double locked, as he
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: had locked it with his own hands, and the bolts
• 49:43
  Speaker 1: were undisturbed. He tried to say humbug, but stopped at
• 49:49
  Speaker 1: the first syllable, and being from the emotion he had undergone,
• 49:55
  Speaker 1: or the fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of
• 49:57
  Speaker 1: the invisible world, or the conversation of the ghost, or
• 50:02
  Speaker 1: the lateness of the hour, much need of repose, went
• 50:06
  Speaker 1: straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon the
• 50:12
  Speaker 1: instant end of Stave one Stave two, the first of
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: the three spirits, it was Scrooge awoke. It was so
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: dark that, looking out of bed, he could scarcely distinguish
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: the transparent window from the opaque walls of his chamber.
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: He was endeavoring to pierce the darkness with his ferret
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: eyes when the chimes of a neighboring church struck the
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: four quarters. So he listened for the hour. To his
• 50:45
  Speaker 1: great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven,
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve,
• 50:54
  Speaker 1: then stopped twelve. It was past two when he went
• 50:59
  Speaker 1: to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: got into the works twelve. He touched the spring of
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: his repeater to correct this most preposterous clock. Its rapid
• 51:13
  Speaker 1: little pulse beat twelve and stopped. Why it isn't possible,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, that I can have slept through a whole
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: day and far into another night. It isn't possible that
• 51:27
  Speaker 1: anything has happened to the sun. And this is twelve
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: at noon, the idea being an alarming one, he scrambled
• 51:36
  Speaker 1: out of bed and groped his way to the window.
• 51:40
  Speaker 1: He was obliged to rub the frost off with the
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: sleeve of his dressing gown before he could see anything,
• 51:46
  Speaker 1: and could see very little then. All he could make
• 51:49
  Speaker 1: out was that it was still very foggy and extremely cold,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: and that there was no noise of people running to
• 51:57
  Speaker 1: and fro and making a great stir, as there unquestionably
• 52:01
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been if night had beaten off bright day
• 52:04
  Speaker 1: and taken possession of the world. This was a great relief,
• 52:09
  Speaker 1: because three days after sight of the first of exchange,
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: pay to mister Ebeney's Scrooge or his order and so
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: forth would have become a mere United States security if
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: there were no days to count by. Scrooge went to
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: bed again and thought and thought and thought it over
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: and over and over, and could make nothing of it.
• 52:32
  Speaker 1: The more he thought, the more perplexed he was, and
• 52:35
  Speaker 1: the more he endeavored not to think, the more he
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: thought Marley's ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved
• 52:47
  Speaker 1: within himself after mature inquiry that it was all a dream,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: his mind flew back again, like a strong string released
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: to its first position, and presented the same problem to
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: be worth worked all through. Was it a dream or not?
• 53:06
  Speaker 1: Scrooge lay in this state until the chime had gone
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden that
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: the ghost had warned him of a visitation. When the
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: bell told one, he resolved to lie awake until the
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: hour was past, and, considering that he could no more
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: go to sleep than go to heaven, this was perhaps
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: the wisest resolution in his power. The quarter was so
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: long that he was more than once convinced he must
• 53:36
  Speaker 1: have sunk into a doze unconsciously and missed the clock
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: at length. It broke upon his listening ear ding dong
• 53:47
  Speaker 1: a quarter past, said Scrooge. Counting ding dong, half past,
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, ding dong a quarter to it, said Scrooge.
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: Singed long the hour itself, said Scrooge triumphantly, And nothing
• 54:07
  Speaker 1: else he spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it
• 54:12
  Speaker 1: now did with a deep, dull, hollow melancholy. One light
• 54:18
  Speaker 1: flashed up in the room upon the instant, and the
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: curtains of his bed were drawn. The curtains of his
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: bed were drawn aside. I tell you by a hand,
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: his back, but those to which his face was addressed.
• 54:37
  Speaker 1: The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, and Scrooge,
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: starting up into a half recumbent attitude, found himself face
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: to face with the unearthly visitor, who drew them as
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: close to it as I am now to you, and
• 54:53
  Speaker 1: I am standing in the spirit at your elbow. It
• 54:58
  Speaker 1: was a strange figure, like a child, yet not so
• 55:03
  Speaker 1: like a child, as like an old man, viewed through
• 55:06
  Speaker 1: some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having
• 55:11
  Speaker 1: receded from the view and being diminished to a child's proportions.
• 55:16
  Speaker 1: Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back,
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: was white, as if with age, and yet the face
• 55:24
  Speaker 1: had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular,
• 55:33
  Speaker 1: the hands the same as if its hold were of
• 55:36
  Speaker 1: uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were
• 55:42
  Speaker 1: like those upper members bare, it wore a tunic of
• 55:46
  Speaker 1: the purest white, and round its waist was bound a
• 55:50
  Speaker 1: lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held
• 55:55
  Speaker 1: a branch of fresh green holly in its hand, and
• 55:58
  Speaker 1: in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress
• 56:03
  Speaker 1: trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: was that from the crown of its head there sprang
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: a bright, clear jet of light, by which all this
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: was visible, and which was doubtless the occasion of its
• 56:18
  Speaker 1: using in its duller moments a great extinguisher for a
• 56:23
  Speaker 1: cap which had now held under its arm. Even this, though,
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: when Scrooge looked at it with increasing steadiness, was not
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: its strangest quality. For as its belt sparkled and glittered,
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: now in one part and now in another, and what
• 56:40
  Speaker 1: was light one instant another time was dark, so the
• 56:44
  Speaker 1: figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness, being now a thing
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: with one arm, and now with one leg, now with
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: twenty legs, now a pair of legs without a head,
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: now a head without a body, of which dissolving parts
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: no outline would be visible. In the dense gloom wherein
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: they melted away, and in the very wonder of this
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: it would be itself again, distinct and clear as ever.
• 57:14
  Speaker 1: Are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: Asked Scrooge? I am. The voice was soft and gentle,
• 57:26
  Speaker 1: singularly low, as if, instead of being so close beside him,
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: it were at a distance. Who and what are you,
• 57:37
  Speaker 1: Scrooge demanded, I am the ghost of Christmas past, long past,
• 57:46
  Speaker 1: inquired Scrooge, observant of its dwarfish stature. Now your past?
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: Perhaps Scrooge could not have told anybody why if anybody
• 57:59
  Speaker 1: could have asked him him, But he had a special
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: desire to see the spirit in his cap, and begged
• 58:05
  Speaker 1: him to be covered. What, exclaimed the ghost, would you
• 58:11
  Speaker 1: so soon put out with worldly hands the light I give?
• 58:16
  Speaker 1: Is it not enough that you are one of those
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: whose passions made this cap, and force me, through whole
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?
• 58:28
  Speaker 1: Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend, or any knowledge
• 58:33
  Speaker 1: of having wilfully bonneted the spirit at any period of
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: his life. He then made bold to inquire what business
• 58:41
  Speaker 1: brought him there? Your welfare, said the ghost, Scrooge expressed
• 58:49
  Speaker 1: himself much obliged, but could not help thinking that a
• 58:52
  Speaker 1: knight of unbroken rest would have been more conducive to
• 58:56
  Speaker 1: that end. The Spirit must have heard him thinking, for
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: it said, immediately your reclamation, then take heed. It put
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him
• 59:12
  Speaker 1: gently by the arm. Rise and walk with me. It
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: wouldn't have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that
• 59:21
  Speaker 1: the weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes,
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: that bed was warm and the thermometer a long way
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: below freezing, that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,
• 59:33
  Speaker 1: dressing gown and nightcap, and that he had a cold
• 59:36
  Speaker 1: upon him at the time. The grasp, though gentle as
• 59:40
  Speaker 1: a woman's hand, was not to be resisted. He rose, but,
• 59:46
  Speaker 1: finding that the spirit made towards the window, clasped his
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: robe in supplication. I am a mortal, Scrooge, remonstrated, and
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: liable to fall bear. But a touch of my hand,
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 1: there said the Spirit, laying it upon his heart, and
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: you shall be upheld in more than this. As the
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: words were spoken, they passed through the wall and stood
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: upon an open country road with fields on either hand,
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 1: the city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 1: was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold winter day,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 1: with snow upon the ground. Good heaven, said Scrooge, clasping
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 1: his hands together as he looked about him. I was
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 1: bred in this place. I was a boy here. The
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 1: old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious of a
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: thousand odors floating in the air, each one connected with
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: a thousand thoughts and hopes, and joys and cares long
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 1: long forgotten. Your lip is trembling, said the ghost, And
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: what is that upon your cheek? Scrooge muttered, with an
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 1: unusual catching in his voice, that it was a pimple,
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 1: and begged the ghost to lead him where he would
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 1: you recollect the way, inquired the spirit, Remember it, cried Scrooge,
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 1: with fervor. I could walk it blindfold. Strange to have
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 1: forgotten it for so many years, observed the ghost. Let
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: us go on. They walked along the road, Scrooge recognizing
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 1: every gate and post, and tree, until a little market
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 1: town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church,
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting
• 1:01:59
  Speaker 1: to towards them, with boys upon their backs, who called
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 1: to other boys in country gigs and carts driven by farmers.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 1: All these boys were in great spirits and shouted to
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 1: each other, until the broad fields were so full of
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: merry music that the crisp air laughed to hear it.
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: These are but shadows of the things that have been,
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 1: said the ghost. They have no consciousness of us. The
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 1: jockuned travelers came on, and as they came, Scrooge knew
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 1: and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: all bounds to see them? Why did his cold eye
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 1: glisten and his heart leap up as they went past?
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: give each other Merry Christmas as they parted at cross
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 1: roads and byways for their several homes. What was Merry
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 1: Christmas to Scrooge out upon Merry Christmas? What good had
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: it ever done to him? The school is not quite deserted,
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: said the ghost. A solitary child neglected by his friends
• 1:03:16
  Speaker 1: is left there still. Scrooge said he knew it, and
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: he sobbed. They left the high road by a well
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 1: remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: with a little weather cock surmounted cupola on the roof,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 1: and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house,
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: but one of broken fortunes. For the spacious officers were
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: little used. Their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: and the coach houses and sheds were overrun with grass.
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: Nor was it more retentive of its ancient states within.
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 1: For entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 1: doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: and vast. There was an earthly savor in the air,
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: with too much getting up by candlelight, and not too
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 1: much to eat. They went the Ghost and Scrooge across
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 1: the hall to a door at the back of the house.
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 1: It opened before them and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room,
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: At one of these, a lonely boy was reading near
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 1: a feeble fire, and Scrooge sat down upon a form
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: and wept to see his poor, forgotten self as he
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: used to be. Not a latent echo in the house.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 1: Not a squeak and scuffle from the mice behind the paneling.
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 1: Not a drip from the half thought water spout in
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: the dull yard behind. Not a sigh among the leafless
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 1: boughs of one despondent poplar. Not of the idol swinging
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: of an empty storehouse door. No, not a clicking in
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: the fire, but felt upon the heart of Scrooge, with
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: a softening influence, gave it a freer passage to his tears.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 1: The spirit touched him on his arm and pointed to
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly, a man
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: in foreign garments, wonderfully real and distinct to look at,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: belts and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Why it's aribaba, Scrooge exclaimed, in ecstasy. It's dead, old
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: honest Ali Baba, Yes, yes, I know. Oh one Christmas time,
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: when yonder solitary child was left here all alone. He
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: did come for the first time, just like that, poor boy,
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: and Valentine, said Scrooge, and his wild brother orson, there
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: they go. And what's his name? Who was put down
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: in his drawers asleep at the gate of Damascus? Don't
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: you see him? And the Sultan's groom turned upside down
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: by the genie. Oh there he is upon his head.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Serve him right, I'm glad of it. What business had
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: he to be married to the princess? To hear Scrooge
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: expending all the earnestness of his nature on such objects
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 1: in a most extraordinary voice, between laughing and crying, and
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: to see his heightened and excited face would have been
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: a surprise to him his business friends in the city. Indeed, Oh,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: there's the parrot, cried Scrooge, green body and yellow tail,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 1: top of his head. Oh there he is. Poor Robin Crusoe,
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 1: he called him when he came home again after sailing
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 1: round the island. Poor Robin Crusoe, Where have you been,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 1: Robin Crusoe? The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 1: It was the parrot, you know. Oh, there goes Friday,
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 1: running for his life to the little creek. Hello hoo, Hello. Then,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 1: with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character,
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: he said in pity for his former self, poor boy,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: and cried again. I wish, Scrooge muttered, putting his hand
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: in his pocket and looking about him, after drying his
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: eyes with his cough. But it's too late now, What
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 1: is the matter, asked the spirit, Nothing, said Scrooge. Nothing.
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 1: There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 1: door last night. I should like to have given him something,
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: That's all. The ghost smiled thoughtfully and waved his hand,
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 1: saying it as he did, so let us see another Christmas.
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 1: Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 1: room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk,
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 1: the windows cracked, fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 1: and the naked lads were shown instead. But how all
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 1: this was brought about? Scrooge knew no more than you do.
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: He only knew that it was quite that everything had happened,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 1: so that there he was alone again, when all the
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays. He
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 1: was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly.
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 1: Scrooge looked at the ghosts, and with a mournful shaking
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door. It opened,
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: and a little girl, much younger than the boy came,
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: darting in and putting her arms about his neck and
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 1: often kissing him, addressed him as her You, dear dear brother.
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: I have come to bring you home, dear brother, said
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: the child, clapping her tiny hands and bending down to laugh.
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 1: To bring you home, Home, Home, home, little fan, returned
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: the boy. Yes, said the child, a brim full of glee.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 1: Home for good and all, Home forever and ever. Father
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 1: is so much kinder than he used to be, that
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: home's like heaven. He spoke so gently to me one
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 1: dear night when I was going to bed that I
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: was not afraid to ask him once more if you
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 1: might come home, And he said, yes, you should, and
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 1: sent me in a coach to bring you. And you're
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: to be a man, said the child, opening her eyes,
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 1: And are never to come back here. But first we're
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 1: to be together all the Christmas long and have the
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: merriest time in all the world. You are quite a woman,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: little fan, exclaimed the boy. She clapped her hands and
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: laughed and tried to touch his head, but being too little,
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: laughed again and stood on tiptoe to embrace him. Then
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 1: she began to drag him, in her childish eagerness towards
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: the door, and he, nothing loath to go, accompanied her.
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: A terrible voice in the hall cried, bring down Master
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 1: Scrooge's box there, and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster himself,
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 1: who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious condescension, and
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: threw him into a dreadful state of mind by shaking
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: hands with him. He then conveyed him and his sister
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: into the veriest old well of a shivering best parler
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 1: that ever was seen, for the maps upon the wall
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 1: and the celestial and terrestrial globes in the windows were
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 1: waxy with cold. Here he produced a decanter of curiously
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: light wine and a block of curiously heavy cake, and
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 1: administered installments of these dainties to the young people, at
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 1: the same time sending out a meager servant to offer
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 1: a glass of something to the postboy, who answered that
• 1:12:00
  Speaker 1: he thanked the gentleman, but if it was the same
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 1: tap as he had tasted before he would rather not.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 1: Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied on to
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 1: the top of the chaise. The children bad the schoolmaster
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 1: good bye, right willingly, and getting into it, drove gaily
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: down the garden, sweep the quick wheels, dashing the hoar
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: evergreens like spray. Always a delicate creature whom a breath
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 1: might have withered, said the ghost. But she had a
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 1: large heart, so she had, cried Scrooge. You're right, I
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 1: will not gainsay it. Spirit, God forbid. She died a woman,
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: said the ghost, and had, as I think children, one child.
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: Scrooge returned, true, said the ghost, your nephew. Scrooge seemed
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: uneasy in his mind, and answered briefly yes, although they had.
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: But that moment left the school behind them. They were
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: passengers passed and repassed, were shadowy carts and coaches battled
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 1: for their way, and all the strife and tumult of
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 1: a real city were. It was made plain enough by
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 1: the dressing of the shops that here too, it was
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 1: Christmas time again, but it was evening, and the streets
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: were lighted up. The ghost stopped at a certain warehouse
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 1: door and asked Scrooge if he knew it, Know it,
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, who was I apprenticed here? They went in
• 1:13:52
  Speaker 1: at sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig,
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: sitting behind such a high desk that if he had
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: been two inches taller, he must have knocked his head
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: against the ceiling. Scrooge cried in great excitement. Why it's
• 1:14:06
  Speaker 1: old fezzy Wig. Bless his heart, it's Fezziwig alive again.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: Old Fezziwig laid down his pen and looked up at
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 1: the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 1: rubbed his hands, adjusted his capacious waistcoat, laughed all over himself,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: from his shoes to his organ of benevolence, and called out,
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 1: in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice, You there,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: Ebenezer Dick, Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man,
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow prentice, Dick Wilkins.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 1: To be sure, said Scrooge to the ghost, bless me, yes,
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 1: there he is. He was very much attached to me
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: was Dick, poor Dick, dear dear, yo Ho, my boys,
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: said Fezziwig, no more work to night, Christmas eve, Dick
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: Christmas sevenezer. Let's have the shutters up, cried Old Fezziwig,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 1: with a sharp clap of his hands. Before a man
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: can say, Jack Robinson, you wouldn't believe how these two
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 1: fellows went at it. They charged into the street with
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: the shutters one, two, three, had em up in their places, four, five, six,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: barred em and pinned them seven eight nine, and came
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: back before you could have got to twelve, panting like
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 1: race horses. Hily ho, cried Old Fezziwig, skipping down from
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 1: the high desk with wonderful agility. Clear away, my lads,
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 1: and let's have lots of room here, highly ho, Dick,
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 1: cheer up, ebnezer, clear away. There was nothing they wouldn't
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 1: have cleared away, or couldn't I've cleared away. With Old
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 1: Fezziwig looking on, It was done in a minute. Every
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 1: removable was packed off, as if it were dismissed from
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: public life forevermore. The floor was swept and watered, the
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 1: lamps were trimmed. Fuel was heaped upon the fire, and
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 1: the warehouse was as snug and warm and dry and
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 1: bright a ballroom as you would desire to see upon
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 1: a winter's night. In came a fiddler with a music book,
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 1: and went up to the lofty desk, and made an
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 1: orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty stomach aches. In
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 1: came missus Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 1: three miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came the six
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 1: young followers, whose hearts they broke. In came all the
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 1: young men and women employed in the business. In came
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 1: the housemaid with her cousin, the baker. In came the
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 1: cook with her brother's particular friend, the milkman. In came
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 1: the boy from over the way, who was suspected of
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 1: not having bored enough from his master, trying to hide
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 1: himself behind the girl from the next door, but one
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: who was proved to have had her ears pulled by
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: her mistress. In they all came, one after another, some shyly,
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: In they all came, anyhow, and everyhow away they all went.
• 1:17:31
  Speaker 1: Twenty couple at once hands half round and back again
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: the other way, down the middle and up again, round
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: and round, in various stages of affectionate grouping. Old top couple,
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 1: always turning up in the wrong place, new top couple
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: starting off again as soon as they got there. All
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: top couples at last, but not a bottom one to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: help them. When this result was brought about, old Fezziwig,
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: clapping his hands to stop the dance, cried out, well done,
• 1:18:04
  Speaker 1: and the fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot
• 1:18:07
  Speaker 1: of porter especially provided for that purpose, but scorning rest.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Upon his reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 1: no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been
• 1:18:20
  Speaker 1: carried home exhausted on a shutter, and he were a
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 1: brand new man, resolved to beat him out of sight
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 1: or perish. There were more dances, and there were forfeits
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: and more dances, And there was cake, and there was negus,
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: and there was a great piece of cold roast, and
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: there was a great piece of cold boiled, and there
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: were minced pies and plenty of beer. But the great
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: effects of the evening came after the roast and boiled.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 1: When the fiddler an artful dog mined, the sort of
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 1: man who knew his business better than you or I
• 1:18:56
  Speaker 1: could have told it him. Struck up, Sir Roger de covered.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 1: Then old Fezziwigs stood out to dance with Missus Fezziwig.
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 1: Top couple too, with a good stiff piece of work
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 1: cut out for them, three or four or twenty pair
• 1:19:13
  Speaker 1: of partners, people who would dance and had no notion
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 1: of walking. But if they had been twice as many
• 1:19:21
  Speaker 1: ah four times, Old Fezziwig would have been a match
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 1: for them. And so with Missus Fezziwig, as to her
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 1: she was worthy to be his partner in every sense
• 1:19:32
  Speaker 1: of the term. If that's not I praise, tell me
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 1: higher and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 1: issue from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 1: the dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted at any
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 1: given time what would have become of them next. And
• 1:19:52
  Speaker 1: when Old Fezziwig and Missus Fezziwig had gone all through
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 1: the dance, advance and retire both hands to your partner,
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 1: bow and Curtsey corkscrew, thread the needle and back again
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 1: to your place. Pezziwig cut cut so deftly that he
• 1:20:09
  Speaker 1: appeared to wink with his legs, and came upon his
• 1:20:12
  Speaker 1: feet again without a stagger. When the clock struck eleven,
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 1: the domestic ball broke up. Mister and Missus Fezziwig took
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: their station, one on either side of the door, and,
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: shaking hands with every person individually as he or she
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 1: went out, wished him or her a merry Christmas. When
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 1: everybody had retired, but the two prentices, they did the
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 1: same to them, And thus the cheerful voices died away,
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 1: and the lads were left to their beds, which were
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 1: under a counter in the back shop. During the whole
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 1: of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 1: and with his former self he corroborated everything, remembered every
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 1: enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: until now, when the bright faces of his former self
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the
• 1:21:12
  Speaker 1: ghost and became conscious that it was looking full upon him,
• 1:21:16
  Speaker 1: while the light upon its head burnt very clear. A
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 1: small matter, said the ghost, to make these silly folks
• 1:21:24
  Speaker 1: so full of gratitude, small, echoed Scrooge. The spirit sighed
• 1:21:31
  Speaker 1: to him to listen to the two apprentices who were
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 1: pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig, And when
• 1:21:38
  Speaker 1: he had done so, said, why is it not he
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 1: has spent but a few pounds of your mortal money?
• 1:21:47
  Speaker 1: Three or four? Perhaps is that so much that he
• 1:21:50
  Speaker 1: deserves this praise? But isn't that said Scrooge, heated by
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: the remark, and speaking unconsciously like his former, not his
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 1: latter herself. And isn't that Spirit he has the power
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: to render us happy or unhappy, to make our service
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 1: lights or burdensome, a pleasure or a toil. Say that
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: his power lies in words and looks in things so
• 1:22:15
  Speaker 1: slight and insignificant that it is impossible to add and
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 1: count him up. What, then, the happiness he gives is
• 1:22:22
  Speaker 1: quite as great as if it cost a fortune. He
• 1:22:27
  Speaker 1: felt the spirit's glance and stopped. What is the matter,
• 1:22:32
  Speaker 1: asked the ghost, Nothing particular, said Scrooge, Something, I think,
• 1:22:39
  Speaker 1: the ghost insisted. Now, said Scrooge, No, I should like
• 1:22:46
  Speaker 1: to be able to say a word or two to
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 1: my clerk. Just now, That's all his former self turned
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 1: down the lamps as he gave utterance to the wish,
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 1: and Scrooge and the ghost again stood side by side
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: in the open air. My time grows short, observed the
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 1: spirit quick. This was not addressed to Scrooge or to
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 1: any one he could see, but it produced an immediate effect.
• 1:23:16
  Speaker 1: For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older, now, a
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 1: man in the prime of life. His face had not
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 1: the harsh and rigid lines of later years, but it
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 1: had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 1: There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye
• 1:23:35
  Speaker 1: which showed the passion that had taken root, and where
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 1: the shadow of the growing tree would fall. He was
• 1:23:42
  Speaker 1: not alone, but sat by the side of a fair
• 1:23:45
  Speaker 1: young girl in a morning dress, in whose eyes there
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 1: were tears which sparkled in the light that shone out
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 1: of the ghost of Christmas past. It matters little, she said, softly,
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 1: you very little. Another idol has displaced me, And if
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 1: it can cheer and comfort you in time to come,
• 1:24:08
  Speaker 1: as I would have tried to do, I have no
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 1: just cause to grieve what idol has displaced you. He
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 1: rejoined a golden one This is the even handed dealing
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: of the world, he said. There is nothing on which
• 1:24:28
  Speaker 1: it is so hard as poverty, and there is nothing
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit
• 1:24:35
  Speaker 1: of wealth. You fear the world too much, she answered gently.
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 1: All your other hopes have merged into the hope of
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 1: being beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 1: seen your nobler aspirations fall off one by one until
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: the master passion gain engrosses you. Have I not what, then,
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 1: he retorted, Even if I have grown so much wiser,
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: what then I have not changed towards you? She shook
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 1: her head. Am I Our contract is an old one.
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: It was made when we were both poor and content
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: to be so, until in good season we could improve
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 1: our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You are changed.
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 1: When it was made you were another man. I was
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: a boy, he said, impatiently. Your own feeling tells you
• 1:25:37
  Speaker 1: that you were not what you are. She returned, I
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: am that which promised happiness when we were one in
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: heart is fraught with misery now that we are two.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 1: How often and how keenly I have thought of this,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: I will not say it is enough that I have
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: thought of it and can release you. Have I ever
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: sought release? In words? No? Never? Or in what then?
• 1:26:10
  Speaker 1: In a changed nature, in an altered spirit, in another
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: atmosphere of life, another hope as its great end, in
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: everything that made my love of any worth or value
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 1: in your sight? If this had never been between us,
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: said the girl, looking mildly but with steadiness upon him,
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 1: Tell me, would you seek me out and try to
• 1:26:35
  Speaker 1: win me? Now? Ah? Now, he seemed to yield to
• 1:26:41
  Speaker 1: the justice of this supposition in spite of himself, But
• 1:26:45
  Speaker 1: he said, with a struggle, you think not. I would
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: gladly think otherwise if I could. She answered, Heaven knows
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 1: when I have learned a truth like this, I know
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: were free to day, tomorrow, yesterday, can even I believe
• 1:27:09
  Speaker 1: that you would choose a dowerless girl, You who, in
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: your very confidence with her, weighing everything by gain, or
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: to your own guiding principle to do so, Do I
• 1:27:25
  Speaker 1: not know that your repentance and regret would surely follow?
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 1: I do, and I release you with a full heart
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: for the love of him you once were. He was
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: about to speak, but with her head turned from him,
• 1:27:45
  Speaker 1: she resumed, you may the memory of what is past
• 1:27:50
  Speaker 1: half makes me hope you will have pain in this
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: a very very brief time, and you will dismiss the
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: recollection of it as an unprofitable dream from which it happened.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 1: Well that you awoke, May you be happy in the
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: life you have chosen. She left him, and they parted.
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: Spirit said Scrooge, Show me no more, Conduct me home.
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: Why do you delight to torture me? One shadow more?
• 1:28:29
  Speaker 1: Exclaimed the ghost. No more, cried Scrooge, no more. I
• 1:28:34
  Speaker 1: don't wish to see it. Show me no more. But
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: the relentless ghost pinioned him in both his arms and
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: forced him to observe what happened. Next, they were in
• 1:28:47
  Speaker 1: another scene and place, a room not very large or handsome,
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: but full of comfort. Near to the winter fire, sat
• 1:28:55
  Speaker 1: a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 1: believed it was the same until he saw her, now
• 1:29:03
  Speaker 1: a comely matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in
• 1:29:07
  Speaker 1: this room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: there than Scrooge. In his agitative state of mind could count.
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 1: And unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: not forty children conducting themselves like one, but every child
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 1: was conducting itself like forty. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief,
• 1:29:29
  Speaker 1: but no one seemed to care. On the contrary, the
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: mother and daughter laughed heartily and enjoyed it very much,
• 1:29:36
  Speaker 1: and the latter, soon beginning to mingle in the sports,
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: got pillaged by the young brigands most ruthlessly. What would
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 1: I not have given to be one of them? Though
• 1:29:47
  Speaker 1: I never could have been so rude? No, no, I wouldn't,
• 1:29:52
  Speaker 1: for the wealth of all the world, have crushed that
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 1: braided hair and torn it down, And for the precious
• 1:29:58
  Speaker 1: little shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off. God bless
• 1:30:01
  Speaker 1: my soul to save my life. As to measuring her
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: waist in sport, as they did, bold young brood, I
• 1:30:09
  Speaker 1: couldn't have done it. I should have expected my arm
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: to have grown round it for a punishment and never
• 1:30:16
  Speaker 1: come straight again. And yet I should have dearly liked
• 1:30:21
  Speaker 1: I own, to have touched her lips, to have questioned
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: her that she might have opened them, to have looked
• 1:30:28
  Speaker 1: upon the lashes of my downcast eyes, and never raised
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: a blush to have let loose waves of hair, an
• 1:30:36
  Speaker 1: inch of which would be a keepsake beyond price in
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: shorts I should have liked. I do confess to have
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 1: had the lightest license of a child, and yet to
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 1: have been mad enough to know its value. But now
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 1: a knocking at the door was heard, when such a
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 1: rush immediately ensued, that, with laughing face and plundered dress,
• 1:31:00
  Speaker 1: was borne towards it, the center of a flushed and
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 1: boisterous group, just in time to greet the father who
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 1: came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys
• 1:31:11
  Speaker 1: and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and the
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 1: onslaught that was made on the defenseless porter, the scaling
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 1: him with chairs, for latters to dive into his pockets,
• 1:31:22
  Speaker 1: to spoil him of brown paper parcels, hold on tight
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: by his cravats, hug him round his neck, pommel his back,
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 1: and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 1: wonder and delight with which the development of every package
• 1:31:39
  Speaker 1: was received, the terrible announcement that the baby had been
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 1: taken in the act of putting a doll's frying pan
• 1:31:46
  Speaker 1: into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 1: swallowed a fictitious turkey glued on a wooden platter. The
• 1:31:54
  Speaker 1: immense relief of finding this a false alarm, the joy
• 1:31:59
  Speaker 1: and grond attitude, and ecstasy, they are all indescribable. Alike.
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 1: It is enough that by degrees the children and their
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 1: emotions got out of the parlor, and by one stair
• 1:32:11
  Speaker 1: at a time up to the top of the house,
• 1:32:14
  Speaker 1: where they went to bed, and so subsided. And now
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 1: Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever, when the master
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: of the house, having his daughter leaning fondly on him,
• 1:32:27
  Speaker 1: sat down with her and her mother at his own fireside.
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: And when he thought that such another creature, quite as
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 1: graceful and as full of promise, might have called him father,
• 1:32:39
  Speaker 1: and been a spring time in the haggard winter of
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 1: his life, his sight grew very dim. Indeed, Belle said
• 1:32:49
  Speaker 1: the husband, turning to his wife with a smile, I
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 1: saw an old friend of yours this afternoon. Who was it?
• 1:32:56
  Speaker 1: Who guess? How can I? I don't know? She added
• 1:33:02
  Speaker 1: in the same breath, laughing as he laughed. Mister Scrooge.
• 1:33:07
  Speaker 1: Mister Scrooge, it was. I passed his office window, and
• 1:33:11
  Speaker 1: as it was not shut up, and he had a
• 1:33:13
  Speaker 1: candle inside, I could scarcely help seeing him. His partner
• 1:33:18
  Speaker 1: lies upon the point of death, I hear, and there
• 1:33:20
  Speaker 1: he sat alone, quite alone in the world. I do
• 1:33:24
  Speaker 1: believe spirit, said Scrooge in a broken voice. Remove me
• 1:33:32
  Speaker 1: from this place. I told you these were shadows of
• 1:33:37
  Speaker 1: the things that have been said the ghost that they
• 1:33:40
  Speaker 1: are what they are. Do not blame me, remove me,
• 1:33:46
  Speaker 1: Scrooge exclaimed, I cannot bear it. He turned upon the ghost, and,
• 1:33:54
  Speaker 1: seeing that it looked upon him with a face in which,
• 1:33:57
  Speaker 1: in some strange way there were fragments of all the
• 1:34:00
  Speaker 1: faces it had shown him, wrestled with it. Believe me,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: take me back, haunt me no longer. In the struggle,
• 1:34:12
  Speaker 1: if that can be called a struggle in which the ghosts,
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: with no visible resistance on its own part, was undisturbed
• 1:34:19
  Speaker 1: by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed that its
• 1:34:23
  Speaker 1: light was burning high and bright and dimly, connecting that
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher cap
• 1:34:32
  Speaker 1: and by a sudden action, pressed it down upon its head.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: The spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered
• 1:34:40
  Speaker 1: its whole form. But though Scrooge pressed it down with
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: all his force, he could not hide the light which
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: streamed from under it in an unbroken flood upon the ground.
• 1:34:53
  Speaker 1: He was conscious of being exhausted and overcome by an
• 1:34:56
  Speaker 1: irresistible drowsiness, and further of being in his own bedroom.
• 1:35:02
  Speaker 1: He gave the cap a parting squeeze in which his
• 1:35:05
  Speaker 1: hand relaxed, and had barely time to reel to bed
• 1:35:10
  Speaker 1: before he sank into a heavy sleep. End of Stave two,
• 1:35:18
  Speaker 1: Stave three, the second of the three spirits. Awakening in
• 1:35:26
  Speaker 1: the middle of a prodigiously tough snore and sitting up
• 1:35:30
  Speaker 1: in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no
• 1:35:33
  Speaker 1: occasion to be told that the bell was again upon
• 1:35:36
  Speaker 1: the stroke of one. He felt that he was restored
• 1:35:40
  Speaker 1: to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the
• 1:35:42
  Speaker 1: especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger
• 1:35:46
  Speaker 1: despatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that
• 1:35:51
  Speaker 1: he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which
• 1:35:54
  Speaker 1: of his curtains this new specter would draw back, he
• 1:35:57
  Speaker 1: put them every one aside with his own hands, and
• 1:36:01
  Speaker 1: lying down again, established a sharp look at all round
• 1:36:05
  Speaker 1: the bend, for he wished to challenge the spirit on
• 1:36:09
  Speaker 1: the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to
• 1:36:12
  Speaker 1: be taken by surprise and made nervous. Gentlemen of the
• 1:36:17
  Speaker 1: free and easy sorts, who plumed themselves are being acquainted
• 1:36:21
  Speaker 1: with a move or two, and being usually equal to
• 1:36:24
  Speaker 1: the time of day, expressed the wide range of their
• 1:36:27
  Speaker 1: capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for
• 1:36:31
  Speaker 1: anything from pitch and toss to manslaughter, between which opposite
• 1:36:36
  Speaker 1: extremes no doubt there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive
• 1:36:40
  Speaker 1: range of subjects without venturing. For Scrooge quite as heartily
• 1:36:46
  Speaker 1: as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe
• 1:36:49
  Speaker 1: that he was ready for a good broad field of
• 1:36:52
  Speaker 1: strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and a
• 1:36:56
  Speaker 1: rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. Now being prepared
• 1:37:03
  Speaker 1: for almost anything, he was not, by any means prepared
• 1:37:07
  Speaker 1: for nothing. And consequently, when the bell struck one and
• 1:37:11
  Speaker 1: no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit
• 1:37:15
  Speaker 1: of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour,
• 1:37:19
  Speaker 1: went by, yet nothing came. All this time he lay
• 1:37:24
  Speaker 1: upon his bed the very core and center of a
• 1:37:28
  Speaker 1: blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the
• 1:37:31
  Speaker 1: clock proclaimed the hour, and which, being only light, was
• 1:37:35
  Speaker 1: more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless
• 1:37:39
  Speaker 1: to make out what it meant or would be at
• 1:37:42
  Speaker 1: and were sometimes apprehensive that he might be, at that
• 1:37:46
  Speaker 1: very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion, without having
• 1:37:51
  Speaker 1: the consolation of knowing it. At last, however, he began
• 1:37:56
  Speaker 1: to think as you and I would have thought at first,
• 1:38:00
  Speaker 1: for it is always the person not in the predicament
• 1:38:03
  Speaker 1: who knows what ought to have been done in it,
• 1:38:05
  Speaker 1: and would unquestionably have done it too. At last, I say,
• 1:38:10
  Speaker 1: he began to think that the source and secret of
• 1:38:13
  Speaker 1: this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from
• 1:38:17
  Speaker 1: whence on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea.
• 1:38:23
  Speaker 1: Taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly
• 1:38:27
  Speaker 1: and shuffled in his slippers to the door. The moment
• 1:38:32
  Speaker 1: Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called
• 1:38:35
  Speaker 1: him by his name and bade him enter. He obeyed.
• 1:38:41
  Speaker 1: It was his own room. There was no doubt about that,
• 1:38:46
  Speaker 1: but it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and
• 1:38:51
  Speaker 1: ceiling were so hung with living green that it looked
• 1:38:54
  Speaker 1: like a perfect grove, from every part of which bright
• 1:38:58
  Speaker 1: gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe and
• 1:39:02
  Speaker 1: ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little
• 1:39:06
  Speaker 1: mirrors had been scattered there. And such a mighty blaze
• 1:39:10
  Speaker 1: went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrification of
• 1:39:14
  Speaker 1: a heart had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's,
• 1:39:18
  Speaker 1: or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped
• 1:39:22
  Speaker 1: up on the floor to form a kind of throne
• 1:39:25
  Speaker 1: were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brown great joints of meat,
• 1:39:31
  Speaker 1: sucking pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings,
• 1:39:37
  Speaker 1: barrels of oysters, red hot chestnuts, cherry cheeked apples, juicy oranges,
• 1:39:43
  Speaker 1: luscious pears, immense twelfth cakes, and seething bowls of punch
• 1:39:48
  Speaker 1: that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam an
• 1:39:54
  Speaker 1: easy state. Upon this couch there sat a jolly giant,
• 1:39:59
  Speaker 1: glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch in shape
• 1:40:04
  Speaker 1: not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up igh up
• 1:40:08
  Speaker 1: to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping
• 1:40:12
  Speaker 1: round the door, coming, exclaimed the ghost, Come in and
• 1:40:19
  Speaker 1: know me better. Man. Scrooge entered timidly and hung his
• 1:40:26
  Speaker 1: head before this spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge
• 1:40:30
  Speaker 1: he had been, And though the spirit's eyes were clear
• 1:40:33
  Speaker 1: and kind, he did not like to meet them. I
• 1:40:38
  Speaker 1: am the ghost of Christmas present, said the spirit. Look
• 1:40:43
  Speaker 1: upon me. Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in
• 1:40:49
  Speaker 1: one simple green robe or mantle, bordered with white fur.
• 1:40:55
  Speaker 1: This garment hung so loosely on the figure that its
• 1:40:58
  Speaker 1: capacious breast was as if disdaining to be warded or
• 1:41:03
  Speaker 1: concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample
• 1:41:07
  Speaker 1: folds of the garment, were also bare, and on its
• 1:41:11
  Speaker 1: head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath.
• 1:41:15
  Speaker 1: Sat here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown
• 1:41:20
  Speaker 1: curls were long and free, free as its genial face,
• 1:41:25
  Speaker 1: its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its
• 1:41:29
  Speaker 1: unconstrained demeanor, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle
• 1:41:35
  Speaker 1: was an antique scabbard, but no sword was in it,
• 1:41:39
  Speaker 1: and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. You
• 1:41:44
  Speaker 1: have never seen the like of me before, exclaimed the spirit.
• 1:41:49
  Speaker 1: Never Scrooge made answered to it, I have never walked
• 1:41:53
  Speaker 1: forth with the younger members of my family, meaning for
• 1:41:58
  Speaker 1: I am very young. My elder brothers born in these
• 1:42:02
  Speaker 1: later years, pursued the phantom. I don't think I have,
• 1:42:08
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. I am afraid I have not. Have you
• 1:42:13
  Speaker 1: had many brothers, spirit, more than eighteen hundred, said the ghost. Oh,
• 1:42:21
  Speaker 1: a tremendous family to provide for muttered Scrooge. The ghost
• 1:42:26
  Speaker 1: of Christmas present rose Spirit, said Scrooge submissively, conduct me
• 1:42:34
  Speaker 1: where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion,
• 1:42:39
  Speaker 1: and I learned a lesson which is working now tonight.
• 1:42:44
  Speaker 1: If you have ought to teach me, let me profit
• 1:42:48
  Speaker 1: by it. Touch my robe. Scrooge did as he was
• 1:42:54
  Speaker 1: told and held it fast. Holly, mistletoe, red bearries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawne, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,
• 1:43:08
  Speaker 1: fruit and punch all vanished instantly, So did the room,
• 1:43:13
  Speaker 1: the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and
• 1:43:17
  Speaker 1: they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where
• 1:43:22
  Speaker 1: for the weather was severe, the people made a rough,
• 1:43:25
  Speaker 1: but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music in scraping
• 1:43:29
  Speaker 1: the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings
• 1:43:33
  Speaker 1: and from the tops of their houses. Whence it was
• 1:43:36
  Speaker 1: mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping
• 1:43:38
  Speaker 1: down into the road below, and splitting into artificial little
• 1:43:43
  Speaker 1: snow storms. The house fronts looked black enough, and the
• 1:43:47
  Speaker 1: windows blacker, contrasting with a smooth white sheet of snow
• 1:43:52
  Speaker 1: upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground,
• 1:43:56
  Speaker 1: which last deposit had been plowed up in deep furrows
• 1:44:00
  Speaker 1: by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons, furrows that
• 1:44:03
  Speaker 1: crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times, where the
• 1:44:07
  Speaker 1: great streets branched off and made intricate channels hard to trace.
• 1:44:12
  Speaker 1: In the thick, yellow and icy water. The sky was gloomy,
• 1:44:17
  Speaker 1: and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,
• 1:44:21
  Speaker 1: half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a
• 1:44:25
  Speaker 1: shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in
• 1:44:29
  Speaker 1: Great Britain had by one consent caught fire and were
• 1:44:33
  Speaker 1: blazing away to their dear heart's content. There is nothing
• 1:44:38
  Speaker 1: very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet
• 1:44:42
  Speaker 1: there was an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest
• 1:44:45
  Speaker 1: summer air and the brightest summer sun might have endeavored
• 1:44:50
  Speaker 1: to diffuse in vain. For the people who were shoveling
• 1:44:54
  Speaker 1: away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee,
• 1:44:57
  Speaker 1: calling out to one another from the parima, but now
• 1:45:01
  Speaker 1: and then exchanging a facetious snowball, better natured missile, far
• 1:45:06
  Speaker 1: than many a wordy jest, laughing heartily if it went right,
• 1:45:11
  Speaker 1: and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterer's
• 1:45:15
  Speaker 1: shops were still half open, and the fruiterers were radiant
• 1:45:18
  Speaker 1: in their glory. There were great, round, pot bellied baskets
• 1:45:23
  Speaker 1: of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen,
• 1:45:27
  Speaker 1: lolling at the doors and tumbling out into the street
• 1:45:30
  Speaker 1: in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy, brown faced, broad
• 1:45:35
  Speaker 1: girthed Spanish onions, shining in the fatness of their growth
• 1:45:39
  Speaker 1: like Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton
• 1:45:44
  Speaker 1: slyness of the girls as they went by and glanced
• 1:45:48
  Speaker 1: demurely at the hung up mistletoe. There were pears and
• 1:45:52
  Speaker 1: apples clustered high and blooming pyramids. There were bunches of grapes,
• 1:45:57
  Speaker 1: made in the shopkeeper's benevolence to dang from conspicuous hooks
• 1:46:02
  Speaker 1: that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed. There
• 1:46:06
  Speaker 1: were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling in their
• 1:46:11
  Speaker 1: fragrance ancient walks among the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle
• 1:46:16
  Speaker 1: deep through withered leaves. There were Norfolk biffins, squat and swarthy,
• 1:46:22
  Speaker 1: setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and
• 1:46:25
  Speaker 1: in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating
• 1:46:30
  Speaker 1: and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and
• 1:46:33
  Speaker 1: eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish set
• 1:46:38
  Speaker 1: forth among these choice fruits and a bowl. Though members
• 1:46:42
  Speaker 1: of a dull and stagnant blooded race appeared to know
• 1:46:45
  Speaker 1: that there was something going on, and two a fish
• 1:46:49
  Speaker 1: went gasping round and round their little world in slow
• 1:46:53
  Speaker 1: and passionless excitement. The grocers, oh, the grocers nearly closed,
• 1:47:01
  Speaker 1: with perhaps two shutters down or one. But through these gaps,
• 1:47:06
  Speaker 1: such glimpses, it was not alone that the scales descending
• 1:47:11
  Speaker 1: on the counter made a merry sound, or that the
• 1:47:14
  Speaker 1: twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the
• 1:47:18
  Speaker 1: canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks, or
• 1:47:22
  Speaker 1: even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were
• 1:47:25
  Speaker 1: so grateful to the nose, or even that the raisins
• 1:47:29
  Speaker 1: were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white,
• 1:47:33
  Speaker 1: the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other
• 1:47:36
  Speaker 1: spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted
• 1:47:41
  Speaker 1: with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers on
• 1:47:45
  Speaker 1: a feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that
• 1:47:50
  Speaker 1: the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French
• 1:47:54
  Speaker 1: plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly decorated boxes,
• 1:47:59
  Speaker 1: or the everything was good to eat and in its
• 1:48:02
  Speaker 1: Christmas dress. But the customers were all so hurried and
• 1:48:06
  Speaker 1: so eager in their hopeful promise of the day, that
• 1:48:09
  Speaker 1: they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing
• 1:48:12
  Speaker 1: their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter,
• 1:48:17
  Speaker 1: and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds
• 1:48:21
  Speaker 1: of like mistakes in the best humor possible. While the
• 1:48:25
  Speaker 1: grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that
• 1:48:29
  Speaker 1: the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind
• 1:48:32
  Speaker 1: might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection
• 1:48:36
  Speaker 1: and for Christmas doors to peck at if they chose.
• 1:48:41
  Speaker 1: But soon the steeples called good people all to church
• 1:48:45
  Speaker 1: and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets
• 1:48:49
  Speaker 1: in their best clothes and with their gayest faces. And
• 1:48:52
  Speaker 1: at the same time there emerged from scores of by streets,
• 1:48:56
  Speaker 1: lanes and nameless turnings, innumerable people carrying their dinners to
• 1:49:01
  Speaker 1: the baker's shops. The sight of these poor revelers appeared
• 1:49:05
  Speaker 1: to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with
• 1:49:09
  Speaker 1: Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off
• 1:49:12
  Speaker 1: the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their
• 1:49:16
  Speaker 1: dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon
• 1:49:21
  Speaker 1: kind of torch. For once or twice, when there were
• 1:49:24
  Speaker 1: angry words between some dinner carriers who had jostled each other,
• 1:49:28
  Speaker 1: he shed a few drops of water on them from it,
• 1:49:31
  Speaker 1: and their good humor was restored directly, For they said
• 1:49:36
  Speaker 1: it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day, And
• 1:49:40
  Speaker 1: so it was, God love it. So it was in
• 1:49:46
  Speaker 1: time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up.
• 1:49:50
  Speaker 1: And yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all
• 1:49:53
  Speaker 1: these dinners and the progress of their cooking. In the
• 1:49:56
  Speaker 1: thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven. The pavement
• 1:50:00
  Speaker 1: smoked as if its stones were cooking too. Is there
• 1:50:05
  Speaker 1: a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle from your torch,
• 1:50:09
  Speaker 1: asked Scrooge, There is my own? Would it a ply
• 1:50:15
  Speaker 1: to any kind of dinner on this day? Asked Scrooge,
• 1:50:20
  Speaker 1: to any kindly given to a poor one? Most? Why
• 1:50:25
  Speaker 1: to a poor one? Most, asked Scrooge, because it needs
• 1:50:30
  Speaker 1: it most, spirit, said Scrooge, after a moment's thought. I
• 1:50:36
  Speaker 1: wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds
• 1:50:39
  Speaker 1: about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of
• 1:50:44
  Speaker 1: innocent enjoyment, I cried the spirit. You would deprive them
• 1:50:50
  Speaker 1: of their means of dining Every seventh day, often the
• 1:50:54
  Speaker 1: only day on which they can be said to dine
• 1:50:57
  Speaker 1: at all, said Scrooge. Wouldn't you, ay, cried the Spirit.
• 1:51:03
  Speaker 1: You seek to close these places on the seventh day,
• 1:51:07
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, And it comes to the same thing I seek,
• 1:51:13
  Speaker 1: exclaimed the Spirit. Forgive me if I am wrong. It
• 1:51:18
  Speaker 1: has been done in your name, or at least in
• 1:51:21
  Speaker 1: that of your family, said Scrooge. There are some upon
• 1:51:26
  Speaker 1: this earth of yours, returned the Spirit who lay claim
• 1:51:30
  Speaker 1: to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride,
• 1:51:35
  Speaker 1: ill will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and selfishness in our name,
• 1:51:42
  Speaker 1: who are as strange to us and all our kith
• 1:51:45
  Speaker 1: and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that,
• 1:51:49
  Speaker 1: and charge their doings on themselves, not us. Scrooge promised
• 1:51:56
  Speaker 1: that he would, and they went on, invisible as they
• 1:51:59
  Speaker 1: had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It
• 1:52:03
  Speaker 1: was a remarkable quality of the ghost which Scrooge had
• 1:52:07
  Speaker 1: observed at the Baker's, that, notwithstanding his gigantic size, he
• 1:52:11
  Speaker 1: could accommodate himself to any place with ease, and that
• 1:52:15
  Speaker 1: he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and
• 1:52:19
  Speaker 1: like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could
• 1:52:22
  Speaker 1: have done in any lofty hall and perhaps it was
• 1:52:26
  Speaker 1: the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this
• 1:52:29
  Speaker 1: power of his or else it was his own kind,
• 1:52:33
  Speaker 1: generous hearted nature and his sympathy with all poor men
• 1:52:37
  Speaker 1: that led him straight to scroogeous clerks. For there he
• 1:52:41
  Speaker 1: went and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe.
• 1:52:45
  Speaker 1: And on the threshold of the door, the Spirit smiled
• 1:52:49
  Speaker 1: and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling
• 1:52:53
  Speaker 1: of his torch. Think of that Bob had fifteen bob
• 1:52:58
  Speaker 1: a week himself he pocket on Saturdays, but fifteen copies
• 1:53:02
  Speaker 1: of his Christian name, And yet the ghost of Christmas
• 1:53:06
  Speaker 1: present blessed his full roomed house. Then up rose Missus Cratchett,
• 1:53:14
  Speaker 1: Cratchett's wife, dressed out but poorly in a twice turned gown,
• 1:53:19
  Speaker 1: but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a
• 1:53:22
  Speaker 1: goodly show for sixpence, and she laid the cloth, assisted
• 1:53:26
  Speaker 1: by Belinda Cratchett, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons,
• 1:53:32
  Speaker 1: while Master Peter Cratchett plunged a fork into the saucepan
• 1:53:36
  Speaker 1: of potatoes, and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar.
• 1:53:41
  Speaker 1: Bob's private property conferred upon his son and heir in
• 1:53:44
  Speaker 1: honor of the day, into his mouth, rejoiced to find
• 1:53:48
  Speaker 1: himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen
• 1:53:53
  Speaker 1: in the fashionable parks. Now two smaller Cratchetts, boy and girl,
• 1:53:59
  Speaker 1: came tearing in, screaming that outside the Baker's they had
• 1:54:03
  Speaker 1: smelt the goose and known it for their own. And
• 1:54:07
  Speaker 1: basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young
• 1:54:11
  Speaker 1: Cratchets danced about the table and exalted Master Peter Cratchett
• 1:54:16
  Speaker 1: to the skies. While he not proud, and although his
• 1:54:20
  Speaker 1: collars nearly choked him, blew the fire until the slow potatoes,
• 1:54:25
  Speaker 1: bubbling up not loudly at the saucepan lid to be
• 1:54:29
  Speaker 1: led out and peeled. What has ever got your precious father, then,
• 1:54:36
  Speaker 1: said Missus Cratchett, and your brother tiny Tim and Martha
• 1:54:40
  Speaker 1: warn't as late last Christmas day by half an hour.
• 1:54:45
  Speaker 1: Here's Martha, mother, said a girl, appearing as she spoke.
• 1:54:49
  Speaker 1: Here's Martha, mother, cried the two young Cratchetts. Hurrah, there's
• 1:54:55
  Speaker 1: such a goose, Martha. My bless your heart alive, My dear,
• 1:55:00
  Speaker 1: how late you are, said missus Cratchett, kissing her a
• 1:55:03
  Speaker 1: dozen times, and taking off her shawl and bonnet for
• 1:55:06
  Speaker 1: her with officious zeal. We'd a deal of work to
• 1:55:10
  Speaker 1: finish up last night, replied the girl, and had to
• 1:55:13
  Speaker 1: clear away this morning. Mother. Well, never mind, so long
• 1:55:17
  Speaker 1: as you are come, said missus Cratchett. Sit ye down
• 1:55:21
  Speaker 1: before the fire, my dear, and have a warm lord
• 1:55:24
  Speaker 1: bless ye. No, no, there's father coming, cried the two
• 1:55:30
  Speaker 1: young Cratchetts, who were everywhere at once. Hi, Martha, hide.
• 1:55:35
  Speaker 1: So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,
• 1:55:40
  Speaker 1: with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the
• 1:55:44
  Speaker 1: fringe hanging down before him, and his threadbare clothes, darned
• 1:55:49
  Speaker 1: up and brushed to look seasonable, and tiny Tim upon
• 1:55:53
  Speaker 1: his shoulder. Alas for tiny Tim, he bore a little
• 1:55:58
  Speaker 1: crutch and had his limbs supported by an iron frame.
• 1:56:03
  Speaker 1: Why where's our Martha, cried Bob Cratchett, looking around. Not coming,
• 1:56:10
  Speaker 1: said Missus Cratchitt. Not coming, said Bob, with a sudden
• 1:56:15
  Speaker 1: declension in his high spirits, for he had been Tim's
• 1:56:19
  Speaker 1: blood horse all the way from church and had come
• 1:56:22
  Speaker 1: home rampant. Not coming upon Christmas Day, Martha didn't like
• 1:56:29
  Speaker 1: to see him disappointed if it were only in joke,
• 1:56:33
  Speaker 1: So she came out prematurely from behind the closet door
• 1:56:36
  Speaker 1: and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchets
• 1:56:39
  Speaker 1: hustled Tiny Tim and bore him off into the wash
• 1:56:42
  Speaker 1: house that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.
• 1:56:46
  Speaker 1: And how did little Tim behave, said missus Cratchett, when
• 1:56:50
  Speaker 1: she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had
• 1:56:54
  Speaker 1: hugged his daughter to his heart's content. Oh as good
• 1:56:58
  Speaker 1: as gold, said Bob, and better somehow he gets thoughtful
• 1:57:03
  Speaker 1: sitting by himself so much, and things, the strangest things
• 1:57:08
  Speaker 1: you ever heard. He told me coming home that he
• 1:57:12
  Speaker 1: hoped the people saw him in the church because he
• 1:57:15
  Speaker 1: was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them
• 1:57:18
  Speaker 1: to remember on Christmas Day who made the lame beggars
• 1:57:23
  Speaker 1: walk and blind men see. Bob's voice was tremulous when
• 1:57:28
  Speaker 1: he told him this, and trembled more when he said
• 1:57:32
  Speaker 1: that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hearty. His active
• 1:57:37
  Speaker 1: little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came
• 1:57:41
  Speaker 1: Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his
• 1:57:45
  Speaker 1: brother and sister to his stool before the fire, and
• 1:57:48
  Speaker 1: while Bob turning up his cuffs, as if poor fellow
• 1:57:52
  Speaker 1: they were capable of being made more shabby, compounded some
• 1:57:56
  Speaker 1: hot mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and
• 1:57:59
  Speaker 1: stirred it round and round, and put it on the
• 1:58:02
  Speaker 1: hob to simmer. Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young
• 1:58:06
  Speaker 1: Crotchets went to fetch the goose, with which they soon
• 1:58:10
  Speaker 1: returned in high procession. Such a bustle ensued that you
• 1:58:15
  Speaker 1: might have thought a goose the rarest of all birds,
• 1:58:19
  Speaker 1: a feathered phenomenon, to which a black swan was a
• 1:58:22
  Speaker 1: matter of course, And in truth it was something very
• 1:58:27
  Speaker 1: like it. In that house, Missus Cratchett made the gravy
• 1:58:31
  Speaker 1: ready beforehand in a little saucepan, hissing hot. Master Peter
• 1:58:35
  Speaker 1: mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor. Miss Belinda sweetened up
• 1:58:39
  Speaker 1: the apple sauce. Martha dusted the hot plates. Bob took
• 1:58:44
  Speaker 1: tiny tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table.
• 1:58:48
  Speaker 1: The two young Cratchets set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves,
• 1:58:52
  Speaker 1: and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their
• 1:58:56
  Speaker 1: mouths lest they should shriek for goose before their time
• 1:59:00
  Speaker 1: came to be helped. At last, the dishes were set on,
• 1:59:05
  Speaker 1: and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause,
• 1:59:09
  Speaker 1: as Missus Cratchett, looking slowly all along the carving knife,
• 1:59:13
  Speaker 1: prepared to plunge it in the breast. But when she did,
• 1:59:18
  Speaker 1: and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth,
• 1:59:22
  Speaker 1: one murmur of delight arose all round the board. An
• 1:59:26
  Speaker 1: even tiny tim, excited by the two young Cratchets, beat
• 1:59:30
  Speaker 1: on the table with the handle of his knife and
• 1:59:33
  Speaker 1: feebly cried, urah, there was never such a goose. Bob
• 1:59:40
  Speaker 1: said he didn't believe that ever was such a goose cooked.
• 1:59:44
  Speaker 1: Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness were the themes
• 1:59:48
  Speaker 1: of universal admiration eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes.
• 1:59:54
  Speaker 1: It was a sufficient dinner for the whole family. Indeed,
• 1:59:58
  Speaker 1: as Missus Cratchett said, with great delight surveying one small
• 2:00:02
  Speaker 1: atom of a bone upon the dish, they hadn't ate
• 2:00:05
  Speaker 1: it all at last. Yet everyone had had enough, and
• 2:00:09
  Speaker 1: the youngest Cratchets in particular were steeped in sage an
• 2:00:13
  Speaker 1: onion to the eyebrows. But now the plates being changed
• 2:00:17
  Speaker 1: by Miss Belinda, missus Cratchett left the room alone, too
• 2:00:21
  Speaker 1: nervous to bear witnesses to take the pudding up and
• 2:00:25
  Speaker 1: bring it in. Suppose it should not be done enough.
• 2:00:29
  Speaker 1: Suppose it should break in turning out. Suppose somebody should
• 2:00:34
  Speaker 1: have got over the wall of the back yard and
• 2:00:36
  Speaker 1: stolen it while they were merry with the goose, a
• 2:00:40
  Speaker 1: supposition at which the two young Cratchets became livid. All
• 2:00:45
  Speaker 1: sorts of horrors were supposed. Hullo a great deal of steam.
• 2:00:51
  Speaker 1: The pudding was out of the copper, A smell like
• 2:00:54
  Speaker 1: a washing day. That was the cloth, A smell like
• 2:00:58
  Speaker 1: an eating house and a paste t cook's next door
• 2:01:01
  Speaker 1: to each other, with a laundress's next door to that.
• 2:01:04
  Speaker 1: That was the pudding. In half a minute missus Cratchett entered,
• 2:01:09
  Speaker 1: flushed but smiling proudly, with the pudding like a speckled
• 2:01:14
  Speaker 1: cannon ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half a
• 2:01:18
  Speaker 1: half a quartern of ignited brandy and bedight, with Christmas
• 2:01:22
  Speaker 1: Harley stuck into the top. Oh a wonderful pudding, Bob
• 2:01:28
  Speaker 1: cratchitd said, and calmly too that he regarded it as
• 2:01:32
  Speaker 1: the greatest success achieved by Missus Cratchett since their marriage.
• 2:01:37
  Speaker 1: Missus Cratchett said that now the weight was off her mind,
• 2:01:40
  Speaker 1: she would confess that she had her doubts about the
• 2:01:43
  Speaker 1: quantity of flower. Everybody had something to say about it,
• 2:01:48
  Speaker 1: but nobody said or thought it was at all a
• 2:01:51
  Speaker 1: small pudding for a large family. It would have been
• 2:01:55
  Speaker 1: flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchett would have blushed
• 2:01:59
  Speaker 1: the hint that such a thing. At last, the dinner
• 2:02:04
  Speaker 1: was all done, the cloth was cleared, the hearth swept,
• 2:02:07
  Speaker 1: and the fire made up, the compound in the jug
• 2:02:11
  Speaker 1: being tasted and considered perfect. Apples and oranges were put
• 2:02:15
  Speaker 1: upon the table, and a shovel full of chestnuts on
• 2:02:18
  Speaker 1: the fire. Then all the Cratchet family drew round the
• 2:02:22
  Speaker 1: hearth in what Bob cratch had called a circle, meaning
• 2:02:27
  Speaker 1: half a one, and at Bob Cratchett's elbow stood the
• 2:02:30
  Speaker 1: family display of glass, two tumblers, and a custard cup
• 2:02:35
  Speaker 1: without a handle. These held the hot stuff from the jug, however,
• 2:02:40
  Speaker 1: as well as golden goblets would have done, and Bob
• 2:02:44
  Speaker 1: served it out with beaming looks, while the chestnuts on
• 2:02:47
  Speaker 1: the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed a
• 2:02:54
  Speaker 1: Merry Christmas to us, all my DearS, God bless us,
• 2:02:59
  Speaker 1: which the family re echoed, God bless us every one,
• 2:03:05
  Speaker 1: said tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very
• 2:03:09
  Speaker 1: close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob
• 2:03:13
  Speaker 1: held his withered little hand in his as if he
• 2:03:17
  Speaker 1: loved the child and wished to keep him by his side,
• 2:03:21
  Speaker 1: and dreaded that he might be taken from him. Spirit,
• 2:03:26
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before.
• 2:03:30
  Speaker 1: Tell me if tiny Tim will live. I see a
• 2:03:36
  Speaker 1: vacant seat, replied the ghost, in the poor chimney corner,
• 2:03:41
  Speaker 1: and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these
• 2:03:46
  Speaker 1: shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die.
• 2:03:52
  Speaker 1: No no, said Scrooge, O no kind spirit, say he
• 2:03:58
  Speaker 1: will be spared. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future.
• 2:04:04
  Speaker 1: Another of my race returned, the ghost will find him here.
• 2:04:10
  Speaker 1: What then, if he be like to die, he had
• 2:04:13
  Speaker 1: better do it and decrease the surplus population. Scrooge hung
• 2:04:19
  Speaker 1: his head to hear his own words quoted by the spirit,
• 2:04:22
  Speaker 1: and was overcome with penitence and grief. Man said the ghost.
• 2:04:29
  Speaker 1: If man, you be in heart not adamant forbear that
• 2:04:34
  Speaker 1: wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is
• 2:04:38
  Speaker 1: and where it is, will you decide what men shall live,
• 2:04:43
  Speaker 1: what men shall die. It may be that, in the
• 2:04:47
  Speaker 1: sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit
• 2:04:51
  Speaker 1: to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God,
• 2:04:58
  Speaker 1: to hear the ins on the leaf pronouncing on the
• 2:05:02
  Speaker 1: too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust,
• 2:05:08
  Speaker 1: Scrooge bent before the ghost's rebuke and trembling, cast his
• 2:05:13
  Speaker 1: eyes upon the ground, but he raised them speedily on
• 2:05:17
  Speaker 1: hearing his own name. Mister Scrooge said, Bob, I'll give you,
• 2:05:24
  Speaker 1: mister Scrooge, the founder of the feast, The founder of
• 2:05:29
  Speaker 1: the feast, indeed, cried Missus Cratchett, reddening. I wish I
• 2:05:34
  Speaker 1: had him here. I'd give him a piece of my
• 2:05:37
  Speaker 1: mind to feast upon, and I'd hope he'd have a
• 2:05:39
  Speaker 1: good appetite for it. My dear, said Bob, the children
• 2:05:46
  Speaker 1: Christmas Day. It should be a Christmas day, I am sure,
• 2:05:51
  Speaker 1: said she, on which one drinks the health of such
• 2:05:55
  Speaker 1: an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as mister Scrooge. Ube
• 2:06:01
  Speaker 1: you know he is Robert. Nobody knows it better than
• 2:06:04
  Speaker 1: you do. Poor fellow, my dear, was Bob's mild answer.
• 2:06:10
  Speaker 1: Christmas Day. I'll drink his health for your sake and
• 2:06:15
  Speaker 1: the days, said missus Cratchett, not for his long life.
• 2:06:21
  Speaker 1: To him, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year.
• 2:06:25
  Speaker 1: He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt.
• 2:06:30
  Speaker 1: The children drank the toast after her. It was the
• 2:06:33
  Speaker 1: first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim
• 2:06:37
  Speaker 1: drank it last of all, but he didn't care tuppence
• 2:06:40
  Speaker 1: for it. Scrooge was the ogre of the family. The
• 2:06:44
  Speaker 1: mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party,
• 2:06:48
  Speaker 1: which was not dispelled for full five minutes after it
• 2:06:52
  Speaker 1: had passed away. They were ten times merrier than before
• 2:06:56
  Speaker 1: from the mere relief of Scrooge. The baleful being done with.
• 2:07:01
  Speaker 1: Bob Cratchett told them how he had a situation in
• 2:07:04
  Speaker 1: his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in if
• 2:07:07
  Speaker 1: obtained full five and sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchetts
• 2:07:13
  Speaker 1: laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man
• 2:07:16
  Speaker 1: of business, and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire
• 2:07:21
  Speaker 1: from between his callers, as if he were deliberating what
• 2:07:24
  Speaker 1: particular investments he should favor when he came into the
• 2:07:28
  Speaker 1: receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor
• 2:07:33
  Speaker 1: apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of
• 2:07:36
  Speaker 1: work she had to do, and how many hours she
• 2:07:39
  Speaker 1: worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie
• 2:07:42
  Speaker 1: abed to morrow morning for a good long rest, tomorrow
• 2:07:46
  Speaker 1: being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she
• 2:07:50
  Speaker 1: had seen a countess and a lord some days before,
• 2:07:54
  Speaker 1: and how the lord was much about as tall as Peter,
• 2:07:58
  Speaker 1: at which Peter pulled up his collar so high that
• 2:08:01
  Speaker 1: you couldn't have seen his head if you had been
• 2:08:04
  Speaker 1: there all this time. The chestnuts and the jug went
• 2:08:09
  Speaker 1: round and round, and by and by. They had a
• 2:08:12
  Speaker 1: song about a lost child traveling in the snow, from
• 2:08:15
  Speaker 1: tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang
• 2:08:19
  Speaker 1: it very well. Indeed, there was nothing of high mark
• 2:08:24
  Speaker 1: in this. They were not a handsome family. They were
• 2:08:27
  Speaker 1: not well dressed, Their shoes were far from waterproof, their
• 2:08:31
  Speaker 1: clothes were scanty, and Peter might have known, or very
• 2:08:36
  Speaker 1: likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's. But they were happy, grateful,
• 2:08:42
  Speaker 1: pleased with one another, and contended with the time. And
• 2:08:46
  Speaker 1: when they faded and looked happier yet in the bright
• 2:08:49
  Speaker 1: sprinklings of the Spirit's torch. At parting, Scrooge had his
• 2:08:53
  Speaker 1: eye upon them, and especially on tiny tim until the last.
• 2:08:59
  Speaker 1: By this time it was getting dark and snowing pretty heavily,
• 2:09:03
  Speaker 1: And as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,
• 2:09:07
  Speaker 1: the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlors, and
• 2:09:10
  Speaker 1: all sorts of rooms was wonderful. Here the flickering of
• 2:09:14
  Speaker 1: the blaze showed preparations for a cozy dinner, with hot
• 2:09:18
  Speaker 1: plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep
• 2:09:21
  Speaker 1: red curtains ready to be drawn to shut out cold
• 2:09:25
  Speaker 1: in darkness. There all the children of the house were
• 2:09:29
  Speaker 1: running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts,
• 2:09:36
  Speaker 1: and be the first to greet them. Here again were
• 2:09:40
  Speaker 1: shadows on the window blind of guests assembling, and there
• 2:09:44
  Speaker 1: a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur booted
• 2:09:48
  Speaker 1: and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some
• 2:09:51
  Speaker 1: near neighbor's house, where woe upon the single men who
• 2:09:55
  Speaker 1: saw them enter artful witches, well, they knew it in
• 2:09:59
  Speaker 1: a But if you had judged from the numbers of
• 2:10:03
  Speaker 1: people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have
• 2:10:06
  Speaker 1: thought that no one was at home to give them
• 2:10:08
  Speaker 1: welcome when they got there, instead of every house expecting
• 2:10:12
  Speaker 1: company and piling up its fires half chimney high, blessings
• 2:10:18
  Speaker 1: on it. How the ghost exulted, how it bared its
• 2:10:22
  Speaker 1: breadth of breasts, and opened its capacious palm, and floated
• 2:10:26
  Speaker 1: on out, pouring with a generous hand its bright and
• 2:10:30
  Speaker 1: harmless mirth on everything within its reach. The very lamp lighter,
• 2:10:35
  Speaker 1: who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks
• 2:10:39
  Speaker 1: of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere,
• 2:10:42
  Speaker 1: laughed out loudly. As the spirit passed. The little canned
• 2:10:47
  Speaker 1: the lamp lighter that he had any company but Christmas.
• 2:10:52
  Speaker 1: And now, without a word of warning from the ghost,
• 2:10:55
  Speaker 1: they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monster
• 2:11:00
  Speaker 1: masses of rude stone were cast about as though it
• 2:11:03
  Speaker 1: were the burial place of giants, and waters spread itself
• 2:11:07
  Speaker 1: wheresoever it listed, or would have done so, but for
• 2:11:11
  Speaker 1: the frost that held it prisoner, and nothing grew but
• 2:11:15
  Speaker 1: moss and furs and coarse rank grass. Down in the west,
• 2:11:21
  Speaker 1: the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red,
• 2:11:24
  Speaker 1: which glared upon the desolation for an instant like a
• 2:11:27
  Speaker 1: sullen eye, and frowning lower lower lower. Yet was lost
• 2:11:33
  Speaker 1: in the thick gloom of darkest night. What place is this,
• 2:11:39
  Speaker 1: asked Scrooge. A place where miners live, who labor in
• 2:11:44
  Speaker 1: the bowels of the earth, returned the spirit, But they
• 2:11:48
  Speaker 1: know me. See a light shone from the window of
• 2:11:53
  Speaker 1: a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through
• 2:11:58
  Speaker 1: the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful
• 2:12:01
  Speaker 1: company assembled roun a glowing fire, an old old man
• 2:12:06
  Speaker 1: and woman with their children, and their children's children, and
• 2:12:10
  Speaker 1: another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their
• 2:12:14
  Speaker 1: holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom
• 2:12:18
  Speaker 1: rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste,
• 2:12:22
  Speaker 1: was singing them a Christmas song. It had been a
• 2:12:25
  Speaker 1: very old song when he was a boy, and from
• 2:12:28
  Speaker 1: time to time they all joined in the chorus. So
• 2:12:32
  Speaker 1: surely as they raised their voices, the old man got
• 2:12:35
  Speaker 1: quite blithed and loud, and so surely as they stopped,
• 2:12:40
  Speaker 1: his vigor sank again. The spirit did not tarry here,
• 2:12:45
  Speaker 1: but bad Scrooge holed his robe, and, passing on above
• 2:12:48
  Speaker 1: the moor, sped wh her not to see to sea.
• 2:12:55
  Speaker 1: To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of
• 2:12:59
  Speaker 1: the land, a frightful range of rocks behind them, and
• 2:13:03
  Speaker 1: his ears were deafened by the thundering of water as
• 2:13:06
  Speaker 1: it rolled and roared and raged among the dreadful caverns
• 2:13:10
  Speaker 1: it had worn and fiercely tried to undermine. The earth.
• 2:13:15
  Speaker 1: Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league
• 2:13:19
  Speaker 1: or so from shore, on which the water's chafed had
• 2:13:22
  Speaker 1: dashed the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.
• 2:13:28
  Speaker 1: Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm birds,
• 2:13:33
  Speaker 1: born of the wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of
• 2:13:36
  Speaker 1: the water rose and fell about it like the waves
• 2:13:40
  Speaker 1: they skimmed. But even here two men who watched the
• 2:13:44
  Speaker 1: light had made a fire that, through the loop hole
• 2:13:47
  Speaker 1: in the thick stone wall, shed out a ray of
• 2:13:50
  Speaker 1: brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over
• 2:13:55
  Speaker 1: the rough table at which they sat they wished each
• 2:13:57
  Speaker 1: other Merry Christmas in their cair of grog, and one
• 2:14:02
  Speaker 1: of them, the elder, too, with his face all damaged
• 2:14:05
  Speaker 1: and scarred with hard weather, as the figurehead of an
• 2:14:08
  Speaker 1: old ship might be, struck up a sturdy song that
• 2:14:12
  Speaker 1: was like a gale in itself. Again, the ghosts sped
• 2:14:17
  Speaker 1: on above the black and heaving sea, on on, until
• 2:14:23
  Speaker 1: being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore
• 2:14:27
  Speaker 1: they lighted on a ship. They stood beside, the helmsman
• 2:14:31
  Speaker 1: at the wheel, the look out in the bow, the
• 2:14:34
  Speaker 1: officers who had the watch dark ghostly figures in their
• 2:14:39
  Speaker 1: several stations, But every man among them hummed a Christmas tune,
• 2:14:44
  Speaker 1: or had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath
• 2:14:47
  Speaker 1: to his companion of some by gone Christmas day, with
• 2:14:51
  Speaker 1: homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board,
• 2:14:55
  Speaker 1: waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder
• 2:15:00
  Speaker 1: word for another on that day than on any day
• 2:15:02
  Speaker 1: in the year, and had shared to some extent in
• 2:15:05
  Speaker 1: its festivities, and had remembered those he cared for at
• 2:15:09
  Speaker 1: a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him.
• 2:15:14
  Speaker 1: It was a great surprise to Scrooge while listening to
• 2:15:18
  Speaker 1: the moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn
• 2:15:21
  Speaker 1: thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness
• 2:15:23
  Speaker 1: over an unknown abyss whose depths were secrets as profound
• 2:15:27
  Speaker 1: as death. It was a great surprise to Scrooge while
• 2:15:31
  Speaker 1: thus engaged, to hear a hearty laugh. It was a
• 2:15:35
  Speaker 1: much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize it as his
• 2:15:40
  Speaker 1: own nephews, and to find himself in a bright, dry,
• 2:15:44
  Speaker 1: gleaming room with a spirit standing smiling by his side,
• 2:15:49
  Speaker 1: and looking at that same nephew with approving affability. Ha
• 2:15:54
  Speaker 1: ha ha, laughed Scrooge's nephew. Ha ha ha. If you
• 2:16:01
  Speaker 1: should happen, by any unlikely chance to know a man
• 2:16:04
  Speaker 1: more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I
• 2:16:07
  Speaker 1: can say is I should like to know him too.
• 2:16:11
  Speaker 1: Introduce him to me, and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. It
• 2:16:16
  Speaker 1: is a fair, even handed, noble adjustment of things, that
• 2:16:20
  Speaker 1: while there is infection and disease and sorrow, there is
• 2:16:24
  Speaker 1: nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and
• 2:16:28
  Speaker 1: good humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in his way, holding
• 2:16:33
  Speaker 1: his sides, rolling his head and twisting his face into
• 2:16:37
  Speaker 1: the most extravagant contortions. Scrooge's niece by marriage laughed as
• 2:16:43
  Speaker 1: heartily as he, and their assembled friends, being not a
• 2:16:47
  Speaker 1: bit behind hand, roared out lustily. Ha ha ha. He
• 2:16:55
  Speaker 1: said that Christmas was a humbug as I live, cried
• 2:16:58
  Speaker 1: Scrooge's nephew. He believed it too. More shame for him,
• 2:17:03
  Speaker 1: Fred said Scrooge's niece indignantly. Bless those women. They never
• 2:17:09
  Speaker 1: do anything by halves. They are always in earnest. She
• 2:17:14
  Speaker 1: was very pretty, exceedingly pretty, with a dimpled, surprised looking
• 2:17:19
  Speaker 1: capital face, a ripe little mouth that seemed made to
• 2:17:23
  Speaker 1: be kissed as no doubt, it was all kinds of
• 2:17:27
  Speaker 1: good little dots about her chin that melted into one
• 2:17:30
  Speaker 1: another when she laughed, and the sunniest pair of eyes
• 2:17:34
  Speaker 1: you ever saw at any little creature's head. Altogether, she
• 2:17:38
  Speaker 1: was what you would have called provoking, you know, but
• 2:17:41
  Speaker 1: satisfactory too, Oh, perfectly satisfactory. He's a comical old fellow,
• 2:17:49
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge's nephew. That's the truth. The not so pleasant
• 2:17:53
  Speaker 1: as he might be, however, his offenses carry their own punishment,
• 2:17:58
  Speaker 1: And I have nothing to say say against him. I'm
• 2:18:02
  Speaker 1: sure he's very rich, Fred hinted Scrooge's niece. At least
• 2:18:06
  Speaker 1: you always tell me so. What of that, my dear,
• 2:18:10
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge's nephew. His wealth is of no use to him.
• 2:18:14
  Speaker 1: He don't do any good with it. He don't make
• 2:18:16
  Speaker 1: himself comfortable with it. Beers to the satisfaction of thinking
• 2:18:21
  Speaker 1: that he is ever going to benefit us with it.
• 2:18:25
  Speaker 1: I have no patience with him, observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's
• 2:18:30
  Speaker 1: niece's sisters and all the other ladies expressed the same opinion. Oh,
• 2:18:36
  Speaker 1: I have said Scrooge's nephew. I am sorry for him.
• 2:18:42
  Speaker 1: I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who
• 2:18:45
  Speaker 1: suffers by his ill whims himself always pier He takes
• 2:18:51
  Speaker 1: it into his head to dislike us, and he won't
• 2:18:54
  Speaker 1: come and dine with us. What's the consequence. He don't
• 2:18:57
  Speaker 1: lose much of a dinner, And indeed, I think he
• 2:19:01
  Speaker 1: loses a very good dinner, interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else
• 2:19:05
  Speaker 1: said the same, And they must be allowed to have
• 2:19:08
  Speaker 1: been competent judges, because they had just had dinner and
• 2:19:13
  Speaker 1: with the dessert upon the table were clustered round the
• 2:19:16
  Speaker 1: fire by lamplight. Well, I'm very glad to hear it,
• 2:19:21
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge's nephew, because I haven't great faith in these
• 2:19:25
  Speaker 1: young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper? Topper had clearly
• 2:19:31
  Speaker 1: got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for
• 2:19:35
  Speaker 1: he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast who
• 2:19:39
  Speaker 1: had no right to express an opinion on the subject.
• 2:19:43
  Speaker 1: Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister, the plump one with the lace tucker,
• 2:19:48
  Speaker 1: not the one with the roses blushed. Do go on, fred,
• 2:19:53
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. He never finishes what
• 2:19:57
  Speaker 1: he begins to say. He is such a ridiculous fellow,
• 2:20:02
  Speaker 1: Scrooge's nephew reveled in another laugh, and as it was
• 2:20:06
  Speaker 1: impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister
• 2:20:10
  Speaker 1: tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example
• 2:20:13
  Speaker 1: was unanimously followed. I was only going to say, said
• 2:20:19
  Speaker 1: Scrooge's nephew, that the consequence of his taking a dislike
• 2:20:23
  Speaker 1: to us and not making merry with us is I
• 2:20:26
  Speaker 1: think that he loses some pleasant moments which could do
• 2:20:30
  Speaker 1: him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions
• 2:20:34
  Speaker 1: that he can find in his own thoughts, either in
• 2:20:37
  Speaker 1: his moldy old office or his dusty chambers. I mean
• 2:20:42
  Speaker 1: to give him the same chance every year, whether he
• 2:20:46
  Speaker 1: likes it or not, for I pity him. He may
• 2:20:49
  Speaker 1: rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help
• 2:20:53
  Speaker 1: thinking better of it. I defy him if he finds
• 2:20:57
  Speaker 1: me going there in good temper ye after year and saying,
• 2:21:02
  Speaker 1: Uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him
• 2:21:06
  Speaker 1: in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds?
• 2:21:09
  Speaker 1: That's something, And I think I shook him yesterday. It
• 2:21:14
  Speaker 1: was their turn to laugh now at the notion of
• 2:21:16
  Speaker 1: his shaking Scrooge, But being thoroughly good natured and not
• 2:21:21
  Speaker 1: much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed
• 2:21:24
  Speaker 1: at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment and
• 2:21:28
  Speaker 1: passed the bottle joyously. After tea they had some music,
• 2:21:34
  Speaker 1: for they were a very musical family and knew what
• 2:21:37
  Speaker 1: they were about when they sang a glee or catch.
• 2:21:40
  Speaker 1: I can assure you, especially Topper, who would growl away
• 2:21:45
  Speaker 1: in the bass like a good one and never swell
• 2:21:48
  Speaker 1: the large veins in his forehead or get red in
• 2:21:50
  Speaker 1: the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp,
• 2:21:55
  Speaker 1: and played, among other tunes, a simple little air, a
• 2:21:59
  Speaker 1: mere nothing. He might learn to whistle it in two minutes,
• 2:22:02
  Speaker 1: which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge
• 2:22:05
  Speaker 1: from the boarding school, as he had been reminded by
• 2:22:08
  Speaker 1: the ghost of Christmas past. When this strain of music sounded,
• 2:22:13
  Speaker 1: all the things that ghost had shown him came upon
• 2:22:16
  Speaker 1: his mind. He softened more and more, and thought that
• 2:22:21
  Speaker 1: if he could have listened to it often years ago,
• 2:22:24
  Speaker 1: he might have cultivated the kindnesses of life for his
• 2:22:27
  Speaker 1: own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the
• 2:22:32
  Speaker 1: sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley. But they didn't devote
• 2:22:37
  Speaker 1: the whole evening to music. After a while, they played
• 2:22:41
  Speaker 1: at forfeits. For it is good to be children sometimes,
• 2:22:44
  Speaker 1: and never better than Christmas, when its mighty founder was
• 2:22:48
  Speaker 1: a child himself. Stop there was first a game at
• 2:22:53
  Speaker 1: blind Man's Bluff, of course there was, And I no
• 2:22:57
  Speaker 1: more belief Topper was really blind, and I believe he
• 2:23:00
  Speaker 1: had eyes in his boots. My opinion is that it
• 2:23:05
  Speaker 1: was a done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew, and
• 2:23:09
  Speaker 1: that the ghost of Christmas present knew it. The way
• 2:23:12
  Speaker 1: he went after that plump sister in the lace Tucker
• 2:23:15
  Speaker 1: was an outrage on the credulity of human nature, knocking
• 2:23:20
  Speaker 1: down the fire irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against
• 2:23:24
  Speaker 1: the piano, smothering himself among the curtains. Wherever she went,
• 2:23:29
  Speaker 1: there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was.
• 2:23:34
  Speaker 1: He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up
• 2:23:37
  Speaker 1: against him, as some of them did on purpose, he
• 2:23:41
  Speaker 1: would have made a feint of endeavoring to seize you,
• 2:23:44
  Speaker 1: which would have been an affront to your understanding, and
• 2:23:48
  Speaker 1: would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the
• 2:23:50
  Speaker 1: plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair,
• 2:23:55
  Speaker 1: and it really was not. But when at last he
• 2:23:59
  Speaker 1: caught her, when in spite of all her silken rustlings
• 2:24:03
  Speaker 1: and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into
• 2:24:06
  Speaker 1: a corner whence there was no escape, then his conduct
• 2:24:10
  Speaker 1: was the most execrable, for his pretending not to know her,
• 2:24:15
  Speaker 1: his pretending that it was necessary to touch her head dress,
• 2:24:19
  Speaker 1: and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing
• 2:24:22
  Speaker 1: a certain ring upon her finger and a certain chain
• 2:24:26
  Speaker 1: about her neck was vile, monstrous, no doubt, she told
• 2:24:32
  Speaker 1: him her opinion of it. When another blind man being
• 2:24:36
  Speaker 1: in office, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains.
• 2:24:42
  Speaker 1: Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind man's buff party,
• 2:24:47
  Speaker 1: but was made comfortable with a large chair and a
• 2:24:49
  Speaker 1: footstool in a snug corner, where the ghost and Scrooge
• 2:24:53
  Speaker 1: were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits
• 2:24:57
  Speaker 1: and loved her love to admiration with all the letters
• 2:25:01
  Speaker 1: of the alphabet. Likewise, at the game of how, when
• 2:25:04
  Speaker 1: and where, she was very great, and to the secret
• 2:25:08
  Speaker 1: joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sister's hollow. Though they
• 2:25:12
  Speaker 1: were sharp girls too, As Topper could have told you,
• 2:25:17
  Speaker 1: there might have been twenty people there, young and old,
• 2:25:20
  Speaker 1: but they all played, and so did Scrooge, for wholly
• 2:25:24
  Speaker 1: forgetting in the interest he had in what was going on,
• 2:25:27
  Speaker 1: that his voice made no sound in their ears. He
• 2:25:30
  Speaker 1: sometimes came out with his guests quite loud, and very
• 2:25:34
  Speaker 1: often guessed quite right too, For the sharpest needle best
• 2:25:39
  Speaker 1: Whitechapel warranted not to cut in the eye. Was not
• 2:25:42
  Speaker 1: sharper than Scrooge blunt, as he took it in his
• 2:25:46
  Speaker 1: head to be. The ghost was greatly pleased to find
• 2:25:51
  Speaker 1: him in this mood, and looked upon him with such
• 2:25:54
  Speaker 1: favor that he begged like a boy to be allowed
• 2:25:57
  Speaker 1: to stay until the guests departed. But this, the spirit said,
• 2:26:02
  Speaker 1: could not be done. Here is a new game, said Scrooge,
• 2:26:06
  Speaker 1: oh one half hour, spirit, only one. It was a
• 2:26:13
  Speaker 1: game called yes and no, where Scrooge's nephew had to
• 2:26:17
  Speaker 1: think of something and the rest must find out what
• 2:26:20
  Speaker 1: he only answering to their questions yes or no, As
• 2:26:24
  Speaker 1: the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which
• 2:26:28
  Speaker 1: he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking
• 2:26:31
  Speaker 1: of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal,
• 2:26:37
  Speaker 1: a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes,
• 2:26:42
  Speaker 1: and talked sometimes, and lived in London, and walked about
• 2:26:46
  Speaker 1: the streets, and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't
• 2:26:49
  Speaker 1: led by anybody, and didn't live in the menagerie, and
• 2:26:53
  Speaker 1: was never killed in a market, and was not a
• 2:26:55
  Speaker 1: horse or an ass, or a cow or a bull
• 2:26:58
  Speaker 1: or a tiger or a dog, or a pig, or
• 2:27:01
  Speaker 1: a cat or a bear. At every fresh question that
• 2:27:06
  Speaker 1: was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh
• 2:27:09
  Speaker 1: roar of laughter, and was so inexpressibly tickled that he
• 2:27:13
  Speaker 1: was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp.
• 2:27:18
  Speaker 1: At last, the plump sister, falling into a similar state,
• 2:27:22
  Speaker 1: cried out, Ah, I have found it. I know what
• 2:27:27
  Speaker 1: it is, Fred, I know what it is. What is it?
• 2:27:31
  Speaker 1: Cried Fred? It's your uncle Screwge, which it certainly was.
• 2:27:41
  Speaker 1: Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the
• 2:27:45
  Speaker 1: reply to is it a bear ought to have been yes,
• 2:27:50
  Speaker 1: inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to
• 2:27:53
  Speaker 1: have diverted their thoughts from mister Scrooge, supposing they had
• 2:27:57
  Speaker 1: ever had any tendency that way. He has given us
• 2:28:01
  Speaker 1: plenty of merriment, I am sure, said Fred, And it
• 2:28:05
  Speaker 1: would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is
• 2:28:09
  Speaker 1: a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at
• 2:28:12
  Speaker 1: the moment, and I say, Uncle Scrooge, Well, Uncle Scrooge.
• 2:28:19
  Speaker 1: They cried. A Merry Christmas and a happy New Year
• 2:28:23
  Speaker 1: to the old man, whatever he is, said Scrooge's nephew.
• 2:28:27
  Speaker 1: He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have
• 2:28:30
  Speaker 1: it nevertheless, Uncle Scrooge. Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so
• 2:28:37
  Speaker 1: gay in light of heart, that he would have pledged
• 2:28:40
  Speaker 1: the unconscious company in return and thanked them in an
• 2:28:44
  Speaker 1: inaudible speech if ghost had given him time. But the
• 2:28:49
  Speaker 1: whole scene passed off in the breath of the last
• 2:28:51
  Speaker 1: words spoken by his nephew, and he and the Spirit
• 2:28:55
  Speaker 1: were again upon their travels. Much they saw, ah and
• 2:29:00
  Speaker 1: far they went, and many homes they visited, but always
• 2:29:05
  Speaker 1: with a happy end. The Spirit stood beside sick beds,
• 2:29:09
  Speaker 1: and they were cheerful on foreign lands, and they were
• 2:29:12
  Speaker 1: close at home by struggling men, and they were patient
• 2:29:16
  Speaker 1: in their greatest hope by poverty. And it was rich
• 2:29:21
  Speaker 1: in almshouse, hospital, and jail, in miseries, every refuge where
• 2:29:26
  Speaker 1: vain man and his little brief authority had not made
• 2:29:30
  Speaker 1: fast the door and barred the Spirit out. He left
• 2:29:33
  Speaker 1: his blessing and taught Scrooge his precepts. It was a
• 2:29:38
  Speaker 1: long night if it were only a night. But Scrooge
• 2:29:41
  Speaker 1: had his dots of this, because the Christmas holidays appeared
• 2:29:45
  Speaker 1: to be condensed into the space of time they passed together.
• 2:29:49
  Speaker 1: It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in
• 2:29:53
  Speaker 1: his outward form, the ghosts grew older, clearly older. Scrooge
• 2:29:59
  Speaker 1: had absor deved this change, but never spoke of it
• 2:30:02
  Speaker 1: until they left the children's twelfth night party. When looking
• 2:30:07
  Speaker 1: at the spirit as they stood together in an open place,
• 2:30:10
  Speaker 1: he noticed that his hair was gray. Ah, spirits lives
• 2:30:15
  Speaker 1: so short, asked Scrooge. My life upon this globe is
• 2:30:22
  Speaker 1: very brief, replied the ghost. It ends tonight. Tonight, cried Scrooge,
• 2:30:30
  Speaker 1: tonight at midnight. Hark, the time is drawing near. The
• 2:30:37
  Speaker 1: chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at that moment.
• 2:30:42
  Speaker 1: Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,
• 2:30:46
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, looking intently at the spirit's robe. But I
• 2:30:50
  Speaker 1: see something strange and not belonging to yourself protruding from
• 2:30:56
  Speaker 1: your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw? It
• 2:31:01
  Speaker 1: might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,
• 2:31:05
  Speaker 1: said the spirit's sorrowful reply. Look here from the foldings
• 2:31:11
  Speaker 1: of its robe. It brought two children, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable.
• 2:31:19
  Speaker 1: They knelt down at his feet and clung upon the
• 2:31:22
  Speaker 1: outside of his garment. Oh man, look here, look, look
• 2:31:30
  Speaker 1: down here, exclaimed the ghost. They were a boy and
• 2:31:36
  Speaker 1: a girl, yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but prostrate too
• 2:31:43
  Speaker 1: in their humility. Where graceful youth should have filled their
• 2:31:47
  Speaker 1: features out and touched them with its freshest tints, a
• 2:31:51
  Speaker 1: stale and shriveled hand like that of age had pinched
• 2:31:55
  Speaker 1: and twisted them, and pulled them into shreds. Where angels
• 2:32:00
  Speaker 1: might have sat enthroned, devils lurked and glared out menacing
• 2:32:06
  Speaker 1: no change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade,
• 2:32:12
  Speaker 1: through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, as monsters half
• 2:32:17
  Speaker 1: so horrible and dread Scrooge started back, appalled having them
• 2:32:23
  Speaker 1: shown to him in this way. He tried to say
• 2:32:26
  Speaker 1: they were fine children, but the words choked themselves. Rather
• 2:32:31
  Speaker 1: than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude, Spirit,
• 2:32:38
  Speaker 1: are they yours? Scrooge could say no more. They are mans,
• 2:32:46
  Speaker 1: said the spirit, looking down upon them, and they cling
• 2:32:50
  Speaker 1: to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is ignorance,
• 2:32:56
  Speaker 1: this girl is wont there them both and all of
• 2:33:02
  Speaker 1: their degree. But most of all, beware this boy, for
• 2:33:08
  Speaker 1: on his brow I see that written witch is doom
• 2:33:13
  Speaker 1: unless the writing be erased. Good Night, cried the spirit,
• 2:33:19
  Speaker 1: stretching out his hand towards the city. Slander those who
• 2:33:23
  Speaker 1: tell it, Ye, admit it for your factious purposes. I'd
• 2:33:28
  Speaker 1: make it worse and bide the end. Have you no
• 2:33:34
  Speaker 1: refuge or resource, cried Scrooge, Ah, there no prisons, said
• 2:33:42
  Speaker 1: the spirit, turning on him for the last time with
• 2:33:46
  Speaker 1: his own words, Ah, there no workhouses. The bell struck twelve.
• 2:33:55
  Speaker 1: Scrooge looked about him for the ghosts, and saw it not.
• 2:33:59
  Speaker 1: As the lad duststroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the
• 2:34:03
  Speaker 1: prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes,
• 2:34:07
  Speaker 1: beheld a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a
• 2:34:12
  Speaker 1: mist along the ground towards him. End of Stave three,
• 2:34:20
  Speaker 1: Stave four, the last of the spirits. The phantom slowly, gravely,
• 2:34:29
  Speaker 1: sledly approached. When it came near him, Scrooge bent down
• 2:34:34
  Speaker 1: upon his knee, for in the very air through which
• 2:34:37
  Speaker 1: this spirit moved it seemed to scatter gloom and mystery.
• 2:34:43
  Speaker 1: It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed
• 2:34:47
  Speaker 1: its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of
• 2:34:51
  Speaker 1: it visible save one outstretched hand. But for this it
• 2:34:56
  Speaker 1: would have been difficult to detach its figure from the
• 2:34:58
  Speaker 1: night and separate from the darkness by which it was surrounded.
• 2:35:03
  Speaker 1: He felt that it was tall and stately when it
• 2:35:06
  Speaker 1: came beside him, and that its mysterious presence filled him
• 2:35:10
  Speaker 1: with a solemn dread. He knew no more, for the
• 2:35:14
  Speaker 1: Spirit neither spoke nor moved. I am in the presence
• 2:35:19
  Speaker 1: of the ghosts of Christmas yet to come, said Scrooge.
• 2:35:24
  Speaker 1: The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its hand.
• 2:35:29
  Speaker 1: You are about to show me shadows of the things
• 2:35:33
  Speaker 1: that have not happened, but will happen in the time
• 2:35:36
  Speaker 1: before us. Scrooge pursued, Is that so, spirit, The upper
• 2:35:42
  Speaker 1: portion of the garment was contracted for an instant in
• 2:35:45
  Speaker 1: its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head.
• 2:35:50
  Speaker 1: That was the only answer he received. Although well used
• 2:35:55
  Speaker 1: to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent
• 2:35:59
  Speaker 1: shapes so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and
• 2:36:03
  Speaker 1: he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared
• 2:36:06
  Speaker 1: to follow it. The spirit paused a moment, as observing
• 2:36:11
  Speaker 1: his condition and giving him time to recover. But Scrooge
• 2:36:15
  Speaker 1: was all the worse for this. It thrilled him with
• 2:36:19
  Speaker 1: a vague, uncertain horror to know that behind that dusky
• 2:36:23
  Speaker 1: shroud there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon him, while he,
• 2:36:28
  Speaker 1: though he stretched his own to the utmost could see
• 2:36:31
  Speaker 1: nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap of
• 2:36:35
  Speaker 1: black ghost of the future. He exclaimed, I fear you
• 2:36:42
  Speaker 1: are more than any specter I have seen. But as
• 2:36:45
  Speaker 1: I know your purpose is to do me good, and
• 2:36:48
  Speaker 1: as I hope to live to be another man from
• 2:36:51
  Speaker 1: what I was, I am prepared to bear you company
• 2:36:55
  Speaker 1: and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not
• 2:37:00
  Speaker 1: speak to me? It gave him no reply. The hand
• 2:37:06
  Speaker 1: was pointed straight before them. Lead on, said Scrooge. Lead on.
• 2:37:13
  Speaker 1: The night is waning fast, and it is precious time
• 2:37:17
  Speaker 1: to me, I know, Lead on, Spirit. The phantom moved
• 2:37:23
  Speaker 1: away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in
• 2:37:27
  Speaker 1: the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought,
• 2:37:30
  Speaker 1: and carried him along. They scarcely seemed to enter the city,
• 2:37:36
  Speaker 1: for the city rather seemed to spring up about them
• 2:37:39
  Speaker 1: and encompass them as its own act. And there they
• 2:37:44
  Speaker 1: were in the heart of it, on change amongst the merchants,
• 2:37:48
  Speaker 1: who hurried up and down and chinked the money in
• 2:37:51
  Speaker 1: their pockets, and conversed in groups, and looked at their watches,
• 2:37:55
  Speaker 1: and trifled thoughtfully with their great gold seals, and so forth,
• 2:38:00
  Speaker 1: as Scrooge had seen them. Often, the Spirit stopped beside
• 2:38:05
  Speaker 1: one little knot of business men. Observing that the hand
• 2:38:09
  Speaker 1: was pointed to them, Scrooge advanced to listen to their talk. No,
• 2:38:15
  Speaker 1: said a great fat man with a monstrous chin. I
• 2:38:18
  Speaker 1: don't know much about it either way. I only know
• 2:38:22
  Speaker 1: he's dead. When did he die? Inquired another last night?
• 2:38:28
  Speaker 1: I believe why? What was the matter with him? Asked
• 2:38:32
  Speaker 1: a third, taking a vast quantity of snuff out of
• 2:38:35
  Speaker 1: a very large snuff box. I thought he'd never die,
• 2:38:40
  Speaker 1: God knows, said the first, with a yawn. What has
• 2:38:45
  Speaker 1: he done with his money? Asked a red faced gentleman
• 2:38:49
  Speaker 1: with a pendulous execrecence on the end of his nose
• 2:38:52
  Speaker 1: that shook like the gills of a turkey cock. I
• 2:38:56
  Speaker 1: haven't heard, said the man with a large chin, yawning again.
• 2:39:00
  Speaker 1: Left it to his company. Perhaps he hasn't left it
• 2:39:03
  Speaker 1: to me, that's all I know. The pleasantry was received
• 2:39:08
  Speaker 1: with a general laugh. It's likely to be a very
• 2:39:12
  Speaker 1: cheap funeral, said the same speaker. For upon my life,
• 2:39:17
  Speaker 1: I don't know of anybody to go to it. Suppose
• 2:39:20
  Speaker 1: we make up a party and volunteer. I don't mind
• 2:39:24
  Speaker 1: going if a lunch is provided, observed the gentleman with
• 2:39:29
  Speaker 1: the execrescence on his nose. But I must be fed
• 2:39:33
  Speaker 1: if I make one another laugh. Well, I am the
• 2:39:39
  Speaker 1: most disinterested among you, after all, said the first speaker.
• 2:39:44
  Speaker 1: For I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch.
• 2:39:48
  Speaker 1: But I'll offer to go if anybody else will. When
• 2:39:52
  Speaker 1: I come to think of it, I'm not at all
• 2:39:54
  Speaker 1: sure that I wasn't his most particular friend, for we
• 2:39:58
  Speaker 1: used to stop and speak when I we met. Bye
• 2:40:02
  Speaker 1: bye speakers and listeners strolled away and mixed with other groups.
• 2:40:09
  Speaker 1: Scrooge knew the men and looked towards the spirit for
• 2:40:12
  Speaker 1: an explanation. The phantom glided on into a street. His
• 2:40:17
  Speaker 1: finger pointed to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking
• 2:40:23
  Speaker 1: that the explanation might lie here. He knew these men
• 2:40:27
  Speaker 1: also perfectly. They were men of business, very wealthy, and
• 2:40:32
  Speaker 1: of great importance. He had made a point always of
• 2:40:35
  Speaker 1: standing well in their esteem in a business point of view,
• 2:40:39
  Speaker 1: that is, strictly in a business point of view. How
• 2:40:44
  Speaker 1: are you, said one? How are you returned? The other?
• 2:40:48
  Speaker 1: Well said the first old scratch has got his own
• 2:40:52
  Speaker 1: at last? Eh so I am told returned the second cold.
• 2:40:57
  Speaker 1: Isn't it seasonable for Christmas time? You're not a skater?
• 2:41:02
  Speaker 1: I suppose, no, no, something else to think of? Good morning,
• 2:41:08
  Speaker 1: not another word. That was their meeting, their conversation, and
• 2:41:13
  Speaker 1: their parting. Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised
• 2:41:18
  Speaker 1: that the spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial,
• 2:41:23
  Speaker 1: But feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose,
• 2:41:27
  Speaker 1: he set himself to consider what it was likely to be.
• 2:41:31
  Speaker 1: They would scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on
• 2:41:34
  Speaker 1: the death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was past,
• 2:41:37
  Speaker 1: and this ghost's province was the future. Nor could he
• 2:41:41
  Speaker 1: think of anyone immediately connected with himself to whom he
• 2:41:45
  Speaker 1: could apply them, but nothing doubting that to whomsoever they applied,
• 2:41:50
  Speaker 1: they had some latent moral For his own improvement. He
• 2:41:54
  Speaker 1: resolved to treasure up every word he heard and everything
• 2:41:58
  Speaker 1: he saw, vicly to observe the shadow of himself when
• 2:42:02
  Speaker 1: it appeared, for he had an expectation that the conduct
• 2:42:06
  Speaker 1: of his future self would give him the clue he missed,
• 2:42:10
  Speaker 1: and would render the solution of these riddles easy. He
• 2:42:15
  Speaker 1: looked about in that very place for his own image.
• 2:42:19
  Speaker 1: But another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though
• 2:42:22
  Speaker 1: the clock pointed to his usual time of day, for
• 2:42:25
  Speaker 1: being there, he saw no likeness of himself among the
• 2:42:29
  Speaker 1: multitudes that poured in through the porch. It gave him
• 2:42:33
  Speaker 1: little surprise, however, for he had been revolving in his
• 2:42:37
  Speaker 1: mind a change of life and thought, and hoped he
• 2:42:40
  Speaker 1: saw his new born resolutions carried out in this quiet
• 2:42:47
  Speaker 1: and dark Beside him stood the phantom with his outstretched hand.
• 2:42:53
  Speaker 1: When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest, he fancied
• 2:42:57
  Speaker 1: from the turn of the hand and its situation in
• 2:42:59
  Speaker 1: reference to himself, that the unseen eyes were looking at
• 2:43:03
  Speaker 1: him keenly. It made him shudder and feel very old.
• 2:43:10
  Speaker 1: They left the busy scene and went into an obscure
• 2:43:13
  Speaker 1: part of the town where Scrooge had never penetrated before,
• 2:43:17
  Speaker 1: although he recognized its situation and its bad repute. The
• 2:43:22
  Speaker 1: ways were foul and narrow, the shops and houses wretched,
• 2:43:27
  Speaker 1: the people half naked, drunken, slipshod, Ugly alleys and archways,
• 2:43:34
  Speaker 1: like so many cesspools, disgorged their offenses of smell and
• 2:43:38
  Speaker 1: dirt and life upon the straggling streets, and the whole
• 2:43:43
  Speaker 1: quarter reeked with crime, with filth and misery. Far in
• 2:43:48
  Speaker 1: this den of infamous resort, there was a low browed
• 2:43:52
  Speaker 1: beetling shop below a penthouse roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones,
• 2:43:59
  Speaker 1: and greasy off were brought upon the floor. Within were
• 2:44:04
  Speaker 1: piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights,
• 2:44:11
  Speaker 1: and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets that few would
• 2:44:16
  Speaker 1: like to scrutinize were bred and hidden in mountains of
• 2:44:19
  Speaker 1: unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchers of bones.
• 2:44:25
  Speaker 1: Sitting in among the wares, he dealt in by a
• 2:44:29
  Speaker 1: charcoal stove made of old bricks, with a gray haired
• 2:44:33
  Speaker 1: rascal nearly seventy years of age, who had screened himself
• 2:44:37
  Speaker 1: from the cold air without by a frowsy curtaining of
• 2:44:41
  Speaker 1: miscellaneous tatters, hung upon a line, and smoked his pipe
• 2:44:46
  Speaker 1: in all the luxury of calm retirement. Scrooge and the
• 2:44:52
  Speaker 1: Phantom came into the presence of this man just as
• 2:44:55
  Speaker 1: a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop.
• 2:44:59
  Speaker 1: But she had scarcely entered when another woman similarly laden
• 2:45:04
  Speaker 1: came in too, and she was closely followed by a
• 2:45:08
  Speaker 1: man in faded black, who was no less startled by
• 2:45:11
  Speaker 1: the sight of them than they had been upon the
• 2:45:14
  Speaker 1: recognition of each other. After a short period of blank astonishment,
• 2:45:19
  Speaker 1: in which the old man with the pipe had joined them,
• 2:45:22
  Speaker 1: they all three burst into a laugh. Let the charwoman
• 2:45:30
  Speaker 1: obey the first, cried she who had entered first. Let
• 2:45:34
  Speaker 1: the laundress alade be the second, and let the undertaker's
• 2:45:38
  Speaker 1: man alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe,
• 2:45:43
  Speaker 1: here's a chance. If we haven't all three met here
• 2:45:46
  Speaker 1: without meaning it, you couldn't have met in a better place,
• 2:45:51
  Speaker 1: said old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. Calm
• 2:45:55
  Speaker 1: into the parlor. You were made free of it long ago,
• 2:46:00
  Speaker 1: you know. And the other two ain't strangers. Stop till
• 2:46:04
  Speaker 1: I shut the door the shop. Ah, how it screaks.
• 2:46:09
  Speaker 1: There ain't such a rusty bit of metal in the
• 2:46:12
  Speaker 1: place as its own inges, I believe, And I'm sure
• 2:46:16
  Speaker 1: there's no such old bones here as mine. We're all
• 2:46:22
  Speaker 1: suitable to our calling. We're well matched. Come into the
• 2:46:27
  Speaker 1: parnor come into the parlor. The parlor was the space
• 2:46:33
  Speaker 1: between the screen of rags. The old man raked the
• 2:46:37
  Speaker 1: fire together with an old stair rod, and, having trimmed
• 2:46:41
  Speaker 1: his smoky lamp for it was night, with the stem
• 2:46:44
  Speaker 1: of his pipe, put it in his mouth again. While
• 2:46:49
  Speaker 1: he did this, the woman, who had already spoken, threw
• 2:46:52
  Speaker 1: her bundle on the floor and sat down in a
• 2:46:55
  Speaker 1: flaunting manner on a stool, crossing her elbows on her knees,
• 2:46:59
  Speaker 1: and looking for bold defiance of the other two. What oddstan?
• 2:47:05
  Speaker 1: What odd's? Missus Dilber, said the woman. Every person has
• 2:47:10
  Speaker 1: a right to take care of themselves. He always did.
• 2:47:14
  Speaker 1: That's true, indeed, said the laundress. No man, more so,
• 2:47:19
  Speaker 1: why then, don't stand staring as if he was afraid? Woman,
• 2:47:24
  Speaker 1: who's the wiser? We're not going to pick holes in
• 2:47:27
  Speaker 1: each other's coats, I suppose no, indeed, said Missus Dilber.
• 2:47:33
  Speaker 1: And the man together we should hope not very well, then,
• 2:47:38
  Speaker 1: cried the woman. That's enough. Who's the worse for the
• 2:47:41
  Speaker 1: loss of a few things like these? Not a dead man,
• 2:47:45
  Speaker 1: I suppose. No, indeed, said missus Dilber, if he wanted
• 2:47:52
  Speaker 1: to keep him after he was dead, a wicked old screw,
• 2:47:55
  Speaker 1: pursued the woman. Why wasn't he natural in his lifetime?
• 2:48:00
  Speaker 1: If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look
• 2:48:03
  Speaker 1: after him when he was struck with death, instead of
• 2:48:07
  Speaker 1: lion gasping out his lass there alone by himself. It's
• 2:48:13
  Speaker 1: the truest word that ever was spoke, said Missus Dilber.
• 2:48:16
  Speaker 1: It's a judgment on him. I wish it was a
• 2:48:20
  Speaker 1: little heavier judgment, replied the woman. And it should have been.
• 2:48:24
  Speaker 1: You may depend upon it if I could have laid
• 2:48:27
  Speaker 1: my hands on anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe,
• 2:48:32
  Speaker 1: and let me know the value of it. Speak out plain.
• 2:48:36
  Speaker 1: I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for
• 2:48:39
  Speaker 1: them to see it. We know pretty well that we
• 2:48:42
  Speaker 1: were helping ourselves before we met here. I believe it's
• 2:48:47
  Speaker 1: no sin. Open the bundle, Joe. But the gallantry of
• 2:48:52
  Speaker 1: her friends would not allow of this, And the man
• 2:48:56
  Speaker 1: in fated black mounting the breach, first produced his plunder.
• 2:49:01
  Speaker 1: It was not extensive. A seal or two, a pencil case,
• 2:49:05
  Speaker 1: a pair of sleeve buttons, and a brooch of no
• 2:49:08
  Speaker 1: great value were all. They were severally examined and appraised
• 2:49:13
  Speaker 1: by Old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed
• 2:49:17
  Speaker 1: to give for each upon the wall, and added them
• 2:49:20
  Speaker 1: up into a total when he found there was nothing
• 2:49:22
  Speaker 1: more to come. That's your account, said Joe, and I
• 2:49:27
  Speaker 1: wouldn't give another sixpence if I was to be boiled
• 2:49:30
  Speaker 1: for not doing it. Those next missus Dilburh was next,
• 2:49:36
  Speaker 1: sheets and towels, a little wearing apparel, two old fashioned
• 2:49:40
  Speaker 1: silver tea spoons, a pair of sugar tongs, and a
• 2:49:43
  Speaker 1: few boots. Her account was stated on the wall in
• 2:49:47
  Speaker 1: the same manner. I always give too much to ladies.
• 2:49:52
  Speaker 1: It's a weakness of mine, and that's the way I
• 2:49:55
  Speaker 1: ruined myself, said Old Joe. That's your account. If he
• 2:50:00
  Speaker 1: asked me for another penny and made in an open question,
• 2:50:04
  Speaker 1: I'd repent to being so liberal and knock off half
• 2:50:07
  Speaker 1: a crown. And now undo my bundle, Joe, said the
• 2:50:12
  Speaker 1: first woman. Joe went down on his knees for the
• 2:50:16
  Speaker 1: greater convenience of opening it, and, having unfastened a great
• 2:50:20
  Speaker 1: many knots, dragged out a large and heavy roll of
• 2:50:23
  Speaker 1: some dark stuff. What do you call this, said Joe.
• 2:50:29
  Speaker 1: Bed curtains a, returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward
• 2:50:34
  Speaker 1: on her crossed arms. Ha ha, bed curtains. You don't
• 2:50:39
  Speaker 1: mean to say you took him down, rings and all
• 2:50:42
  Speaker 1: with him lyin there, said Joe. Yes I do, replied
• 2:50:47
  Speaker 1: the woman. Why not? Why you were born to make
• 2:50:53
  Speaker 1: your fortune, said Joe, and you'll certainly do it. I
• 2:50:58
  Speaker 1: certainly shan't hold my hand when I can get anything
• 2:51:01
  Speaker 1: in it by reaching out for the sake of such
• 2:51:04
  Speaker 1: a man as he was, I promise you, Joe, returned
• 2:51:07
  Speaker 1: the woman coolly. Don't drop that oil upon the blankets.
• 2:51:12
  Speaker 1: Now is blankets, asked Joe. Who else is do you think?
• 2:51:18
  Speaker 1: Replied the woman. He'sn't likely to take hold without him,
• 2:51:22
  Speaker 1: I dare say, I hope he didn't dive anything catching nay,
• 2:51:30
  Speaker 1: said old Joe, stopping in his work and looking up.
• 2:51:33
  Speaker 1: Don't you be afraid of that? Returned the woman. I
• 2:51:37
  Speaker 1: ain't so fond of his company that i'd loiter about
• 2:51:40
  Speaker 1: him for such doings. If he did, Ah, you may
• 2:51:44
  Speaker 1: look through that shirt till your eyes ache, but you
• 2:51:47
  Speaker 1: won't find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place.
• 2:51:51
  Speaker 1: It's the best he had, and a fine one too.
• 2:51:55
  Speaker 1: They'd have wasted it if it hadn't been for me.
• 2:51:59
  Speaker 1: What do you call wasting it, asked Old Joe for
• 2:52:03
  Speaker 1: putting it on him to be buried in to be sure,
• 2:52:07
  Speaker 1: replied the woman with a laugh. Somebody was fool enough
• 2:52:10
  Speaker 1: to do it, but I took it off again. If
• 2:52:14
  Speaker 1: Kaliko ain't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't
• 2:52:17
  Speaker 1: good enough for anything. It's quite as becoming to the body.
• 2:52:22
  Speaker 1: He can't look uglier than he did in that one.
• 2:52:26
  Speaker 1: Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat
• 2:52:31
  Speaker 1: grouped about their spoil in the scanty light afforded by
• 2:52:34
  Speaker 1: the old man's lamp. He viewed them with a detestation
• 2:52:38
  Speaker 1: and disgust which could hardly have been greater, though they
• 2:52:41
  Speaker 1: had been obscene demons marketing the corpse itself. Ha ha ha,
• 2:52:47
  Speaker 1: laughed the same woman when Old Joe producing a flannel
• 2:52:51
  Speaker 1: bag with money and it told out their several gains
• 2:52:54
  Speaker 1: upon the ground. This is the end of it. You see,
• 2:52:59
  Speaker 1: he frightened and every one away from him when he
• 2:53:02
  Speaker 1: was alive, to profit us when he was dead. Spirit,
• 2:53:09
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, shuttering from head to foot. I see, I
• 2:53:14
  Speaker 1: see the case of this unhappy man might be my own.
• 2:53:20
  Speaker 1: My life tends that way. Now, Merciful Heaven, what is this?
• 2:53:27
  Speaker 1: He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and
• 2:53:30
  Speaker 1: now he almost touched a bed, a bare, uncurtained bed,
• 2:53:36
  Speaker 1: on which, beneath a racked sheet, there lay a something
• 2:53:40
  Speaker 1: covered up, which, though it was dumb, announced itself in
• 2:53:45
  Speaker 1: awful language. The room was very dark, too dark to
• 2:53:51
  Speaker 1: be observed with any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it
• 2:53:55
  Speaker 1: in obedience to a secret impulse, anxious to know what
• 2:53:58
  Speaker 1: kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in
• 2:54:02
  Speaker 1: the outer air, fell straight upon the bed, and on
• 2:54:06
  Speaker 1: it plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept, uncared for was the
• 2:54:12
  Speaker 1: body of this man? Scrooge glanced towards the phantom. Its
• 2:54:18
  Speaker 1: steady hand was pointed to the head. The cover was
• 2:54:21
  Speaker 1: so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of it, the
• 2:54:25
  Speaker 1: motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed
• 2:54:30
  Speaker 1: the face. He thought of it, felt how easy it
• 2:54:34
  Speaker 1: would be to do, and longed to do it, but
• 2:54:37
  Speaker 1: had no more power to withdraw the veil than to
• 2:54:41
  Speaker 1: dismiss the specter at his side, Oh, cold, cold, rigid,
• 2:54:47
  Speaker 1: dreadful death. Set up thine altar here, and dress it
• 2:54:51
  Speaker 1: with such terrors as thou hast at thy command. For
• 2:54:55
  Speaker 1: this is thy dominion. But of the loved, revered and
• 2:55:00
  Speaker 1: honored head, Thou canst not turn one hair to thy
• 2:55:04
  Speaker 1: dread purposes and make one feature odious. It is not
• 2:55:09
  Speaker 1: that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released.
• 2:55:12
  Speaker 1: It is not that the heart and pulse are still,
• 2:55:15
  Speaker 1: but that the hand was open, generous and true, the
• 2:55:19
  Speaker 1: heart brave, warm and tender, and the pulse a man's strike,
• 2:55:25
  Speaker 1: shadow strike, and see his good deeds springing from the wound,
• 2:55:30
  Speaker 1: to sow the world with life immortal. No voice pronounced
• 2:55:36
  Speaker 1: these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them.
• 2:55:40
  Speaker 1: When he looked upon the bed, he thought, if this
• 2:55:43
  Speaker 1: man could be raised up now, what would be his
• 2:55:46
  Speaker 1: foremost thoughts? Avarice hart deally griping cares they have brought
• 2:55:52
  Speaker 1: him a rich end. Truly, he lay in the dark,
• 2:55:57
  Speaker 1: empty house with not a man, a woman, or a child,
• 2:56:01
  Speaker 1: to say that he was kind to me in this
• 2:56:04
  Speaker 1: or that, and for the memory of one kind word,
• 2:56:08
  Speaker 1: I will be kind to him. A cat was tearing
• 2:56:12
  Speaker 1: at the door, and there was a sound of gnawing
• 2:56:14
  Speaker 1: rats beneath the hearthstone. What they wanted in the room
• 2:56:18
  Speaker 1: of death and why they were so restless and disturbed?
• 2:56:22
  Speaker 1: Scrooge did not dare to think, Spirit, he said, this
• 2:56:28
  Speaker 1: is a fearful place. In leaving it, I shall not
• 2:56:32
  Speaker 1: leave its lesson. Trust me. Let us go still. The
• 2:56:38
  Speaker 1: ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the head. I
• 2:56:43
  Speaker 1: understand you, Scrooge returned, and I would do it if
• 2:56:47
  Speaker 1: I could, But I have not the power. Spirit, I
• 2:56:52
  Speaker 1: have not the power. Again, it seemed to look upon him.
• 2:56:58
  Speaker 1: If there is any person in the town who feels
• 2:57:01
  Speaker 1: emotion caused by this man's death, said Scrooge, quite agonized,
• 2:57:06
  Speaker 1: show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you. The
• 2:57:13
  Speaker 1: phantom spread its dark robe before him for a moment,
• 2:57:16
  Speaker 1: like a wing, and withdrawing it revealed a room by daylight,
• 2:57:21
  Speaker 1: where a mother and her children were. She was expecting someone,
• 2:57:27
  Speaker 1: and with anxious eagerness for she walked up and down
• 2:57:30
  Speaker 1: the room started at every sound, looked out from the window,
• 2:57:34
  Speaker 1: glanced at the clock, tried but in vain to work
• 2:57:37
  Speaker 1: with her needle, and could hardly bear the voices of
• 2:57:41
  Speaker 1: the children in their play. At length, the long expected
• 2:57:46
  Speaker 1: knock was heard. She hurried to the door and met
• 2:57:49
  Speaker 1: her husband, a man whose face was careworn and depressed.
• 2:57:54
  Speaker 1: Though he was young. There was a remarkable expression in
• 2:57:58
  Speaker 1: it now, a kind of serious delight of which he
• 2:58:01
  Speaker 1: felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress. He sat
• 2:58:07
  Speaker 1: down to the dinner that had been hoarding for him
• 2:58:09
  Speaker 1: by the fire, and when she asked him faintly what news,
• 2:58:14
  Speaker 1: which was not until after a long silence, he appeared embarrassed.
• 2:58:18
  Speaker 1: How to answer? Is it good? She said, or bad?
• 2:58:24
  Speaker 1: To help him bad, he answered, we are quite ruined. Now.
• 2:58:33
  Speaker 1: There is hope yet, Caroline, If he relents, she said, amazed,
• 2:58:40
  Speaker 1: there is nothing is past hope. If such a miracle
• 2:58:44
  Speaker 1: has happened, he is past relenting, said her husband. He
• 2:58:50
  Speaker 1: is dead. She was a mild and patient creature. If
• 2:58:54
  Speaker 1: her face broke truth, but she was thankful in her
• 2:58:58
  Speaker 1: soul to hear it, and she said so. With clasped hands,
• 2:59:03
  Speaker 1: she prayed forgiveness the next moment, and was sorry. But
• 2:59:07
  Speaker 1: the first was the emotion of her heart. What the
• 2:59:11
  Speaker 1: half drunken woman whom I told you of last night
• 2:59:14
  Speaker 1: said to me when I tried to see him and
• 2:59:17
  Speaker 1: obtain a week's delay, and what I thought was a
• 2:59:20
  Speaker 1: mere excuse to avoid me, turns out to have been
• 2:59:23
  Speaker 1: quite true. He was not only very ill, but dying.
• 2:59:27
  Speaker 1: Then to whom will our debt be transferred? I don't know,
• 2:59:34
  Speaker 1: But before that time we shall be ready with the money.
• 2:59:37
  Speaker 1: And even though we were not, it would be a
• 2:59:39
  Speaker 1: bad fortune, indeed, to find so merciless a creditor in
• 2:59:43
  Speaker 1: his successor. We may sleep to night with light hearts, Caroline, Yes,
• 2:59:50
  Speaker 1: softened as they would. Their hearts were lighter. The children's
• 2:59:56
  Speaker 1: faces hushed and clustered round to hear what they sold
• 3:00:00
  Speaker 1: little understood, were brighter, and it was a happier house
• 3:00:04
  Speaker 1: for this man's death. The only emotion that the ghost
• 3:00:09
  Speaker 1: would show him caused by the event was one of pleasure.
• 3:00:15
  Speaker 1: Let me see some tenderness connected with a death, said Scrooge.
• 3:00:20
  Speaker 1: Or that dark chamber spirit which we leave just now,
• 3:00:25
  Speaker 1: will be forever present to me. The ghost conducted him
• 3:00:31
  Speaker 1: through several streets familiar to his feet, and as they
• 3:00:34
  Speaker 1: went along, Scrooge looked here and there to find himself,
• 3:00:38
  Speaker 1: but nowhere was he to be seen. They entered poor
• 3:00:42
  Speaker 1: Bob Cratchitt's house, the dwelling he had visited before, and
• 3:00:46
  Speaker 1: found the mother and the children seated round the fire, quiet,
• 3:00:52
  Speaker 1: very quiet. The noisy little Crotchets were as still as
• 3:00:56
  Speaker 1: statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter,
• 3:01:01
  Speaker 1: who had a book before him. The mother and her
• 3:01:04
  Speaker 1: daughters were engaged in sewing, but surely they were very quiet,
• 3:01:11
  Speaker 1: and he took a child and sat him in the
• 3:01:13
  Speaker 1: midst of them. Where had Scrooge heard these words? They
• 3:01:18
  Speaker 1: had not dreamed them. The boy must have read them
• 3:01:21
  Speaker 1: out as he and the spirit crossed the threshold. Why
• 3:01:25
  Speaker 1: did he not go on? The mother laid her work
• 3:01:29
  Speaker 1: upon the table and put her hand up to her face.
• 3:01:34
  Speaker 1: The color hurts my eyes, she said, the color, oh,
• 3:01:41
  Speaker 1: poor tiny tim They're better now again, said Crotchett's wife.
• 3:01:47
  Speaker 1: It makes them weak by candlelight. And I wouldn't show
• 3:01:51
  Speaker 1: weak eyes to your father when he comes home for
• 3:01:53
  Speaker 1: the world. It must be near his time passed it rather,
• 3:01:59
  Speaker 1: Peter answered shutting up his book. But I think he
• 3:02:03
  Speaker 1: has walked a little slower than he used these few
• 3:02:05
  Speaker 1: last evenings. Mother, they were very quiet again at last,
• 3:02:12
  Speaker 1: she said, and in a steady, cheerful voice that only
• 3:02:15
  Speaker 1: faltered once. I have known him walk with I have
• 3:02:21
  Speaker 1: known him walk with tiny tim upon his shoulder, very fast, indeed,
• 3:02:27
  Speaker 1: And so have I cried Peter often, and so have
• 3:02:31
  Speaker 1: I explained another, so had all. But he was very
• 3:02:37
  Speaker 1: light to carry. She resumed intent upon her work, and
• 3:02:41
  Speaker 1: his father loved him, so it was no trouble, no trouble, ah,
• 3:02:47
  Speaker 1: And there is your father at the door. She hurried
• 3:02:51
  Speaker 1: out to meet him, and little Bob in his comforter.
• 3:02:56
  Speaker 1: He had need of it. Poor fellow came in. He
• 3:03:00
  Speaker 1: was ready for him on the hub, and they all
• 3:03:02
  Speaker 1: tried who should help him to it. Most. Then the
• 3:03:06
  Speaker 1: two young crotchets got upon his knees and laid each
• 3:03:10
  Speaker 1: child a little cheek against his face, as if they said,
• 3:03:14
  Speaker 1: don't mind it, father, don't be grieved. Bob was very
• 3:03:20
  Speaker 1: cheerful with them and spoke pleasantly to all the family.
• 3:03:24
  Speaker 1: He looked at the work upon the table and praised
• 3:03:27
  Speaker 1: the industry and speed of missus Cratchett and the girls.
• 3:03:31
  Speaker 1: They would be done long before Sunday. He said, Sunday
• 3:03:37
  Speaker 1: you want to day then, Robert said his wife. Yes,
• 3:03:42
  Speaker 1: My dear returned Bob, I wish you could have gone.
• 3:03:46
  Speaker 1: It would have done you good to see how green
• 3:03:49
  Speaker 1: a place it is. But you'll see it often. I
• 3:03:54
  Speaker 1: promised him that I would walk there on a Sunday.
• 3:03:59
  Speaker 1: My little little child, cried Bob, my little child. He
• 3:04:07
  Speaker 1: broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If
• 3:04:11
  Speaker 1: he could have helped it, he and his child would
• 3:04:14
  Speaker 1: have been further apart, perhaps than they were. He left
• 3:04:18
  Speaker 1: the room and went upstairs into the room above, which
• 3:04:22
  Speaker 1: was lighted cheerfully and hung with Christmas. There was a
• 3:04:26
  Speaker 1: chair sat close beside the child, and there were signs
• 3:04:30
  Speaker 1: of someone having been there lately. Poor Bob sat down
• 3:04:35
  Speaker 1: in it, and when he had thought a little and
• 3:04:37
  Speaker 1: composed himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled
• 3:04:43
  Speaker 1: to what had happened, and went down again, quite happy.
• 3:04:48
  Speaker 1: They drew about the fire and talked, the girls and
• 3:04:51
  Speaker 1: mother working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness
• 3:04:56
  Speaker 1: of mister Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but once,
• 3:05:01
  Speaker 1: and who meeting him in the street that day, and
• 3:05:04
  Speaker 1: seeing that he looked a little just a little down,
• 3:05:08
  Speaker 1: you know, said Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him?
• 3:05:13
  Speaker 1: On which said Bob, for he is the pleasantest spoken
• 3:05:18
  Speaker 1: gentleman you ever heard. I told him, I am heartily
• 3:05:22
  Speaker 1: sorry for it, mister Cratchet, he said, and heartily sorry
• 3:05:26
  Speaker 1: for your good wife. By to bye. How he ever
• 3:05:29
  Speaker 1: knew that, I don't know knew what, my dear, why
• 3:05:34
  Speaker 1: that you were a good wife, replied Bob. Everybody knows that,
• 3:05:39
  Speaker 1: said Peter, very well observed by boy, cried Bob. I
• 3:05:45
  Speaker 1: hope they do. Heartily sorry, he said, for your good wife.
• 3:05:51
  Speaker 1: If I can be of service to you in any way,
• 3:05:54
  Speaker 1: he said, giving me his card, that's where I live,
• 3:05:57
  Speaker 1: pray come to me now. It wasn't, cried Bob, for
• 3:06:02
  Speaker 1: the sake of anything he might be able to do
• 3:06:04
  Speaker 1: for us, so much as for his kind way. That
• 3:06:07
  Speaker 1: this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he
• 3:06:11
  Speaker 1: had known our tiny tim and felt with us. I'm
• 3:06:16
  Speaker 1: sure he's a good soul, said missus Cratchett. You would
• 3:06:20
  Speaker 1: be surer of it, my dear, returned Bob. If you
• 3:06:24
  Speaker 1: saw and spoke to him, I shouldn't be at all surprised.
• 3:06:29
  Speaker 1: Mark what I say. If he got Peter a better situation,
• 3:06:34
  Speaker 1: only hear that, Peter, said Missus Cratchett, and then cried
• 3:06:39
  Speaker 1: one of the girls. Peter will be keeping company with
• 3:06:41
  Speaker 1: some one and setting up for himself. Get along with you,
• 3:06:46
  Speaker 1: retorted Peter, grinning. It's just as likely as not, said Bob.
• 3:06:52
  Speaker 1: One of these days, though there's plenty of time for that,
• 3:06:55
  Speaker 1: my dear. But however, and whenever we part from one another,
• 3:07:00
  Speaker 1: I am sure we shall none of us forget Tiny Tim,
• 3:07:04
  Speaker 1: shall we? Or this first parting that there was among us?
• 3:07:09
  Speaker 1: Never father, cried they all, And I know, said Bob.
• 3:07:14
  Speaker 1: I know, my DearS, that when we recollect, how patient
• 3:07:19
  Speaker 1: and how mild he was, although he was a little
• 3:07:22
  Speaker 1: little child, we shall not quarrel easily among ourselves and
• 3:07:27
  Speaker 1: forget poor tiny Tim in doing it. No, never Father,
• 3:07:32
  Speaker 1: they all cried again. I am very happy, said little Bob.
• 3:07:39
  Speaker 1: I am very happy. Missus Crotchet kissed him, his daughters
• 3:07:45
  Speaker 1: kissed him. The two young Cratchets kissed him, and Peter
• 3:07:49
  Speaker 1: and himself shook hands. Spirit of tiny, tim thy, childish
• 3:07:55
  Speaker 1: essence was from God. Specter, said Scrooge. Something informs me
• 3:08:03
  Speaker 1: that our parting moment is at hand. I know it,
• 3:08:07
  Speaker 1: but I know not how Tell me what man that
• 3:08:12
  Speaker 1: was whom we saw lying dead? The ghost of Christmas
• 3:08:17
  Speaker 1: yet to come, conveyed him as before, though at a
• 3:08:20
  Speaker 1: different time, he thought. Indeed, there seemed no order in
• 3:08:24
  Speaker 1: these latter visions, save that they were in the future
• 3:08:28
  Speaker 1: into the resorts of business men. But showed him not himself. Indeed,
• 3:08:34
  Speaker 1: the spirit did not stay for anything, but went straight
• 3:08:37
  Speaker 1: on as to the end just now desired, until be
• 3:08:42
  Speaker 1: sought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment. This court,
• 3:08:47
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, through which we hurry now, is where my
• 3:08:51
  Speaker 1: place of occupation is, and has been for a length
• 3:08:54
  Speaker 1: of time. I see the house. Let me be who
• 3:09:00
  Speaker 1: what I shall be in days to come. The spirit stopped,
• 3:09:06
  Speaker 1: the hand was pointed elsewhere. The house is yonder. Scrooge exclaimed,
• 3:09:13
  Speaker 1: why do you point away? The inexorable finger underwent no change.
• 3:09:21
  Speaker 1: Scrooge hastened to the window of his office and looked in.
• 3:09:26
  Speaker 1: It was an office still, but not his. The furniture
• 3:09:30
  Speaker 1: was not the same, and the figure in the chair
• 3:09:32
  Speaker 1: was not himself. The phantom pointed as before. He joined
• 3:09:38
  Speaker 1: it once again, and, wondering why and whither he had gone,
• 3:09:42
  Speaker 1: accompanied it until they reached an iron gate. He paused
• 3:09:47
  Speaker 1: to look round before entering a church yard. Here then
• 3:09:52
  Speaker 1: the wretched man, whose name he had now to learn,
• 3:09:55
  Speaker 1: lay underneath the ground. It was a worthy place, walled
• 3:10:00
  Speaker 1: in by houses, overrun by grass and weeds, the growth
• 3:10:04
  Speaker 1: of vegetation's death, not life choked up with too much
• 3:10:08
  Speaker 1: burying fat, with repleated appetite, a worthy place. The spirit
• 3:10:15
  Speaker 1: stood among the graves and pointed down to one. He
• 3:10:20
  Speaker 1: advanced towards it, trembling. The phantom was exactly as it
• 3:10:26
  Speaker 1: had been, but he dreaded that he saw new meaning
• 3:10:29
  Speaker 1: in its solemn shape. Before I draw nearer to that
• 3:10:34
  Speaker 1: stone to which you point, said Scrooge, Answer me one question.
• 3:10:40
  Speaker 1: Are these the shadows of the things that will be?
• 3:10:44
  Speaker 1: Or are they the shadows of things that may be?
• 3:10:47
  Speaker 1: Only still? The ghost pointed downward to the grave by
• 3:10:52
  Speaker 1: which it stood. Man's courses will foreshadow certain ends to which,
• 3:10:59
  Speaker 1: if persevered in, they must lead, said Scrooge. But if
• 3:11:03
  Speaker 1: the courses be departed from the ends, will change. Say
• 3:11:08
  Speaker 1: it is thus with what you show me. The spirit
• 3:11:13
  Speaker 1: was unmovable, as ever. Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as
• 3:11:19
  Speaker 1: he went, and following the finger read upon the stone
• 3:11:24
  Speaker 1: of the neglected grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge. Am
• 3:11:32
  Speaker 1: I the man that lay upon the bed? He cried
• 3:11:36
  Speaker 1: upon his knees. The finger pointed from the grave to
• 3:11:40
  Speaker 1: him and back again. No Spirit, No, no, no, The
• 3:11:48
  Speaker 1: finger still was there. Spirit, he cried, tightly, clutching at
• 3:11:55
  Speaker 1: its robe. Hear me, I am not the man I was.
• 3:12:01
  Speaker 1: I will not be the man I must have been,
• 3:12:04
  Speaker 1: But for this intercourse? Why show me this? If I
• 3:12:09
  Speaker 1: am past all hope? For the first time, the hand
• 3:12:13
  Speaker 1: appeared to shake good spirit, he pursued, as down upon
• 3:12:19
  Speaker 1: the ground he fell before it. Your nature intercedes for
• 3:12:24
  Speaker 1: me and pities me. Assure me that I yet may
• 3:12:29
  Speaker 1: change these shadows you have shown me by an altered life.
• 3:12:35
  Speaker 1: The kind hand trembled. I will honor Christmas in my
• 3:12:41
  Speaker 1: heart and try to keep it all the year. I
• 3:12:45
  Speaker 1: will live in the past, the present, and the future.
• 3:12:49
  Speaker 1: The spirits of all three shall strive within me. I
• 3:12:53
  Speaker 1: will not shut out the lessons that they teach, Oh,
• 3:12:57
  Speaker 1: tell me, I may sponge away the writing on this stone.
• 3:13:04
  Speaker 1: In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought
• 3:13:08
  Speaker 1: to free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty
• 3:13:11
  Speaker 1: and detained it. The spirit stronger yet, repulsed him, holding
• 3:13:18
  Speaker 1: up his hands in a last prayer to have his
• 3:13:21
  Speaker 1: fate reversed. He saw an alteration in the phantom's hood
• 3:13:26
  Speaker 1: and dress. It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.
• 3:13:36
  Speaker 1: End of Stave four, Stay five the end of it, yes,
• 3:13:45
  Speaker 1: And the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own,
• 3:13:48
  Speaker 1: the room was his own, best and happiest of all
• 3:13:52
  Speaker 1: the time before him was his own to make amends in.
• 3:13:57
  Speaker 1: I will live in the past, the present, and the future,
• 3:14:01
  Speaker 1: Scrooge repeated as he scrambled out of bed. The spirits
• 3:14:04
  Speaker 1: of all three shall strive within me. Oh, Jacob Marley,
• 3:14:09
  Speaker 1: Heaven and the Christmas Time be praised for this. I
• 3:14:14
  Speaker 1: say it on my knees, Old Jacob, on my knees.
• 3:14:19
  Speaker 1: He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good
• 3:14:22
  Speaker 1: intentions that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call.
• 3:14:27
  Speaker 1: He had been sobbing violently in his conflict with the spirit,
• 3:14:30
  Speaker 1: and his face was wet with tears. They are not
• 3:14:34
  Speaker 1: torn down, cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed curtains
• 3:14:38
  Speaker 1: in his arms. They are not torn down. The rings
• 3:14:42
  Speaker 1: and all they are here. I am here. The shadows
• 3:14:46
  Speaker 1: of the things that would have been may be dispelled.
• 3:14:51
  Speaker 1: They will be by no, they will. His hands were
• 3:14:56
  Speaker 1: busy with his garments all this time, turning them inside eye,
• 3:15:00
  Speaker 1: putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making
• 3:15:03
  Speaker 1: them parties to every kind of extravagance. I don't know
• 3:15:08
  Speaker 1: what to do, cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the
• 3:15:11
  Speaker 1: same breath, and making a perfect lacoon of himself with
• 3:15:15
  Speaker 1: his stockings. Ha ha ha. I am light as a feather.
• 3:15:20
  Speaker 1: I am as happy as an angel. I have married
• 3:15:23
  Speaker 1: as a schoolboy. I am as diddy as a drunken man.
• 3:15:27
  Speaker 1: He Marry Christmas to everybody, A Happy New Year to
• 3:15:31
  Speaker 1: all the world. Hello there oooo Hello. He had frisked
• 3:15:37
  Speaker 1: into the sitting room and was now standing there, perfectly winded.
• 3:15:42
  Speaker 1: There's the saucepan that the gruel was in, cried Scrooge,
• 3:15:46
  Speaker 1: starting off again and going round the fireplace. There's the
• 3:15:49
  Speaker 1: door by which the ghost of Jacob Marley entered. There's
• 3:15:53
  Speaker 1: the corner where the ghost of Christmas Present sat hello.
• 3:15:57
  Speaker 1: There's the window where I saw the wondering spirits. It's
• 3:16:00
  Speaker 1: all right, it's all true. It all happened, really for
• 3:16:08
  Speaker 1: a man who had been out of practice for so
• 3:16:10
  Speaker 1: many years. It was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh,
• 3:16:15
  Speaker 1: the father of a long, long line of brilliant laughs.
• 3:16:21
  Speaker 1: I don't know what day of the month it is,
• 3:16:23
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. I don't know how long I've been among
• 3:16:26
  Speaker 1: the spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby,
• 3:16:32
  Speaker 1: never find I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hello,
• 3:16:37
  Speaker 1: whoop a hello. Here he was checked in his transports
• 3:16:42
  Speaker 1: by the churches, ringing out the lustiest peals he had
• 3:16:45
  Speaker 1: ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer, ding dong, bell, bell dong,
• 3:16:51
  Speaker 1: ding hammered clang, clash, Oh glorious, glorious. Running to the window,
• 3:16:57
  Speaker 1: he opened it and put out his head. No fog,
• 3:17:01
  Speaker 1: no mist, clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold, cold piping for
• 3:17:06
  Speaker 1: the blood to dance to golden sunlight, heavenly sky, sweet
• 3:17:11
  Speaker 1: fresh air, merry bells. Oh, glorious, glorious, what's today, cried Scrooge,
• 3:17:20
  Speaker 1: calling downward to a boy in Sunday clothes who perhaps
• 3:17:23
  Speaker 1: had loitered in to look about him. Aye, returned the
• 3:17:28
  Speaker 1: boy with all his might of wonder. What's today, my
• 3:17:32
  Speaker 1: fine fellow, said Scrooge, today, replied the boy. Why ear
• 3:17:38
  Speaker 1: Christmas day? It's Christmas Day, said Scrooge to himself. I
• 3:17:44
  Speaker 1: haven't missed it. The spirits have done it all in
• 3:17:47
  Speaker 1: one night. Or they can do anything they like. Of
• 3:17:50
  Speaker 1: course they can, of course they can. Hello, my fine fellow,
• 3:17:55
  Speaker 1: and now returned the boy. Do you know the poulterer
• 3:18:00
  Speaker 1: in the next street, but one at the corner, Scrooge inquired,
• 3:18:04
  Speaker 1: I should hope I did, replied the lad. Ah an
• 3:18:08
  Speaker 1: intelligent boy, said Scrooge. A remarkable boy. Do you know
• 3:18:13
  Speaker 1: whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there?
• 3:18:17
  Speaker 1: Not the little prize turkey, the big one? What the
• 3:18:22
  Speaker 1: one as beggars may, returned the boy. A ha, what
• 3:18:26
  Speaker 1: a delightful boy, said Scrooge. It is a pleasure to
• 3:18:30
  Speaker 1: talk to him. Yes, my buck, it's hanging there now,
• 3:18:35
  Speaker 1: replied the boy. Is it, said Scrooge, Go and buy it, walker,
• 3:18:42
  Speaker 1: exclaimed the boy. No, no, said Scrooge. I am in earnest.
• 3:18:47
  Speaker 1: Go and buy it, and tell him to bring it
• 3:18:49
  Speaker 1: here that I may give them the direction where to
• 3:18:51
  Speaker 1: take it. Come back with the man and I'll give
• 3:18:54
  Speaker 1: you a shilling. Come back with him in less than
• 3:18:56
  Speaker 1: five minutes, and I'll give you half a crown. The
• 3:19:01
  Speaker 1: boy was off like a shot. He must have had
• 3:19:04
  Speaker 1: a steady hand and a trigger. Who could have got
• 3:19:06
  Speaker 1: a shot off half so fast? Ah ha ha, I'll
• 3:19:11
  Speaker 1: send it to Bob cratchit's, whispered Scrooge, rubbing his hands
• 3:19:15
  Speaker 1: and splitting with a laugh. He shan't know who sends it.
• 3:19:20
  Speaker 1: It's twice the size of tiny Tim Joe Miller never
• 3:19:24
  Speaker 1: made such a joke as sending it to Bob's will be.
• 3:19:28
  Speaker 1: The hand in which he wrote the address was not
• 3:19:30
  Speaker 1: a steady one. But write it he did, somehow, and
• 3:19:34
  Speaker 1: went downstairs to open the street door, ready for the
• 3:19:37
  Speaker 1: coming of the poulterer's man. As he stood there waiting
• 3:19:41
  Speaker 1: his arrival, the knocker caught his eye. Ah, he shall
• 3:19:47
  Speaker 1: love it as long as I live, cried Scrooge, patting
• 3:19:50
  Speaker 1: it with his hand. I scarcely ever looked at it before.
• 3:19:55
  Speaker 1: What an honest expression it has in its face. It's
• 3:19:58
  Speaker 1: a wonderful knocker. Here's the turkey. Hello, whoo, how are
• 3:20:04
  Speaker 1: you merry Christmas? It was a turkey. It never could
• 3:20:10
  Speaker 1: have stood upon his legs. That bird. He would have
• 3:20:14
  Speaker 1: snapped them off short in a minute, like sticks of
• 3:20:16
  Speaker 1: sealing wax. Aye, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,
• 3:20:22
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. You must have a cab. The chuckle with
• 3:20:27
  Speaker 1: which he said this, and the chuckle with which he
• 3:20:29
  Speaker 1: paid for the turkey, and the chuckle with which he
• 3:20:32
  Speaker 1: paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he
• 3:20:35
  Speaker 1: recompensed the boy, were only to be exceeded by the
• 3:20:39
  Speaker 1: chuckle with which he sat down breathless in his chair
• 3:20:42
  Speaker 1: again and chuckled till he cried. Shaving was not an
• 3:20:47
  Speaker 1: easy task, for his hand continued to shake very much,
• 3:20:51
  Speaker 1: and shaving requires attention, even when you don't dance while
• 3:20:54
  Speaker 1: you're at it. But if he had cut the end
• 3:20:57
  Speaker 1: of his nose off, he would have put a piece
• 3:20:59
  Speaker 1: of sticking plaster over it and been quite satisfied. He
• 3:21:04
  Speaker 1: dressed himself all in his best and at last got
• 3:21:08
  Speaker 1: out into the streets. The people were by this time
• 3:21:11
  Speaker 1: pouring forth. As he had seen them. With the ghost
• 3:21:14
  Speaker 1: of Christmas present, and walking with his hands behind him,
• 3:21:18
  Speaker 1: Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked
• 3:21:22
  Speaker 1: so irresistibly pleasant in a word, that three or four
• 3:21:26
  Speaker 1: good humored fellows said, good morning, sir. A merry Christmas
• 3:21:31
  Speaker 1: do you, And Scrooge said often afterwards that of all
• 3:21:35
  Speaker 1: the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest.
• 3:21:40
  Speaker 1: In his ears. He had not gone far when coming
• 3:21:44
  Speaker 1: on towards him, he beheld the portly gentleman who had
• 3:21:47
  Speaker 1: walked into his counting house the day before, and said,
• 3:21:51
  Speaker 1: Scrooge and Marny's I believe it sent a pang across
• 3:21:55
  Speaker 1: his heart to think how this old gentleman would look
• 3:21:58
  Speaker 1: upon him when they met. But he knew what path
• 3:22:01
  Speaker 1: lay straight before him, and he took it. My dear sir,
• 3:22:07
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge, quickening his pace and taking the old gentleman
• 3:22:11
  Speaker 1: by both his hands. How do you do. I hope
• 3:22:16
  Speaker 1: you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of you. A
• 3:22:20
  Speaker 1: merry Christmas to you, sir, mister Scrooge. Yes, said Scrooge,
• 3:22:26
  Speaker 1: that is my name, and I fear it may not
• 3:22:30
  Speaker 1: be pleasant to you allow me to ask your pardon,
• 3:22:35
  Speaker 1: and will you have the goodness here? Scrooge whispered in
• 3:22:39
  Speaker 1: his ear. Lord, bless me, cried the gentleman, as if
• 3:22:44
  Speaker 1: his breath were taken away. My dear mister Scrooge, are
• 3:22:48
  Speaker 1: you serious, if you please, said Scrooge. Not a farthing
• 3:22:54
  Speaker 1: less a great many back payments are included in it.
• 3:22:58
  Speaker 1: I assure you will. Will you do me that favor,
• 3:23:02
  Speaker 1: my dear sir, said the other, shaking hands with him.
• 3:23:07
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to say to such munificence. Don't
• 3:23:10
  Speaker 1: say anything, please, retorted Scrooge. Come and see me, Will
• 3:23:14
  Speaker 1: you come and see me? I will, cried the old gentleman,
• 3:23:19
  Speaker 1: and it was clear he meant to do it. Thank'e,
• 3:23:23
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. I am much obliged to you. I thank
• 3:23:27
  Speaker 1: you fifty times bless you. He went to church and
• 3:23:33
  Speaker 1: walked about the streets and watched the people hurrying to
• 3:23:36
  Speaker 1: and fro and patted children on the head, and questioned beggars,
• 3:23:40
  Speaker 1: and looked down into the kitchens of houses and up
• 3:23:43
  Speaker 1: to the windows, and found that everything could yield him pleasure.
• 3:23:48
  Speaker 1: He had never dreamed that any walk, that anything, could
• 3:23:51
  Speaker 1: give him so much happiness. In the afternoon, he turned
• 3:23:56
  Speaker 1: his steps towards his nephew's house. He passed the door
• 3:24:01
  Speaker 1: a dozen times before he had the courage to go
• 3:24:05
  Speaker 1: up and knock, but he made a dash and did it.
• 3:24:10
  Speaker 1: It's your master at home, my dear, said Scrooge to
• 3:24:14
  Speaker 1: the girl. Nice girl, very yes, sah. Where is he,
• 3:24:19
  Speaker 1: my love, said Scrooge. He's in the dining room, sir,
• 3:24:23
  Speaker 1: along with mistress. I'll show you upstairs if you please. Thankee,
• 3:24:29
  Speaker 1: he knows me, said Scrooge, with his hand already on
• 3:24:32
  Speaker 1: the dining room lock. I'll go in here, my dear.
• 3:24:37
  Speaker 1: He turned it gently and sidled his face in round
• 3:24:40
  Speaker 1: the door. They were looking at the table, which was
• 3:24:44
  Speaker 1: spread out in great array. For these young housekeepers are
• 3:24:48
  Speaker 1: always nervous on such points, and like to see that
• 3:24:51
  Speaker 1: everything is right. Fred, said Scrooge, dear heart alive. How
• 3:24:58
  Speaker 1: his niece by me marriage started. Scrooge had forgotten for
• 3:25:03
  Speaker 1: the moment about her sitting in the corner with the footstool,
• 3:25:07
  Speaker 1: or he wouldn't have done it on any account. Why,
• 3:25:11
  Speaker 1: bless my soul, cried Fred, Who's that it is? I here,
• 3:25:17
  Speaker 1: your uncle, Scrooge, I have come to dinner. Will you
• 3:25:23
  Speaker 1: let me in, Fred let him in. It is a mercy.
• 3:25:28
  Speaker 1: He didn't shake his arm off. He was at home
• 3:25:32
  Speaker 1: in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier. His niece looked
• 3:25:36
  Speaker 1: just the same. So did Topper when he came. So
• 3:25:39
  Speaker 1: did the plump sister when she came. So did everyone
• 3:25:43
  Speaker 1: when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness.
• 3:25:53
  Speaker 1: But he was early at the office next morning. Oh,
• 3:25:56
  Speaker 1: he was early there. If he could only be there
• 3:26:00
  Speaker 1: first and catch Bob cratch It coming in late. That
• 3:26:04
  Speaker 1: was the thing he had set his heart upon. And
• 3:26:07
  Speaker 1: he did it, Yes, he did. The clock struck nine,
• 3:26:12
  Speaker 1: no Bob, a quarter past no Bob. He was full
• 3:26:17
  Speaker 1: eighteen minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat
• 3:26:21
  Speaker 1: with his door wide open that he might see him
• 3:26:24
  Speaker 1: come into the tank. His hat was off before he
• 3:26:28
  Speaker 1: opened the door. His comforter too. He was on his
• 3:26:31
  Speaker 1: stool in a jiffy, driving away with his pen as
• 3:26:35
  Speaker 1: if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock. Hallo, growled
• 3:26:40
  Speaker 1: Scrooge in his accustomed voice, as near as he could
• 3:26:44
  Speaker 1: feign it. What do you mean by coming here at
• 3:26:47
  Speaker 1: this time of day. I am very sorry, sir, said Bob.
• 3:26:54
  Speaker 1: I am behind my time, you are, repeated Scrooge. Yes,
• 3:27:00
  Speaker 1: I think you are step this way, sir, if you please.
• 3:27:08
  Speaker 1: It's only once a year, sir pleaded Bob, appearing from
• 3:27:12
  Speaker 1: the tank. It shall not be repeated. I was making
• 3:27:16
  Speaker 1: brother Mary yesterday, sir. Now, I'll tell you what my friend,
• 3:27:23
  Speaker 1: said Scrooge. I am not going to stand this sort
• 3:27:26
  Speaker 1: of thing any longer. And therefore he continued, leaping from
• 3:27:32
  Speaker 1: his stool and giving Bob such a dig in the
• 3:27:34
  Speaker 1: waistcoat that he staggered back into the tank again. And therefore,
• 3:27:39
  Speaker 1: I am going to raise your salary. Bob trembled and
• 3:27:46
  Speaker 1: got a little nearer to the ruler. He had a
• 3:27:49
  Speaker 1: momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it, holding him
• 3:27:53
  Speaker 1: and calling to the people in the court for help
• 3:27:55
  Speaker 1: and a strait waistcoat. A merry Christmas bye, said Scrooge,
• 3:28:01
  Speaker 1: with an earnestness that could not be mistaken as he
• 3:28:05
  Speaker 1: clapped him on the back, and a merrier Christmas, Bob,
• 3:28:09
  Speaker 1: my good fellow, than I have given you for many
• 3:28:12
  Speaker 1: a year. I'll raise your salary and endeavor to assist
• 3:28:18
  Speaker 1: your struggling family, and we will discuss your affairs this
• 3:28:22
  Speaker 1: very afternoon over a Christmas bowl of smoking Bishop, Bob,
• 3:28:29
  Speaker 1: make up the fires and buy another coal. Scuttle before
• 3:28:32
  Speaker 1: you dot another eye, Bob cratchit. Scrooge was better than
• 3:28:38
  Speaker 1: his word. He did it all and infinitely more. And
• 3:28:42
  Speaker 1: to tiny Tim, who did not die, he was a
• 3:28:46
  Speaker 1: second father. He became as good a friend, as good
• 3:28:50
  Speaker 1: a master, and as good a man as the good
• 3:28:53
  Speaker 1: old city knew for any other good old city, town
• 3:28:57
  Speaker 1: or borough in the good old world. Some people laughed
• 3:29:01
  Speaker 1: to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh,
• 3:29:05
  Speaker 1: and little heeded them, for he was wise enough to
• 3:29:08
  Speaker 1: know that nothing ever happened on this globe for good
• 3:29:12
  Speaker 1: at which some people did not have their fill of
• 3:29:15
  Speaker 1: laughter in the outset, And knowing that such as these
• 3:29:18
  Speaker 1: would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well
• 3:29:22
  Speaker 1: that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as
• 3:29:25
  Speaker 1: have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed,
• 3:29:30
  Speaker 1: and that was quite enough for him. He had no
• 3:29:34
  Speaker 1: further intercourse with spirits, but lived upon the total abstinence
• 3:29:38
  Speaker 1: principle ever afterwards, and it was always said of him
• 3:29:42
  Speaker 1: that he knew how to keep Christmas. Well, if any
• 3:29:45
  Speaker 1: man alive possessed the knowledge, may that truly be said
• 3:29:50
  Speaker 1: of us and all of us, And so as tiny
• 3:29:55
  Speaker 1: Tim observed, God bless us everyone, and of a Christmas
• 3:30:03
  Speaker 1: Carol by Charles Dickens