What? Back
again? What are you doing here? Are there no prisons? Are there no workhouses? Er, have you no family to be with or
charitable works to occupy you? Well,
then . . .
* * * *
 |
| All in one night. |
“I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!”
Scrooge repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. “The Spirits of all Three shall
strive within me. Oh Jacob Marley! Heaven, and the Christmas Time be praised
for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”
He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions,
that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing
violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with tears.
“They are not torn down,” cried Scrooge, folding one of his
bed-curtains in his arms, “they are not torn down, rings and all. They are here
— I am here — the shadows of the things that would have been, may be dispelled.
They will be. I know they will!”
His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning
them inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them,
making them parties to every kind of extravagance.
“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and
crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoön of himself with his
stockings. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel, I am as
merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. A merry Christmas to
everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Whoop! Hallo!”
He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing
there: perfectly winded.
 |
| Guess Who |
“There’s the saucepan that the gruel was in!” cried Scrooge,
starting off again, and going round the fireplace. “There’s the door, by which
the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There’s the corner where the Ghost of
Christmas Present, sat! There’s the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It’s
all right, it’s all true, it all happened. Ha ha ha!”
Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so many
years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh. The father of a long,
long line of brilliant laughs!
“I don’t know what day of the month it is!” said Scrooge. “I
don’t know how long I’ve been among the Spirits. I don’t know anything. I’m
quite a baby. Never mind. I don’t care. I’d rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop!
Hallo here!”
He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing out
the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang, hammer; ding, dong, bell.
Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang, clash! Oh, glorious, glorious!
Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his head.
No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold; cold, piping for the
blood to dance to; Golden sunlight; Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells.
Oh, glorious! Glorious!
“What’s to-day!” cried Scrooge, calling downward to a boy in
Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look about him.
 |
| "Say wuh? uh, Walk-er!" |
“EH?” returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.
“What’s to-day, my fine fellow?” said Scrooge.
“To-day!” replied the boy. “Why, CHRISTMAS DAY.”
“It’s Christmas Day!” said Scrooge to himself. “I haven’t
missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night. They can do anything they
like. Of course they can. Of course they can. . . .”
Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him.
He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!