`Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. `And travelling
all the time!'

     `The whole time,' said the Ghost. `No rest, no
peace. Incessant torture of remorse.'

     `You travel fast?' said Scrooge.

     `On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost.

     `You might have got over a great quantity of
ground in seven years,' said Scrooge.

     The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and
clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of
the night, that the Ward would have been justified in
indicting it for a nuisance.

     `Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the
phantom, `not to know, that ages of incessant labour,
by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into
eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is
all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit
working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may
be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast
means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of
regret can make amends for one life's opportunity
misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!'

     `But you were always a good man of business,
Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this
to himself.

     `Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands
again. `Mankind was my business. The common
welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance,
and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings 
of my trade were but a drop of water in the
comprehensive ocean of my business!'

     It held up its chain at arm's length, as if that were
the cause of all its unavailing grief, and flung it
heavily upon the ground again.

     `At this time of the rolling year,' the spectre said
`I suffer most. Why did I walk through crowds of
fellow-beings with my eyes turned down, and never
raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise
Men to a poor abode! Were there no poor homes to
which its light would have conducted me!'

     Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the
spectre going on at this rate, and began to quake
exceedingly.

     `Hear me!' cried the Ghost. `My time is nearly
gone.'

     `I will,' said Scrooge. `But don't be hard upon
me! Don't be flowery, Jacob! Pray!'     
`How it is that I appear before you in a shape that
you can see, I may not tell. I have sat invisible
beside you many and many a day.'

     It was not an agreeable idea. Scrooge shivered,
and wiped the perspiration from his brow.

     `That is no light part of my penance,' pursued 
the Ghost. `I am here to-night to warn you, that you
have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate. A
chance and hope of my procuring, Ebenezer.'

     `You were always a good friend to me,' said
Scrooge. `Thank `ee!'

     `You will be haunted,' resumed the Ghost, `by
Three Spirits.'

     Scrooge's countenance fell almost as low as the
Ghost's had done.

     `Is that the chance and hope you mentioned,
Jacob?' he demanded, in a faltering voice.

     `It is.'

     `I -- I think I'd rather not,' said Scrooge.

     `Without their visits,' said the Ghost, `you cannot
hope to shun the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow, 
when the bell tolls One.'

     `Couldn't I take `em all at once, and have it over,
Jacob?' hinted Scrooge.

     `Expect the second on the next night at the same
hour. The third upon the next night when the last
stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate. Look to see
me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you
remember what has passed between us!'