n to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The
heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage
over him in only one respect,--they often "came down" handsomely, and
Scrooge never did.

Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with gladsome looks, "My
dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?" No beggars
implored him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him what it was
o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to
such and such a place, of Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would tug their owners into
doorways and up courts; and then would wag their tails as though they
said: "No eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!"

But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing he liked. To edge his
way along the crowded paths of life, warning all human sympathy to keep
its distance, was what the knowing ones call "nuts" to Scrooge.

Once upon a time--of all the good days in the year, upon a Christmas
eve--old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was cold, bleak,
biting, foggy weather; and the city clocks had only just gone three, but
it was quite dark already.

The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open, that he might keep his
eye upon his clerk, who, in a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank,
was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's fire
was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal. But he couldn't
replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room; and so
surely as the clerk came in with the shovel the master predicted that it
would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore the clerk put on his
white comforter, and tried to warm himself at the candle; in which
effort, not being a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

"A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice. It was
the voice of Scrooge's nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this
was the first intimation Scrooge had of his approach.

"Bah!" said Scrooge; "humbug!"

"Christmas a humbug, uncle! You don't mean that, I am sure?"

"I do. Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas time to you but a time
for paying bills without money; a time for finding yourself a year
older, and not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books and
having every item in 'em through a round dozen of months presented dead
against you? If I had my will, ev