Faith Moore (0:01)

Hello and welcome to the Storytime for Grown Ups Christmas Spectacular. I'm Faith Moore and for the month of December, we'll be reading A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. Each episode I'll read one chapter from the book, pausing from time to time to give brief explanations so it's easier to follow along. It's like an audiobook with built in notes. So brew a pot of tea or a mug of hot chocolate, find a cozy chair, throw another log on the fire and settle in. It's story time. Hello. Welcome back. This is the fourth episode of our Christmas spectacular here at Storytime for Grown Ups. And we are going to be reading Stave three of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol with a few notes along the way. And I'm so happy that you are here. If you are joining us for the first time, if you just found us and you're jumping in with us right now, this is a show where we read classic books chapter by chapter. We talk about them a little bit at the beginning and then we actually read them out loud with a few notes along the way to help them seem a little bit easier to understand. So you may want to pause this episode and go back to the very first episode of the Christmas Spectacular. So they're labeled A Christmas Carol. And you may want to go back to that very first one because we are about to read the third chapter of this book and you probably want to begin at the very beginning. So do that and then you can binge your way right back to us or you can listen at whatever speed you choose and all of those episodes will still be there for you, as well as all the episodes of the other books that we've read so far. We have read Jane Eyre, Pride and Prejudice, and we are now reading A Christmas Carol. And all of those books, all of those episodes are there in the podcast feed. Just scroll, scroll on down and you'll find them all. And I hope that you will go back and listen to some of the other books if you haven't already. Welcome back to those of you who have been here for a while and are ready to dive in with us to Stave three of A Christmas Carol. And if you've been enjoying the show, please consider tapping those five stars or taking a couple of extra seconds and leaving a positive review, or just copying a link to the show and texting it to someone you know that you think might like it who hasn't found it yet. Those are all amazing ways to help this show to grow. It is growing. We've gotten so many more listeners for this Christmas spectacular than we finished up with in Pride and Prejudice. So that's amazing. It means this show is growing and it's because of you, because of your sharing it with your friends and tapping the five stars and doing all of those amazing things. So please keep that up because we want as many people as we possibly can with us in January when we start our new book, which I haven't revealed yet, but will soon. So please do that. And don't forget that you can get in touch with me. You should get in touch with me. This show is nothing without your questions and comments. And the way to do that is to go to my website, which is faithkmoore.com, click on Contact, and then you just fill out that form and it goes right to my email. And I do write back individually to everyone except for people who write to me and say mean things, in which case I just don't reply. So keep those questions and comments coming. I've got a really great one. It was one I was hoping I was going to get. I was hoping I was going to get a question or a comment on this topic. And I did. And so I'm really excited to talk about that in just a couple of minutes. Two very quick housekeeping things before we move into the recap and our question and then on to today's chapter. One is just a reminder that Storytime for Grown Ups now has a merch store, which is short for merchandise store, which means that we are selling things. You can get stuff with a Storytime for Grown Ups logo on it, T shirts, sweatshirts, mugs, that kind of thing. So there's a link in the show notes to check out that store. You should be able to still get things delivered before Christmas, although we're cutting it a little bit close at this point. But I think if you order now, you can still get it for Christmas or right around Christmas. But whenever you order, I hope that you will check out what's there. More designs are coming soon and I will let you know when those appear in the store. But for now, what you've got is a Storytime for Grown Ups logo, which is very beautiful. It was designed by a fabulous designer named Cynthia Angulo, and she did a fantastic job and she's working on the next design, which is coming soon. But right now you can get that logo on a variety of different things if that is of interest to you. So check out that link. And then also there are various links in the show notes to things that have to do with my book Christmas Carol, which is a modern retelling of Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol. I won't go into too much of it now, but you can find links to me reading a little bit from that. I'm giving away signed book plates. There's a drawing you can enter to get a free book. So just check out those links if that's of any interest to you. Those are all there in the show notes as well. Okay, so last time we read Stave 2 of A Christmas Carol. So let's just do a quick recap of what happened in that chapter then. As I say, I have this question, and we'll talk about that for a little bit, and then we'll move into today's chapter. Chapter. Okay, so here is the recap. Okay, so where we left off. Scrooge wakes up in the middle of the night and finds that he's in the presence of the ghost of Christmas Past. The ghost is a kind of strange mixture of old and young, male and female, short and tall, and he has a bright light shining out of his head. So the ghost leads him through scenes of his own past, including his time at school, where he had to stay behind during the holidays because his father didn't want him, and where he is when his little sister, Fan, shows up to say that he can, in fact, come home again. Scrooge sees himself at his apprenticeship with Mr. Fezziwig, who is a kind man, and throws a huge, kind of rollicking Christmas party for everyone he knows. Scrooge wishes he could speak to his nephew, the son of that sister that he saw in the past and the man that we met at the beginning. And he wishes he could speak to his own clerk. And he sees how people like Mr. Fezziwig and fan made his life so much better by being kind and loving. And then the ghost shows him how his former fiance, Belle, left him because she saw that he was getting more obsessed with money than with his connections to other people. And the ghost shows Scrooge that Belle went on to marry and to have a huge brood of children. And Scrooge sees how her life is filled with love and he is all alone. He could have had this life if he'd stayed with her. So Scrooge gets really upset, and he doesn't want to see any more. And as we left him, he. He was falling asleep. All right, so today's question comes to us from Elizabeth. Elizabeth writes, I have the life of Belle. I am married to a loving husband who works hard. So we can have a messy, comfortable, modest home. Our household feels like each child is acting as 40. A hilarious and apt description from Mr. Dickens. However, so often I am walking around the house basically saying, bah humbug in the chaos of my life. That should be joyful chaos. Christmas has so often been a stressful or busy time for me, as it is for many. It's so easy to take people for granted. The richness of human connection you spoke about was really beautiful in your recent episode. Okay, so I'm really glad that I got this comment. I'm really glad that Elizabeth wrote in about this particular scene, because this scene, right, where Scrooge looks in the window and he sees the woman he gave up at home with her giant brood of children and her husband and everything, this scene is the scene for me from the Christmas past section. And it's almost never depicted in Films of A Christmas Carol the way that it's depicted in the book. Sometimes it is, but often they change what happened to the fiance and we see her doing something different. Or they keep in the breakup scene, but then leave it at that, or they cut the girl out entirely. But to me, this is actually the key moment, the key vignette out of all the little vignettes of Scrooge's past. The reason that I feel that way is because I think it holds within it the core of what we started talking about before. The thing that Scrooge has to learn, the thing that he's been missing. You know what I really love, what's really lovely about Elizabeth's comment is that she's not only pointing out that Scrooge is looking in the window and seeing what he might have had. And I'll talk more about that in a minute. But she's also pointing out that Belle, Scrooge's ex fiance, could also, if she's not careful, fall prey to the same kind of detachment that Scrooge has fallen prey to. And even as she's living the life she's living, she might not appreciate it. Of course, in the book she does appreciate it, and that's part of the point. But Elizabeth is speaking for herself and many other moms, I think, probably too, and saying that it's not easy to stay present and grateful all the time, even when you have exactly what you want. So I love that Elizabeth's comment relates that to her own life. Because classic books are classics because they're somehow universal, right? They might take place in an old fashioned time or historical context that's confusing to us. They might use words that we have to look up, or people might react to things differently in the story than we might today. But for a book to stand the test of time, for it to still feel relevant and enjoyable to us now, it has to have something universal about it. It has to depict human nature or the human experience in some way that is timeless. I mean, books aren't classics just because they're old, right? They have to be old because we have to know if they can stand the test of time, if they're still relevant outside of their own time. But any old book isn't a classic, necessarily. There's lots of books written in the past that have fallen into obscurity. The books we still know and love are the books that feel real to us, even now, right? Even after centuries. And this experience of realizing that you could have had something, could have done something, could have been something, but you got in your own way, essentially, is universal, right? We know that feeling just as much now as Scrooge does or Dickens did, or anyone from Victorian England might have. That's a universal, timeless experience. Regret, right? Getting in our own way, not being able to go back and fix something that you broke. So we talked last time about the way in which I think this story is really all about human connection. That the thing that Marley is trying to tell Scrooge, the problem with the way that Scrooge has been living his life and the reason he needs to change is that human connection, spiritual connection between people, or loving and being loved, reaching out, being kind, all of that is the meaning of life according to this book. It's the whole point. And caring about material things for the sake of the material, or measuring your own worth by how much money you're worth rather than the worth of your character, all of that is completely useless according to this book. And worse than useless, it's antithetical to the human experience. That's what I think Dickens is telling us in this book. Think he's saying that the point of being alive, the point of being a human being, is to connect with other human beings in love. And we see that again and again in the various memories that the first spirit shows to Scrooge, right? We see the love and kindness that Scrooge's sister shows to him, the way he was all alone and desperate for love at the school and how fans saved him. We get a hint of a backstory there, right? That is never really revealed. He's got a father who seems not to want him. The mother seems not to be in Picture. And then we have this little girl, this tiny, frail creature, right? The spirit says she was always a delicate creature whom a breath might have withered. So here we have this little child speaking up to this hard, cruel father and intervening on Scrooge's behalf, fighting for Scrooge's right to have love and to have connection and winning it. We see the absolute chaos and joy of Fezziwig's Christmas party and the way that Fezziwig has a kind word for everyone, throwing this party for them all because he knows they would like it and feel welcome and loved by being there. So there's that connection, that reaching out one person to another that Scrooge experienced, and also the friendship and connection between Scrooge and the other apprentice, Dick, that mattered. So we're seeing all these ways that in Scrooge's youth, he was connected to his fellow man, and he appreciated the ways that people reached out to him and cared for him and loved him. You know, he clearly had a hard childhood, right? His father seems to have maybe been a man much more like the man that Scrooge became. So he wasn't getting that love and connection from the father the way he should have. And so it was even more important that these other people, right, his sister, Mr. Fezziwig, Dick, these people reached out to him, and he's remembering now that those overtures were incredibly important to him and that he treasured those connections. And then there's Belle. And I really feel that these two scenes, the scene where Belle ends their engagement and the scene where Scrooge gets to see what happened to her after that, I think that these are the central scenes of this chapter. And I think the fact that Dickens gives us this glimpse into Belle's life after Scrooge, and the fact that we don't get a glimpse into anyone else's life tells us that Dickens probably meant for this to be the central scene of this chapter. You know, I always cry when we get to the depiction of Belle's life without Scrooge. This description of this absolute riot of family life, right, the total chaos and pandemonium and overflowing joy. It's so real and so raucous. Dickens is a master at this. I think these descriptions of total, chaotic joy, right? There's a movement to his descriptions, a kind of rollicking abundance of life, and it sweeps you away. It kind of carries you along on this tide of, like, total, joyful insanity. It begins quietly, right, with the young girl who looks like Belle, but isn't Belle it's her daughter. And then it builds with the entrance of the giant brood of children and builds again as they tumble all over the mother and pull at her hair and her gown. And then it builds again, right? It builds to this fever pitch as the father arrives with the presents. And then. And this is my favorite part, because you can just picture it, it's so real. And I always cry at this part when everyone is like, oh, no, the baby has swallowed the toy turkey. And they're all freaking out and worried, and then, oh, phew. Actually know the toy turkey is here and the baby is fine. And then the whole thing settles down again and the children romp upstairs, and the father and the mother and the oldest daughter sit down kind of companionably by the fire. Here's just a bit of that so you can really see the way Dickens's writing creates this movement and this fullness and joy. Here's a quote. The shouts of wonder and delight with which the development of every package was received. The terrible announcement that the baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying pan into his mouth and was more than suspected of having swallowed a fictitious turkey glued on a wooden platter. The immense relief of finding this a false alarm. The joy and gratitude and ecstasy. They are all indescribable alike. It is enough that by degrees, the children and their emotions got out of the parlor and by one stair at a time, up to the top of the house where they went to bed and so subsided, right? It's a scene that is filled, like. Filled to the brim with life, with that thing that Scrooge is missing. Connection and love and relationship. Scrooge didn't want that with Belle, so she went off and she found it with someone else. And, I mean, did she ever find it, right? She finds a man and she gets married, and she has, like, a million children, right? Love multiplied over and over and over again. And there she is, right in the thick of it, right in the middle of all this love, all this connection. And it's devastating to Scrooge, right? Seeing this, this absolute cacophony of life and love. It's devastating. Why? Because this could have been his. He could have been the father. He could have been the husband. Here's a quote. It says, and when he thought that such another creature, quite as graceful and is full of promise, might have called him father and been a springtime in the haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed. Meaning when he realized what he'd given Up. When he saw that this life could very easily have been his life, and it almost was his life, he was overcome with remorse. Because what are children if not life, right? They carry on the life we began. They are young when we get old. They're the future as we begin to fade into the past. They are our connection to life and our legacy after we're gone. You know, children comfort us and care for us, and watching them grow and go out into the world and become who they are meant to be is the great joy of growing older. And Scrooge actively denied himself that he could have had it, and he turned it down. And I think that Dickens here is saying that this love, children, connection, home, family, this is the thing that matters. I think he's saying, get married if you can, so that you can connect your life to another life completely and utterly. Have a million kids if you can, because each one will love you infinitely, and you will love each one of them infinitely in return, right? He's saying, fill your life to the brim with people who love you, who you love in return. And. And this comes back to Elizabeth's point. And I think Dickens is saying that you have to know it, right? Do all that marry, have a bajillion kids and grandkids and cousins and friends who are like family and strangers who become friends and all of that. Do all of that. And then. And this part is just as important, then know what you have. Know that what you have, this love, this connection, this absolute chaos of joy in life, know that this is everything. Because Dickens shows us that part, too. The knowing, right? He says, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not 40 children conducting themselves like one, but every child was conducting itself like 40. The consequences were uproarious beyond belief, but no one seemed to care. On the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily and enjoyed it very much. The mother loves to be in the center of this rowdy, chaotic, rollicking mess of children. She wants to be there. She's happy to have her ribbons pulled and her hair messed up. This is where she wants to be. This home that she has made is the place where she feels she belongs. So it's not just that the book is saying that you have to reach out and fill your life with connection and love, but you have to be aware of the fact that that love and that connection and that joy is what matters. It's the only thing that matters. And like Elizabeth said in her letter, we often forget that part. And it's easy to forget it when you're in it, but when you're not, right? When you're Scrooge standing at the window, realizing what you've lost, what you could have had, suddenly it becomes very, very clear. So now Scrooge sees what he's missed out on. He remembers the people in his past who loved him and cared about him. But all of that is in the past, right? And the past can't be changed. So it remains to be seen what Scrooge will, or even can do about it. So I think we need to get back to the book. But don't forget to write to me. Faithk moore.com Click on Contact. Please send me your questions and thoughts. Tell me what you think about what I have just said about the last chapter. Ask me questions. Make comments about the chapter we're about to read. I love to hear from you. You are never bothering me. Please do get in touch. All right, let's get started with Stave 3 of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. It's story time. Stave 3, the second of the three spirits awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of one. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger, dispatched to him through Jacob Marley's intervention. But finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put them, every one, aside with his own hands, and lying down again, established a sharp lookout all around the bed, for he wished to challenge the spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise and made nervous. Gentlemen of the free and easy sort, who plume themselves on being acquainted with a move or two and being usually equal to the time of day, express the wide range of their capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for anything from pitch and toss to manslaughter, between which opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for Scrooge quite as heartily as this, I don't mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and a rhinoceros would have astonished him very much, meaning, essentially, that because of his experiences so far, Scrooge is pretty much ready for anything to happen. Now Being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing. And consequently, when the bell struck one and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time he lay upon his bed, the very core and center of a blaze of ruddy light which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour, and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant or would be at, and was sometimes apprehensive that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of spontaneous combustion without having the consolation of knowing it. So the only odd thing that's happening is that a light is shining from somewhere right on him, which is frightening because he doesn't know why that's happening or what's causing it. At last, however, he began to think, as you or I would have thought at first, for it is always the person not in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done in it, and would unquestionably have done it too. At last, I say, he began to think that the source and secret of this ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence, on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door. The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name and bade him enter. He obeyed. It was his own room, there was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green that it looked a perfect grove from every part of which bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe and ivy reflected back the light as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there. And such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney as that dull petrification of a hearth had never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor to form a kind of throne were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat sucking pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince pies, plum puddings, barrels of oysters, red hot chestnuts, cherry cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth cakes, and seething bowls of punch that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state. Upon this couch there sat a jolly giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch in shape not unlike Plenty's horn, and held it up high up to shed its light on Scrooge as he came peeping round the door. Come in. Exclaimed the ghost. Come in and know me better, man. Scrooge entered timidly and hung his head before this spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been, and though the spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them. I am the Ghost of Christmas Present, said the spirit. Look upon me. Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe or mantle bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. So his breast is where his heart is, the place where he feels goodwill and love, and it's uncovered. So he's a loving, kind spirit filled with goodwill. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare. And on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free, free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanor and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard, but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust. You have never seen the like of me before. Exclaimed the spirit. Never, Scrooge made answer to it. Have never walked forth with the younger members of my family. Meaning? For I am very young. My elder brothers, born in these later years, pursued the phantom. I don't think I have, said Scrooge. I am afraid I have not. Have you had many brothers, spirit? More than 1800, said the ghost. A tremendous family to provide for, muttered Scrooge. So this book was published in 1843. So the spirit is saying that he has as many brothers as there have been Christmases. And he is only the spirit of this particular Christmas. The Ghost of Christmas Present rose. Spirit, said Scrooge submissively, conduct me where you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt a lesson which is working now tonight. If you have aught to teach me, let me profit by it. Touch my robe. Scrooge did as he was told and held it fast. Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings, fruit and punch all vanished instantly. So did the room, the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night. And they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning, where for the weather was severe, the people made a rough but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings and from the tops of their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down onto the road below and splitting into artificial little snowstorms. The house fronts looked black enough and the windows blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs and with the dirtier snow upon the ground, which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and wagons, furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times, where the great streets branched off and made intricate channels hard to trace in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy and the shortest trees were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had by one consent caught fire and were blazing away to their dear heart's content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. So it's cold and kind of miserable out, but the atmosphere in the air is all joyfulness and cheer, for the people who were shoveling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee, calling out to one another from the parapets and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball better natured missile far than many a wordy jest, laughing heartily if it went right, and not less heartily if it went wrong. The poulterers shops were still half open, and the fruiterers were radiant in their glory. There were great round pot bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were ruddy brown faced, broad girth Spanish onions shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish friars, and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by and glanced demurely at the hung up mistletoe. There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids. There were bunches of grapes made in the shopkeeper's benevolence to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people's mouths might water gratis as they passed. There were piles of filberts, mossy and brown, recalling in their fragrance ancient walks among the woods and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves. There were Norfolk biffinsquat and swarthy, setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and in the great compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after dinner. The very gold and silver fish set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and stagnant blooded race appeared to know that there was something going on, and to a fish went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement. The grocers, oh, the grocers nearly closed, with perhaps two shutters down or one. But through those gaps, such glimpses. It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks or even that the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight, the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers on feel faint and subsequently bilious. Bilious means sick to your stomach. Nor was it that the figs were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in modest tartness from their highly decorated boxes, or that everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress. But the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful promise of the day that they tumbled up against each other at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left their purchases upon the counter and came running back to fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes in the best humor possible, while the grocer and his people were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own, worn outside for general inspection and for Christmas dawes to peck at if they chose. But soon the steeples called good people all to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged, from scores of by streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people carrying their dinners to the baker's shops. So poor people used to take their dinner to the bakers to cook their food in the large ovens there for a small fee, because they didn't have proper ovens at home. The sight of these poor revelers appeared to interest the spirit very much, for he stood with Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and, taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch. For once or twice, when there were angry words between some dinner carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said it was a shame to quarrel on Christmas Day. And so it was, God love it, so it was. So the Spirit sprinkles Christmas cheer essentially from his torch onto the people and onto their meager dinners. In time, the bells ceased and the bakers were shut up. And yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker's oven, where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too. Is there a peculiar flavor in what you sprinkle from your torch? Asked Scrooge. There is my own. Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day? Asked Scrooge. To any kindly given To a poor one most. Why to a poor one most? Asked Scrooge. Because it needs it most. Spirit, said Scrooge, after a moment's thought, I wonder you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent enjoyment. I. Cried the Spirit, you would deprive them of their means of dining every seventh day, and often the only day on which they can be said to dine at all? Said Scrooge. Wouldn't you? I. Cried the Spirit. You seek to close these places on the seventh day, said Scrooge. And it comes to the same thing I seek. Exclaimed the Spirit. Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your name, or at least in that of your family, said Scrooge. So there was a bill at the time that sought to close the bakeries and certain other amenities for the poor on the Sabbath. And so Scrooge is saying that the Spirit is the Spirit of Christmas, and therefore comes from Christ. So isn't he the one who's wanting to close these things in the name of Christianity? There are some upon this earth of yours, returned the Spirit, who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds of passion, pride, ill will, hatred, envy, bigotry and selfishness in our name, who are as strange to us as all our kith and kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that and charge their doings on themselves, not us. So the spirit is saying that the bill and things like it come from men, not God, who are falsely pious and shouldn't be associated with the name of Christianity. Scrooge promised that he would. And they went on, invisible as they had been before, into the suburbs of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the ghost which Scrooge had observed at the baker's, that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease, and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall. And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in showing off this power of his. Or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor men that led him straight to Scrooge's clerks. For there he went and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe. And on the threshold of the door the spirit smiled and stopped to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his torch. So they've come to the house of Scrooge's Clark, whose name is Bob Cratchit. Think of that. Bob had but 15 bob a week himself. He pocketed on Saturdays but 15 copies of his Christian name. So Bob is slang for shilling, so he gets 15 shillings a week in pay, which is hardly anything. And yet the ghost of Christmas present blessed his four roomed house. Then up rose Mrs. Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out but poorly, in a twice turned gown, but brave in ribbons, which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence. And she laid the cloth, meaning she set the table, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of her daughters, also brave in ribbons, while Master Peter Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes and getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar, Bob's private property conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the day. Into his mouth rejoiced to find himself so gallantly attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable parks. And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the goose and known it for their own. And basking in luxurious thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the skies, face while he not proud, although his collars nearly choked him, blew the fire until the slow potatoes bubbling up knocked loudly at the saucepan lid to be let out and peeled. What has ever got your precious father then? Said Mrs. Cratchit, and your brother Tiny Tim and Martha warn't as late last Christmas Day by half an hour. Here's Martha, Mother. Said a girl, appearing as she spoke. Here's Martha, Mother. Cried the two young Cratchits. Hurrah. There's such a goose. Martha. Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are. Said Mrs. Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times and taking off her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal. We'd a deal of work to finish up last night, replied the girl, and had to clear away this morning, Mother. So Martha is the daughter of Mr. And Mrs. Cratchit, and she's old enough to work. So she was at work until just now, and she's rushed home for Christmas. Well, never mind, so long as you are. Come, said Mrs. Cratchit. Sit you down by the fire, my dear, and have a warm Lord bless you. No, no. There's Father coming. Cried the two young Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. Hide, Martha, hide. So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob the father, with at least three feet of comforter, exclusive of the fringe hanging down before him, and his threadbare clothes darned up and brushed to look seasonable, and Tiny Tim on his shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch and had his limb supported by an iron frame. So Tiny Tim is crippled. Why, where's our Martha? Cried Bob Cratchit, looking round. Not coming, said Mrs. Cratchit. Not coming, said Bob, with a sudden declension in his high spirits, for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church and had come home rampant, meaning he carried Tiny Tim home from church, and he was in good spirits until he heard that Martha wasn't coming for Christmas. Not coming upon Christmas Day? Martha didn't like to see him disappointed if it were only a joke. So she came out prematurely from behind the closet door and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits hustled Tiny Tim and bore him off into the wash house, that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper. So the Christmas pudding is being boiled in the copper, which is a huge basin that's normally Used to boil the laundry. And how did little tim behave? Asked Mrs. Cratchit, when she had rallied Bob on his credulity and Bob had hugged his daughter to his heart's content. As good as gold, said Bob, and better, somehow. He gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much and thinks the strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home that he hoped the people saw him in the church because he was a cripple and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day who made lame beggars walk and blind men see. Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing strong and hardy. His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by his brother and sister to his stool by the fire. And while Bob, turning up his cuffs as if, poor fellow, they were capable of being made more shabby, compounded some hop mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round and round and put it on the hob to simmer. Master Peter and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the goose, with which they soon returned in high procession. Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose, the rarest of all birds, a feathered phenomenon to which a black swan was a matter of course, and in truth, it was something very like it in that house. Meaning that they very rarely eat as well as they are going to eat tonight. Mrs. Cratchit made the gravy ready beforehand in a little saucepan, hissing hot. Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigor. Miss Belinda sweetened up the applesauce. Martha dusted the hot plates. Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny corner at the table. The two young Cratchits set chairs for everybody, not forgetting themselves and mounting guard upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be helped. At last the dishes were set on and grace was said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause as Mrs. Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving knife, prepared to plunge it in the breast. But when she did, and when the long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim, excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with the handle of his knife and feebly cried, hurrah. There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe there ever was such a goose. Cooked. Its tenderness and flavor, size and cheapness were the themes of universal admiration eked out by apple sauce and mashed potatoes. It was a sufficient dinner for the whole family. Indeed, as Mrs. Cratchit said with great delight, surveying one small atom of a bone upon the dish, they hadn't ate it all at last, yet every one had had enough. And the youngest Cratchits in particular were steeped in sage and onion to the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Ms. Belinda, Mrs. Cratchit left the room alone, too nervous to bear witness, to take the pudding up and bring it in. Suppose it should not be done enough? Suppose it should break in turning out? Suppose somebody should have got over the wall of the back yard and stolen it while they were merry with the goose? A supposition at which the two young Cratchits became livid. All sorts of horrors were supposed. Hello. A great deal of steam. The pudding was out of the copper. A smell like a washing day, that was the cloth. A smell like an eating house and a pastry cook's next door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that. That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered, flushed but smiling proudly with the pudding like a speckled cannonball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half a quartern of ignited brandy and bedight with Christmas holly stuck into the top. So it was traditional to pour alcohol over the pudding and then set it on fire. Oh, a wonderful pudding, Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. Meaning it is a small pudding for such a large family because they can't afford a bigger one. But no one is complaining. At last the dinner was all done. The cloth was cleared, the hearth swept and the fire made up, the compound in the jug being tasted and considered perfect. Apples and oranges were put upon the table and a shovelful of chestnuts on the fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth in what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one. And at Bob Cratchit's Elbow stood the family display of glass, two tumblers and a custard cup without a handle. These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as golden goblets would have done, and Bob served it out with beaming looks while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed a Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us. Which all the family re echoed. God bless us, every one, said Tiny Tim, the last of all. He sat very close to his father's side upon his little stool. Bob held his withered little hand in his as if he loved the child and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that he might be taken from him. Spirit, said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, tell me if Tiny Tim will live. I see a vacant seat, replied the ghost, in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, the child will die. No, no, Said Scrooge. Oh, no. Kind spirits say he will be spared. If these shadows remain unaltered by the future, none other of my race returned. The ghost will find him here. What then? If he be like to die, he had better do it and decrease the surplus population. Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by the spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief. Man, said the ghost. If man, you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered what the surplus is and where it is, will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be that in the sight of heaven you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. O God, to hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust. So the spirit is saying that only God decides who lives and who dies. Scrooge bent before the ghost's rebuke and trembling, cast his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily on hearing his own name. Mr. Scrooge, said Bob, I'll give you Mr. Scrooge, the founder of the feast. So Bob Cratchit is trying to make a toast to Mr. Scrooge, the founder of the feast. Indeed. Cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening. I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good appetite for it. My dear, said Bob, the children. Christmas Day. It should be Christmas Day, I'm sure, said she, on which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard, unfeeling man as Mr. Scrooge? You know he is, Robert. Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow. My dear, was Bob's mild answer. Christmas Day. I'll drink his health, for your sake and the day's, said Mrs. Cratchit. Not for his long life to him. A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. He'll be very merry and very happy, I have no doubt. The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge was the ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full five minutes after it had passed away. They were 10 times merrier than before from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five and sixpence weekly. So Bob Cratchit thinks he's found a job for Peter. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business, and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favor when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to morrow morning for a good long rest. Tomorrow being a holiday, she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as Peter, at which Peter pulled up his collar so high that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there all this time. The chestnuts and the jug went round and round, and by and by they had a song about a lost child traveling in the snow from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice and sang it very well indeed. There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not a handsome family, they were not well dressed, their shoes were far from being waterproof, their clothes were scanty, and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside of a pawnbroker's meaning. Sometimes they need to Pawn things in order to make ends meet because they're so poor. But they were happy, grateful, pleased with one another and contented with the time. And when they faded and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings of the spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last. By this time it was getting dark and snowing pretty heavily, and as Scrooge and the spirit went along the streets, the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlors and all sorts of rooms was wonderful. Here the flickering of the blaze showed preparations for a cozy dinner with hot plates baking through and through before the fire and deep red curtains ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness. There all the children of the house were running out into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins, uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here again were shadows on the window, blind of guests assembling. And there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur booted, all chattering at once, tripping lightly off to some near neighbor's house and where, woe upon the single man who saw them enter. Artful witches. Well, they knew it in a glow. But if you had judged from the numbers of people on their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought that no one was at home to give them welcome when they got there. Instead of every house expecting company and piling up its fires half chimney high, blessings on it. How the ghost exulted, how it bared its breadth of breast and opened its capacious palm and floated on outpouring with a generous hand its bright and harmless mirth on everything within its reach. The very lamplighter who ran on before, dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly as the spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter that he had any company. But Christmas so kenned, means new, so he didn't know that the spirit was near him. But he's laughing because it's Christmas. And now, without a word of warning from the ghost, they stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses of rude stone were cast about as though it were the burial place of giants. And water spread itself wheresoever it listed or would have done so but for the frost that held it prisoner. And nothing grew but moss and furze and coarse, rank grass. Down in the west, the setting sun had left a streak of fiery red which glared upon the desolation for an instant like a sullen eye and frowning Lower, lower, lower. Yet was lost in the thick gloom of darkest night. What place is this? Asked Scrooge. A place where miners live who labor in the bowels of the earth, returned the spirit. But they know me, see. A light shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a glowing fire, an old, old man and woman with their children and their children's children, and another generation beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire. The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a Christmas song. It had been a very old song when he was a boy, and from time to time they all joined in the chorus. So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite blithe and loud, and so surely as they stopped, his vigour sank again. The spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his robe, and passing on above the moor sped whither not to sea, to sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks behind them, and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water as it rolled and roared and raged among the dreadful caverns. It had worn and fiercely tried to undermine the earth, built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks some league or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse. Great heaps of seaweed clung to its base, and storm birds, born of the wind, one might suppose, as seaweed of the water rose and fell about it like the waves they skimmed. But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire that, through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog. And one of them, the elder too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figurehead of an old ship might be, struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. Again the ghost sped on above the black and heaving sea, on, on, until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman at the wheel, the lookout in the bow, the officers who had the watch, dark ghostly figures in their several stations. But every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or had a Christmas thought or spoke below his breath to his companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another on that day than on any day in the year, and had shared to some extent in its festivities, and had remembered those he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted to remember him. It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the moaning of the wind and thinking what a solemn thing it was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown abyss whose depths were secrets as profound as death, it was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged to hear a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge to recognize it as his own nephew, and to find himself in a bright, dry, gleaming room with the Spirit standing, smiling by his side, and looking at the same nephew with approving affability. Ha ha. Laughed Scrooge's nephew. Ha ha ha ha. If you should happen by any unlikely chance to know a man more blessed in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can say is I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me and I'll cultivate his acquaintance. It is a fair, even handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way, holding his sides, rolling his head and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions, Scrooge's niece by marriage laughed as heartily as he, and their assembled friends, being not a bit behind, roared out lustily. Ha ha ha. I said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live. Cried Scrooge's nephew. He believed it, too. More shame for him, Fred. Said Scrooge's niece indignantly. Bless those women. They never do anything by halves. They are always in earnest. She was very pretty, exceedingly pretty, with a dimpled, surprised looking, capital face, a ripe little mouth that seemed made to be kissed as no doubt it was all kinds of good little dots about her chin that melted into one another when she laughed, and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever saw in any little creature's head. Altogether. She was what you would have called provoking, you know, but satisfactory too. Oh, perfectly satisfactory. He's a comical old fellow, said Scrooge's nephew. That's the truth, and not so pleasant as he might be. However, his offences carry Their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him. I'm sure he is very rich. Fred, hinted Scrooge's niece. At least you always tell me so. What of that, my dear? Said Scrooge's nephew. His wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it. He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the satisfaction of thinking that he is ever going to benefit us with it. I have no patience with him, observed Scrooge's niece. Scrooge's niece's sisters and all the other ladies expressed the same opinion. Oh, I have, said Scrooge's nephew. I am sorry for him. I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers by his ill whims? Himself. Always here he takes it into his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us. What's the consequence? He don't lose much of a dinner. Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner, interrupted Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they must be allowed to have been competent judges, because they had just had dinner and with the dessert upon the table were clustered round the fire by lamplight. Well, I am very glad to hear it, said Scrooge's nephew, because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers. What do you say, Topper? Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast who had no right to express an opinion on the subject. Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister, the plump one with the lace tucker, not the one with the roses blushed so. A tucker is a piece of lace that's worn at the neckline of a dress to cover the top of the pussy. Do go on, Fred, said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands. He never finishes what he begins to say. He is such a ridiculous fellow. Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh. And as it was impossible to keep the infection off, though the plump sister tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar, his example was unanimously followed. I was only going to say, said Scrooge's nephew, that the consequence of his taking a dislike to us and not making merry with us is as I think, that he loses some pleasant moments which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts, either in his mouldy old office or his dusty chambers. I Mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he likes it or not. For I pity him. He may rail at Christmas till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it. I defy him if he finds me going there in good temper year after year and saying, uncle Scrooge, how are you? If it only puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk £50, that's something. And I think I shook him yesterday. It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking Scrooge, but being thoroughly good natured and not much caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any rate, he encouraged them in their merriment and passed the bottle joyously. After tea they had some music, for they were a musical family and knew what they were about when they sung a glee or catch, I can assure you. Especially Topper, who could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never swell the large veins in his forehead or get red in the face over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp and played, among other tunes, a simple little air, a mere nothing. You might learn to whistle it in two minutes. Which had been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the boarding school, as he had been reminded by the ghost of Christmas past. So Scrooge's niece is playing a song on the harp. That was a song Scrooge's sister, so Fred's mother, used to sing. When this strain of music sounded, all the things that ghost had shown him came upon his mind. He softened more and more and thought that if he could have listened to it often years ago, he might have cultivated the kindness of life for his own happiness with his own hands, without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob Marley. But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After a while they played at forfeits. For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas when its mighty founder was a child himself. So the mighty founder being deceased. Jesus Christ. Stop. There was first a game of blind man's buff. Of course there was, and I no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he had eyes in his boots. My opinion is that it was done thing between him and Scrooge's nephew, and that the ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after that plump sister in the lace tucker was an outrage on the credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire irons, tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano, smothering Himself among the curtains. Wherever she went, there he went. He always knew where the plump sister was. He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up against him, as some of them did on purpose, he would have made a feint of endeavoring to seize you, which would have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister. She often cried out that it wasn't fair, and it really was not. But when at last he caught her, when in spite of all her silken rustlings and her rapid flutterings past him, he got her into a corner, whence there was no escape, then his conduct was the most execrable. Execrable means horrible and unpleasant. But it's meant facetiously here for his pretending not to know her, his pretending that it was necessary to touch her headdress, and further to assure himself of her identity by pressing a certain ring upon her face, finger and a certain chain about her neck, was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told him her opinion of it, when another blind man being in office, they were so very confidential together behind the curtains. Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind man's buff party, but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool in a snug corner, where the ghost and Scrooge were close behind her. But she joined in the forfeits and loved her love to admiration with all the letters of the Alphabet. So I, love, my love is another party game. Likewise at the game of how, when and where she was very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat her sisters hollow, though they were sharp girls too, as Topper could have told you. There might have been 20 people there, young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge, for wholly forgetting, in the interest he had in what was going on, that his voice made no sound in their ears. He sometimes came out with his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right too, for the sharpest needle best Whitechapel warranted not to cut in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge, blunt as he took it in his head to be. The ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood, and looked upon him with such favour that he begged like a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But this, the spirit said, could not be done. Here is a new game, said Scrooge, One half hour spirit only one. It was a game called yes and no, where Scrooge's nephew had to think of something, and the rest must find out what he only answering to their questions, yes or no, as the case was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an animal that growled and grunted sometimes and talked sometimes, and lived in London and walked about the streets and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and didn't live in a menagerie and was never killed in a market, and was not a horse or an ass, or a cow or a bull or a tiger or a dog or a pig or a cat or a bear. At every fresh question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a fresh roar of laughter, and was so inexpressibly tickled that he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out, I have found it out. I know what it is, Fred. I know what it is. What is it? Cried Fred. It's your Uncle Scrooge. Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal sentiment, though some objected that the reply to Is it a bear? Ought to have been, yes, inasmuch as an answer in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts from Mr. Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency that way. He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure, said Fred, and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health. Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the moment. And I say, Uncle Scrooge. Well, Uncle Scrooge. They cried, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old man, wherever he is, said Scrooge's nephew. He wouldn't take it from me, but may he have it nonetheless, Uncle Scrooge. Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light of heart that he would have pledged the unconscious company in return and thanked them in an audible speech if the ghost had given him time. But the whole scene passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his nephew, and he and the spirit were again upon their travels. Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they visited, but always with a happy end. The spirit stood beside sickbeds, and they were cheerful on foreign lands, and they were close at home by struggling men, and they were patient in their greater hope by poverty, and it was rich in almshouse, hospital and jail, in misery's every refuge, where vain man in his little brief Authority had not made fast the door and barred the spirit out. He left his blessing and taught Scrooge his precepts. It was a long night, if it were only a night. But Scrooge had his doubts of this, because the Christmas holidays appeared to be condensed into the space of time they passed together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained unaltered in his outward form, the ghost grew older, clearly older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of it until they left a children's Twelfth Night party. When, looking at the spirit as they stood together in an open place, he noticed that its hair was gray. Are spirits live so short as Scrooge? My life upon this globe is very brief, replied the ghost. It ends tonight. So this spirit is the Ghost of Christmas Present, meaning he only lives this one day of the year. Tonight. Cried Scrooge. Tonight at midnight. Hark. The time is drawing near. The chimes were ringing the 3/4 past 11 at that moment. Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask, said Scrooge, looking intently at the spirit's robe, but I see something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw? It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it, was the spirit's sorrowful reply. Look here. From the foldings of its robe it brought two children, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet and clung upon the outside of its garment. Oh, man. Look here. Look. Look down here. Exclaimed the ghost. They were a boy and girl, yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish, but prostrate too in their humility, where graceful youth should have filled their features out and touched them with its freshest tints. A stale and shrivelled hand, like that of age, had pinched and twisted them and pulled them into shreds where angels might have sat enthroned. Devils lurked and glared out, menacing. No change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity in any grade. Through all the mysteries of wonderful creation has monsters half so horrible and dread. Scrooge started back, appalled, having them shown to him in this way. He tried to say they were fine children, but the words choked themselves. Rather than be parties to a lie of such enormous magnitude, Spirit, are they yours? Scrooge could say no more. They are man's, said the spirit, looking down upon them, and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is ignorance, this girl is want. Beware them both and all of their degree. But most of all, beware this boy. For on his brow. I see that written which is doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it. Cried the spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. Slander those who tell it. Ye. Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse and bide the end. Have they no refuge or resource? Cried Scrooge. Are there no prisons? Said the spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. Are there no work houses? The bell struck 12. Scrooge looked about him for the ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes beheld a solemn phantom, draped and hooded, coming like a mist along the ground towards him. Thank you so much for listening. Don't forget to check out my novel Christmas Carol. That's Carol with a K. Using the link in the Show Notes to hear me read an excerpt from the book tied to today's episode, click on the link in the Show Notes I would be so grateful if you would consider buying a copy or a few copies for yourself or as a gift. If you buy a copy of the book and email me a screenshot of your receipt, you'll be entered into a drawing to receive your choice of either your money back or an additional signed copy. The email to send the receipt to is in the Show Notes. If you buy multiple copies, you can enter the drawing multiple times. The winner will be notified by email. Also, everyone who buys a copy of the book is entitled to a free signed bookplate which you can stick into the book to make it a signed copy. If you'd like one, just email the screenshot of your receipt to the email address listed in the Show Notes and let me know whom you'd like the bookplate made out to and what address to mail it to. Thank you so much for supporting me and the work I do by buying my book this Christmas time. And of course, don't forget to get in touch with comments or questions about this episode. Please go to my website, faithkmoore.com click on contact and send me your questions and thoughts. Or you can click on the link in the Show Notes to contact me. I'll feature one or two of your entries at the start of the next episode. Alright everyone, storytime is over. To be continued.