title: a-christmas-carol.txt.
 Merry
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and by-ways for their several
homes? What was merry Christmas to Scrooge? Out upon merry Christmas!
What good had it ever done to him?

'The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. 'A solitary child,
neglected by his friends, is left there still.'

Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

They left the high-road by a well-remembered lane and soon approached a
mansion of dull red brick, with a little weather-cock surmounted cupola
on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of
broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls
were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed.
Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and
sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient
state within; for, entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the
open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and
vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the
place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by
candle light and not too much to eat.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back
of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare,
melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and
desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and
Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as
he had used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice
behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed waterspout in the
dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent
poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a
clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self,
intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments, wonderfully
real and distinct to look at, stood outside the window, with an axe
stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

'Why, it's Ali Baba!' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. 'It's dear old
honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas-time, when yonder
solitary child was left here all alone, he _did_ come, for the first
time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,' said Scrooge, 'and his
wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was put
down in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you see him?
And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon
his head! Serve him right! I'm glad of it. What business had he to be
married to the Princess?'

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such
subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and
to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to
his business friends in the City, indeed.

'There's the Parrot!' cried Scrooge. 'Green body and yellow tail, with a
thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is!
Poor Robin Crusoe he called him, when he came home again after sailing
round the island. "Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin
Crusoe?" The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the
Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little
creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!'

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character,
he said, in pity for his former self, 'Poor boy!' and cried again.

'I wish,' Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his pocket, and looking
about him, after drying his eyes with his cuff; 'but it's too late now.'

'What is the matter?' asked the Spirit.

'Nothing,' said Scrooge. 'Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas
carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something:
that's all.'

The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand, saying as it did so,
'Let us see another Christmas!'

Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a
little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked;
fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were
shown instead; but how all this was brought about Scrooge knew no more
than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had
happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had
gone home for the jolly holidays.

He was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Scrooge
looked at the Ghost, and, with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced
anxiously towards the door.

It opened; and a little girl, much