leman, "a few of us
are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy the Poor some meat and drink,
and means of warmth. We choose this time, because it is a time, of all
others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance rejoices. What shall I
put you down for?"

"Nothing!" Scrooge replied.

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone," said Scrooge. "Since you ask me what I
wish, gentlemen, that is my answer. I don't make merry myself at
Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to
support the establishments I have mentioned: they cost enough: and
those who are badly off must go there."

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and
decrease the surplus population. Besides--excuse me--I don't know
that."

"But you might know it," observed the gentleman.

"It's not my business," Scrooge returned. "It's enough for a man to
understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's.
Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!"

Seeing clearly that it would be useless to pursue their point, the
gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge resumed his labours with an improved
opinion of himself, and in a more facetious temper than was usual with
him.

[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 6.]

Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that people ran about
with flaring links, proffering their services to go before horses in
carriages, and conduct them on their way. The ancient tower of a
church, whose gruff old bell was always peeping slily down at Scrooge
out of a gothic window in the wall, became invisible, and struck the
hours and quarters in the clouds, with tremulous vibrations
afterwards, as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up
there. The cold became intense. In the main street, at the corner of
the court, some labourers were repairing the gas-pipes, and had
lighted a great fire in a brazier, round which a party of ragged men
and boys were gathered: warming their hands and winking their eyes
before the blaze in rapture. The waterplug being left in solitude, its
overflowings sullenly congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice. The
brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and berries crackled in the
lamp-heat of the windows, made pale faces ruddy as they passed.
Poulterers' and grocers' trades became a splendid joke: a glorious
pageant, with which it was next to impossible to believe