Christmas Carol 61 recto

61

STAVE V.

The End of It.

Yes! And the bedpost was his own.; that’s more The bed was his own, the room was
his own. ; and bBest and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own, to make
amends in! for the past.

“I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future! Future!” Scrooge
repeated, looking upward as he scrambled out of bed. and knelt on the bare floor; and knelt on the bare floor “The Spirits of all Three shall [work] strive within me. I will
??thive [??] as if no past had ever been ?? Oh Jacob Marley, on my knees I thank Heaven be ??? ? ???, and the
Christmas Time be praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!”

He was so flurried fluttered and so eager that his glowing with his good intentions,
that his broken voice would scarcely answer to his call. When he found news of ?p?? his
too, he He had been sobbing violently, in his conflict with the Spirit and his face was wet with tears.

“They are not taken torn down,” cried Scrooge, folding a one of his bed curtains in his arms,
?ite fo??g “they are not torn down, rings and all. There is no lorn man [apointed] They are here; I am here;
????the shadows of the things that would have been, shall may be dispelled. They shall will
be. [May ?] Heaven be praised! Yes[,] I know they will be!”

His His hands were busy with his garments all this time: [?] turning them
inside out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, losing them, the while and commenting playing at ball with them:
every [open?] making them parties to every kind of extravagance.

“I don’t know what to do!” cried Scrooge, laughing and crying in the same
breath. “I am as light as a feather, I am as happy as an angel. I am as merry
as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man. Whoop! Hallo here! Hoop!
A Merry Christmas to everybody! A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo here! Hoop!
Hallo!”

He had frisked into the sitting-room and was now standing ion one leg on i the sitting-room [tabl] : perfectly
winded.

“There’s the saucepan that the gruel was in!” cried Scrooge, starting off
upon another dance, again, and frisking round the fireplace. “There’s the door by which
the [G?] Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There’s the corner where the Ghost of Christ-
mas Present, sat! There’s the window where I saw [John Glogg] deceased the wandering Spirits! It’s all
right, it’s all fine, it all happened. Ha ha ha!”

Really, for a man who was as much had been out of practice for so many
years, it was a splendid laugh, a glorious most illustrious laugh!,. tThe 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’ve 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!”