night became as it had been when he walked home.

Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door by which the Ghost had
entered. It was double locked, as he had locked it with his own hands,
and the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say "Humbug!" but stopped at
the first syllable. And being, from the emotion he had undergone, or the
fatigues of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or the dull
conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of the hour, much in need of
repose, went straight to bed without undressing, and fell asleep upon
the instant.

STAVE TWO

THE FIRST OF THE THREE SPIRITS

When Scrooge awoke it was so dark, that, looking out of bed, he could
scarcely distinguish the transparent window from the opaque walls of his
chamber. He was endeavouring to pierce the darkness with his ferret
eyes, when the chimes of a neighbouring church struck the four quarters.
So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to seven, and
from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve!
It was past two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must
have got into the works. Twelve!

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most preposterous
clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve, and stopped.

"Why, it isn't possible," said Scrooge, "that I can have slept through a
whole day and far into another night. It isn't possible that anything
has happened to the sun, and this is twelve at noon!"

The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed, and groped his
way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost off with the sleeve
of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could see very
little then. All he could make out was, that it was still very foggy and
extremely cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and
fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been if
night had beaten off bright day, and taken possession of the world.
This was a great relief, because "Three days after sight of this First
of Exchange pay to Mr. Ebenezer Scrooge or his order," and so forth,
would have become a mere United States security if there were no days to
count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought, and thought, and thought it over
and over, and could make nothing of it. The more he thought, the more
perplexed he was; and, the more he endeavoured not to think, the more he
thou