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 Laocooen 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 school-boy. 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.

"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Scrooge, starting
off again, and going round the fire-place. "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 have 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, clash, 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