but will happen in the time before us." He saw himself dead, uncared
for, unwept, unwatched, his effects plundered by the charwoman,
laundress, and undertaker's man and realized the end to which he must
come unless he led an altered life. Holding up his hands he prayed to
have his fate reversed and saw the Ghost shrink and dwindle down into a
bedpost.)


Yes! and the bedpost was his own. The bed was his own, the room was his
own. Best and happiest of all, the Time before him was his own to make
amends in.

"I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future!" Scrooge
repeated, as he scrambled out of bed. "The Spirits of all Three shall
strive within me. O Jacob Marley! Heaven and the Christmas Time be
praised for this! I say it on my knees, old Jacob; on my knees!"

He was so fluttered and so glowing with his good intentions, that his
broken voice could scarcely answer to his call. He had been sobbing
violently in his conflict with the Spirit, and his face was wet with
tears.

"They are not torn down," cried Scrooge, folding one of his bed
curtains in his arms,--"they are not torn down, rings and all. They are
here,--I am here,--the shadows of the things that would have been may be
dispelled. They will be. I know they will!"

His hands were busy with his garments all this time; turning them inside
out, putting them on upside down, tearing them, mislaying them, making
them parties to every kind of extravagance.