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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. Your fate and that of the good people of this city rely upon what you do in the next day.  It was my fate to turn from those around me for nothing more than personal gain.  If I had held even the smallest spark of compassion then I would not be roaming this place.  Listen to them Ebenezer, listen to them well for they will show you all you need to see.  Expect the first to-morrow, 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!”
    When it had said these words, the spectre took its wrapper from the table, and bound it round its head, as before. Scrooge knew this, by the smart sound its teeth made, when the jaws were brought together by the bandage. He ventured to raise his eyes again, and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude, with its chain wound over and about its arm.
    The apparition walked backward from him; and at every step it took, the window raised itself a little, so that when the spectre reached it, it was wide open.
    It beckoned Scrooge to approach, which he did. When they were within two paces of each other, Marley’s Ghost held up its hand, warning him to come no nearer. Scrooge stopped.
    Not so much in obedience, as in surprise and fear: for on the raising of the hand, he became sensible of confused noises in the air; incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret; wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory. The spectre, after listening for a moment, joined in the mournful dirge; and floated out upon the bleak, dark night.
    Scrooge followed to the window: desperate in his curiosity. He looked out.
    The air was filled with phantoms, wandering hither and thither in restless haste, and moaning as they went. Every one of them wore chains like Marley’s Ghost; some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together; none were free. Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives. He had been quite familiar with one old ghost, in a white waistcoat, with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle, who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant, whom it saw below, upon a door-step. The misery with them all was, clearly, that they sought to interfere, for good, in human matters, and had lost the power for ever.
    Whether these creatures faded into mist, or mist enshrouded them, he could not tell. But they and their spirit voices faded together; and the night became as it had been when he walked home.  He paused for a moment, feeling sure he could hear wailing or screams but the