(continued)

`So she had,' cried Scrooge.  `You're right.  I will not gainsay it, Spirit.  God forbid!'

`She died a woman,' said the Ghost, `and had, as I think, children.'

`One child,' Scrooge returned.

`True,' said the Ghost.  `Your nephew.'

Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, `Yes.'

Although they had but that moment left the school behind them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and coaches battle for the way, and all the strife and tumult of a real city were.  It was made plain enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and the streets were lighted up.

The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked Scrooge if he knew it.

`Know it!' said Scrooge.  `I was apprenticed here.'

They went in.  At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two inches taller he must have knocked his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:

`Why, it's old Fezziwig!  Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig alive again.'

Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven.  He rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over himself, from his shows to his organ of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

`Yo ho, there!  Ebenezer!  Dick!'

Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-prentice.

`Dick Wilkins, to be sure,' said Scrooge to the Ghost.  `Bless me, yes.  There he is.  He was very much attached to me, was Dick.  Poor Dick.  Dear, dear.'

`Yo ho, my boys!' said Fezziwig.  `No more work to-night.  Christmas Eve, Dick.  Christmas, Ebenezer.  Let's have the shutters up,' cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, `before a man can say Jack Robinson!'

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