ALICE'S ADVENTURES IN WONDERLAND

                          Lewis Carroll

               THE MILLENNIUM FULCRUM EDITION 3.0




                            CHAPTER I

                      Down the Rabbit-Hole


  Alice was beginning to get very tired of sitting by her sister
on the bank, and of having nothing to do:  once or twice she had
peeped into the book her sister was reading, but it had no
pictures or conversations in it, `and what is the use of a book,'
thought Alice `without pictures or conversation?'

  So she was considering in her own mind (as well as she could,
for the hot day made her feel very sleepy and stupid), whether
the pleasure of making a daisy-chain would be worth the trouble
of getting up and picking the daisies, when suddenly a White
Rabbit with pink eyes ran close by her.

  There was nothing so VERY remarkable in that; nor did Alice
think it so VERY much out of the way to hear the Rabbit say to
itself, `Oh dear!  Oh dear!  I shall be late!'  (when she thought
it over afterwards, it occurred to her that she ought to have
wondered at this, but at the time it all seemed quite natural);
but when the Rabbit actually TOOK A WATCH OUT OF ITS WAISTCOAT-
POCKET, and looked at it, and then hurried on, Alice started to
her feet, for it flashed across her mind that she had never
before seen a rabbit with either a waistcoat-pocket, or a watch to
take out of it, and burning with curiosity, she ran across the
field after it, and fortunately was just in time to see it pop
down a large rabbit-hole under the hedge.

  In another moment down went Alice after it, never once
considering how in the world she was to get out again.

  The rabbit-hole went straight on like a tunnel for some way,
and then dipped suddenly down, so suddenly that Alice had not a
moment to think about stopping herself before she found herself
falling down a very deep well.

  Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she
had plenty of time as she went down to look about her and to
wonder what was going to happen next.  First, she tried to look
down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to
see anything; then she looked at the sides of the well, and
noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves;
here and there she saw maps and pictures hung upon pegs.  She
took down a jar from one of the shelves as she passed; it was
labelled `ORANGE MARMALADE', but to her great disappointment it
was empty:  she did not like to drop the jar for fear of killing
somebody, so managed to put it into one of the cupboards as she
fell past it.

  `Well!' thought Alice to herself, `after such a fall as this, I
shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs!  How brave they'll
all think me at home!  Why, I wouldn't say anything about it,
even if I fell off the top of the house!' (Which was very likely
true.)

  Down, down, down.  Would the fall NEVER come to an end!  `I
wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?' she said aloud.
`I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth.  Let
me see:  that would be four thousand miles down, I think--' (for,
you see, Alice had learnt several things of this sort in her
lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a VERY good
opportunity for showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to
listen to her, still it was good practice to say it over) `--yes,
that's about the right distance--but then I wonder what Latitude
or Longitude I've got to?'  (Alice had no idea what Latitude was,
or Longitude either, but thought they were nice grand words to
say.)

  Presently she began again.  `I wonder if I shall fall right
THROUGH the earth!  How funny it'll seem to come out among the
people that walk with their heads downward!  The Antipathies, I
think--' (she was rather glad there WAS no one listening, this
time, as it didn't sound at all the right word) `--but I shall
have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know.
Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?' (and she tried
to curtsey as she spoke--fancy CURTSEYING as you're falling
through the air!  Do you think you could manage it?)  `And what
an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking!  No, it'll
never do to ask:  perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere.'

  Down, down, down.  There was nothing else to do, so Alice soon
began talking again.  `Dinah'll miss me very much to-night, I
should think!'  (Dinah was the cat.)  `I hope they'll remember
her saucer of milk at tea-time.  Dinah my dear!  I wish you were
down here with me!  There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but
you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know.
But do cats eat bats, I wonder?'  And here Alice began to get
rather sleepy, and went on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of
way, `Do cats eat bats?  Do cats eat bats?' and sometimes, `Do
bats eat cats?' for, you see, as she couldn't answer either
question, it didn't much matter which way she put it.  She felt
that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she
was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and saying to her very
earnestly, `Now, Dinah, tell me the truth:  did you ever eat a
bat?' when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came upon a heap of
sticks and dry leaves, and the fall was over.

  Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a
moment:  she looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her
was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in
sight, hurrying down it.  There was not a moment to be lost:
away went Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it
say, as it turned a corner, `Oh my ears and whiskers, how late
it's getting!'  She was close behind it when she turned the
corner, but the Rabbit was no longer to be seen:  she found
herself in a long, low hall, which was lit up by a row of lamps
hanging from the roof.

  There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked;
and when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the
other, trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle,
wondering how she was ever to get out again.

  Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of
solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key,
and Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the
doors of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large, or
the key was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of
them.  However, on the second time round, she came upon a low
curtain she had not noticed before, and behind it was a little
door about fifteen inches high:  she tried the little golden key
in the lock, and to her great delight it fitted!

  Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small
passage, not much larger than a rat-hole:  she knelt down and
looked along the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw.
How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about
among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but
she could not even get her head though the doorway; `and even if
my head would go through,' thought poor Alice, `it would be of
very little use without my shoulders.  Oh, how I wish
I could shut up like a telescope!  I think I could, if I only
know how to begin.'  For, you see, so many out-of-the-way things
had happened lately, that Alice had begun to think that very few
things indeed were really impossible.

  There seemed to be no use in waiting by the little door, so she
went back to the table, half hoping she might find another key on
it, or at any rate a book of rules for shutting people up like
telescopes:  this time she found a little bottle on it, (`which
certainly was not here before,' said Alice,) and round the neck
of the bottle was a paper label, with the words `DRINK ME'
beautifully printed on it in large letters.

  It was all very well to say `Drink me,' but the wise little
Alice was not going to do THAT in a hurry.  `No, I'll look
first,' she said, `and see whether it's marked "poison" or not';
for she had read several nice little histories about children who
had got burnt, and eaten up by wild beasts and other unpleasant
things, all because they WOULD not remember the simple rules
their friends had taught them:  such as, that a red-hot poker
will burn you if you hold it too long; and that if you cut your
finger VERY deeply with a knife, it usually bleeds; and she had
never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked
`poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or
later.

  However, this bottle was NOT marked `poison,' so Alice ventured
to taste it, and finding it very nice, (it had, in fact, a sort
of mixed flavour of cherry-tart, custard, pine-apple, roast
turkey, toffee, and hot buttered toast,) she very soon finished
it off.

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

         *       *       *       *       *       *

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

  `What a curious feeling!' said Alice; `I must be shutting up
like a telescope.'

  And so it was indeed:  she was now only ten inches high, and
her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right
size for going through the little door into that lovely garden.
First, however, she waited for a few minutes to see if she was
going to shrink any further:  she felt a little nervous about
this; `for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, `in my
going out altogether, like a candle.  I wonder what I should be
like then?'  And she tried to fancy what the flame of a candle is
like after the candle is blown out, for she could not remember
ever having seen such a thing.

  After a while, finding that nothing more happened, she decided
on going into the garden at once; but, alas for poor Alice!
when she got to the door, she found she had forgotten the
little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it,
she found she could not possibly reach it:  she could see it
quite plainly through the glass, and she tried her best to climb
up one of the legs of the table, but it was too slippery;
and when she had tired herself out with trying,
the poor little thing sat down and cried.

  `Come, there's no use in crying like that!' said Alice to
herself, rather sharply; `I advise you to leave off this minute!'
She generally gave herself very good advice, (though she very
seldom followed it), and sometimes she scolded herself so
severely as to bring tears into her eyes; and once she remembered
trying to box her own ears for having cheated herself in a game
of croquet she was playing against herself, for this curious
child was very fond of pretending to be two people.  `But it's no
use now,' thought poor Alice, `to pretend to be two people!  Why,
there's hardly enough of me left to make ONE respectable
person!'

  Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under
the table:  she opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on
which the words `EAT ME' were beautifully marked in currants.
`Well, I'll eat it,' said Alice, `and if it makes me grow larger,
I can reach the key; and if it makes me grow smaller, I can creep
under the door; so either way I'll get into the garden, and I
don't care which happens!'

  She ate a little bit, and said anxiously to herself, `Which
way?  Which way?', holding her hand on the top of her head to
feel which way it was growing, and she was quite surprised to
find that she remained the same size:  to be sure, this generally
happens when one eats cake, but Alice had got so much into the
way of expecting nothing but out-of-the-way things to happen,
that it seemed quite dull and stupid for life to go on in the
common way.

  So she set to work, and very soon finished off the cake.

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

         *       *       *       *       *       *

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *




                           CHAPTER II

                        The Pool of Tears


  `Curiouser and curiouser!' cried Alice (she was so much
surprised, that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good
English); `now I'm opening out like the largest telescope that
ever was!  Good-bye, feet!' (for when she looked down at her
feet, they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so
far off).  `Oh, my poor little feet, I wonder who will put on
your shoes and stockings for you now, dears?  I'm sure _I_ shan't
be able!  I shall be a great deal too far off to trouble myself
about you:  you must manage the best way you can; --but I must be
kind to them,' thought Alice, `or perhaps they won't walk the
way I want to go!  Let me see:  I'll give them a new pair of
boots every Christmas.'

  And she went on planning to herself how she would manage it.
`They must go by the carrier,' she thought; `and how funny it'll
seem, sending presents to one's own feet!  And how odd the
directions will look!

            ALICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ.
                HEARTHRUG,
                    NEAR THE FENDER,
                        (WITH ALICE'S LOVE).

Oh dear, what nonsense I'm talking!'

  Just then her head struck against the roof of the hall:  in
fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took
up the little golden key and hurried off to the garden door.

  Poor Alice!  It was as much as she could do, lying down on one
side, to look through into the garden with one eye; but to get
through was more hopeless than ever:  she sat down and began to
cry again.

  `You ought to be ashamed of yourself,' said Alice, `a great
girl like you,' (she might well say this), `to go on crying in
this way!  Stop this moment, I tell you!'  But she went on all
the same, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool
all round her, about four inches deep and reaching half down the
hall.

  After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the
distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.
It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a
pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the
other:  he came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to
himself as he came, `Oh! the Duchess, the Duchess! Oh! won't she
be savage if I've kept her waiting!'  Alice felt so desperate
that she was ready to ask help of any one; so, when the Rabbit
came near her, she began, in a low, timid voice, `If you please,
sir--'  The Rabbit started violently, dropped the white kid
gloves and the fan, and skurried away into the darkness as hard
as he could go.

  Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very
hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking:
`Dear, dear!  How queer everything is to-day!  And yesterday
things went on just as usual.  I wonder if I've been changed in
the night?  Let me think:  was I the same when I got up this
morning?  I almost think I can remember feeling a little
different.  But if I'm not the same, the next question is, Who in
the world am I?  Ah, THAT'S the great puzzle!'  And she began
thinking over all the children she knew that were of the same age
as herself, to see if she could have been changed for any of
them.

  `I'm sure I'm not Ada,' she said, `for her hair goes in such
long ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all; and I'm
sure I can't be Mabel, for I know all sorts of things, and she,
oh! she knows such a very little!  Besides, SHE'S she, and I'm I,
and--oh dear, how puzzling it all is!  I'll try if I know all the
things I used to know.  Let me see:  four times five is twelve,
and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven is--oh dear!
I shall never get to twenty at that rate!  However, the
Multiplication Table doesn't signify:  let's try Geography.
London is the capital of Paris, and Paris is the capital of Rome,
and Rome--no, THAT'S all wrong, I'm certain!  I must have been
changed for Mabel!  I'll try and say "How doth the little--"'
and she crossed her hands on her lap as if she were saying lessons,
and began to repeat it, but her voice sounded hoarse and
strange, and the words did not come the same as they used to do:--

            `How doth the little crocodile
              Improve his shining tail,
            And pour the waters of the Nile
              On every golden scale!

            `How cheerfully he seems to grin,
              How neatly spread his claws,
            And welcome little fishes in
              With gently smiling jaws!'

  `I'm sure those are not the right words,' said poor Alice, and
her eyes filled with tears again as she went on, `I must be Mabel
after all, and I shall have to go and live in that poky little
house, and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! ever so
many lessons to learn!  No, I've made up my mind about it; if I'm
Mabel, I'll stay down here!  It'll be no use their putting their
heads down and saying "Come up again, dear!"  I shall only look
up and say "Who am I then?  Tell me that first, and then, if I
like being that person, I'll come up:  if not, I'll stay down
here till I'm somebody else"--but, oh dear!' cried Alice, with a
sudden burst of tears, `I do wish they WOULD put their heads
down!  I am so VERY tired of being all alone here!'

  As she said this she looked down at her hands, and was
surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit's little
white kid gloves while she was talking.  `How CAN I have done
that?' she thought.  `I must be growing small again.'  She got up
and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that,
as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high,
and was going on shrinking rapidly:  she soon found out that the
cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it
hastily, just in time to avoid shrinking away altogether.

`That WAS a narrow escape!' said Alice, a good deal frightened at
the sudden change, but very glad to find herself still in
existence; `and now for the garden!' and she ran with all speed
back to the little door:  but, alas! the little door was shut
again, and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as
before, `and things are worse than ever,' thought the poor child,
`for I never was so small as this before, never!  And I declare
it's too bad, that it is!'

  As she said these words her foot slipped, and in another
moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water.  Her first
idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea, `and in that
case I can go back by railway,' she said to herself.  (Alice had
been to the seaside once in her life, and had come to the general
conclusion, that wherever you go to on the English coast you find
a number of bathing machines in the sea, some children digging in
the sand with wooden spades, then a row of lodging houses, and
behind them a railway station.)  However, she soon made out that
she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine
feet high.

  `I wish I hadn't cried so much!' said Alice, as she swam about,
trying to find her way out.  `I shall be punished for it now, I
suppose, by being drowned in my own tears!  That WILL be a queer
thing, to be sure!  However, everything is queer to-day.'

  Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a
little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was:  at
first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then
she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that
it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.

  `Would it be of any use, now,' thought Alice, `to speak to this
mouse?  Everything is so out-of-the-way down here, that I should
think very likely it can talk:  at any rate, there's no harm in
trying.'  So she began:  `O Mouse, do you know the way out of
this pool?  I am very tired of swimming about here, O Mouse!'
(Alice thought this must be the right way of speaking to a mouse:
she had never done such a thing before, but she remembered having
seen in her brother's Latin Grammar, `A mouse--of a mouse--to a
mouse--a mouse--O mouse!'  The Mouse looked at her rather
inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little
eyes, but it said nothing.

  `Perhaps it doesn't understand English,' thought Alice; `I
daresay it's a French mouse, come over with William the
Conqueror.'  (For, with all her knowledge of history, Alice had
no very clear notion how long ago anything had happened.)  So she
began again:  `Ou est ma chatte?' which was the first sentence in
her French lesson-book.  The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the
water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright.  `Oh, I beg
your pardon!' cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the
poor animal's feelings.  `I quite forgot you didn't like cats.'

  `Not like cats!' cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate
voice.  `Would YOU like cats if you were me?'

  `Well, perhaps not,' said Alice in a soothing tone:  `don't be
angry about it.  And yet I wish I could show you our cat Dinah:
I think you'd take a fancy to cats if you could only see her.
She is such a dear quiet thing,' Alice went on, half to herself,
as she swam lazily about in the pool, `and she sits purring so
nicely by the fire, licking her paws and washing her face--and
she is such a nice soft thing to nurse--and she's such a capital
one for catching mice--oh, I beg your pardon!' cried Alice again,
for this time the Mouse was bristling all over, and she felt
certain it must be really offended.  `We won't talk about her any
more if you'd rather not.'

  `We indeed!' cried the Mouse, who was trembling down to the end
of his tail.  `As if I would talk on such a subject!  Our family
always HATED cats:  nasty, low, vulgar things!  Don't let me hear
the name again!'

  `I won't indeed!' said Alice, in a great hurry to change the
subject of conversation.  `Are you--are you fond--of--of dogs?'
The Mouse did not answer, so Alice went on eagerly:  `There is
such a nice little dog near our house I should like to show you!
A little bright-eyed terrier, you know, with oh, such long curly
brown hair!  And it'll fetch things when you throw them, and
it'll sit up and beg for its dinner, and all sorts of things--I
can't remember half of them--and it belongs to a farmer, you
know, and he says it's so useful, it's worth a hundred pounds!
He says it kills all the rats and--oh dear!' cried Alice in a
sorrowful tone, `I'm afraid I've offended it again!'  For the
Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go, and
making quite a commotion in the pool as it went.

  So she called softly after it, `Mouse dear!  Do come back
again, and we won't talk about cats or dogs either, if you don't
like them!'  When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam
slowly back to her:  its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice
thought), and it said in a low trembling voice, `Let us get to
the shore, and then I'll tell you my history, and you'll
understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.'

  It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded
with the birds and animals that had fallen into it:  there were a
Duck and a Dodo, a Lory and an Eaglet, and several other curious
creatures.  Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the
shore.



                           CHAPTER III

                  A Caucus-Race and a Long Tale


  They were indeed a queer-looking party that assembled on the
bank--the birds with draggled feathers, the animals with their
fur clinging close to them, and all dripping wet, cross, and
uncomfortable.

  The first question of course was, how to get dry again:  they
had a consultation about this, and after a few minutes it seemed
quite natural to Alice to find herself talking familiarly with
them, as if she had known them all her life.  Indeed, she had
quite a long argument with the Lory, who at last turned sulky,
and would only say, `I am older than you, and must know better';
and this Alice would not allow without knowing how old it was,
and, as the Lory positively refused to tell its age, there was no
more to be said.

  At last the Mouse, who seemed to be a person of authority among
them, called out, `Sit down, all of you, and listen to me!  I'LL
soon make you dry enough!'  They all sat down at once, in a large
ring, with the Mouse in the middle.  Alice kept her eyes
anxiously fixed on it, for she felt sure she would catch a bad
cold if she did not get dry very soon.

  `Ahem!' said the Mouse with an important air, `are you all ready?
This is the driest thing I know.  Silence all round, if you please!
"William the Conqueror, whose cause was favoured by the pope, was
soon submitted to by the English, who wanted leaders, and had been
of late much accustomed to usurpation and conquest.  Edwin and
Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria--"'

  `Ugh!' said the Lory, with a shiver.

  `I beg your pardon!' said the Mouse, frowning, but very
politely:  `Did you speak?'

  `Not I!' said the Lory hastily.

  `I thought you did,' said the Mouse.  `--I proceed.  "Edwin and
Morcar, the earls of Mercia and Northumbria, declared for him:
and even Stigand, the patriotic archbishop of Canterbury, found
it advisable--"'

  `Found WHAT?' said the Duck.

  `Found IT,' the Mouse replied rather crossly:  `of course you
know what "it" means.'

  `I know what "it" means well enough, when I find a thing,' said
the Duck:  `it's generally a frog or a worm.  The question is,
what did the archbishop find?'

  The Mouse did not notice this question, but hurriedly went on,
`"--found it advisable to go with Edgar Atheling to meet William
and offer him the crown.  William's conduct at first was
moderate.  But the insolence of his Normans--"  How are you
getting on now, my dear?' it continued, turning to Alice as it
spoke.

  `As wet as ever,' said Alice in a melancholy tone:  `it doesn't
seem to dry me at all.'

  `In that case,' said the Dodo solemnly, rising to its feet, `I
move that the meeting adjourn, for the immediate adoption of more
energetic remedies--'

  `Speak English!' said the Eaglet.  `I don't know the meaning of
half those long words, and, what's more, I don't believe you do
either!'  And the Eaglet bent down its head to hide a smile:
some of the other birds tittered audibly.

  `What I was going to say,' said the Dodo in an offended tone,
`was, that the best thing to get us dry would be a Caucus-race.'

  `What IS a Caucus-race?' said Alice; not that she wanted much
to know, but the Dodo had paused as if it thought that SOMEBODY
ought to speak, and no one else seemed inclined to say anything.

  `Why,' said the Dodo, `the best way to explain it is to do it.'
(And, as you might like to try the thing yourself, some winter
day, I will tell you how the Dodo managed it.)

  First it marked out a race-course, in a sort of circle, (`the
exact shape doesn't matter,' it said,) and then all the party
were placed along the course, here and there.  There was no `One,
two, three, and away,' but they began running when they liked,
and left off when they liked, so that it was not easy to know
when the race was over.  However, when they had been running half
an hour or so, and were quite dry again, the Dodo suddenly called
out `The race is over!' and they all crowded round it, panting,
and asking, `But who has won?'

  This question the Dodo could not answer without a great deal of
thought, and it sat for a long time with one finger pressed upon
its forehead (the position in which you usually see Shakespeare,
in the pictures of him), while the rest waited in silence.  At
last the Dodo said, `EVERYBODY has won, and all must have
prizes.'

  `But who is to give the prizes?' quite a chorus of voices
asked.

  `Why, SHE, of course,' said the Dodo, pointing to Alice with
one finger; and the whole party at once crowded round her,
calling out in a confused way, `Prizes! Prizes!'

  Alice had no idea what to do, and in despair she put her hand
in her pocket, and pulled out a box of comfits, (luckily the salt
water had not got into it), and handed them round as prizes.
There was exactly one a-piece all round.

  `But she must have a prize herself, you know,' said the Mouse.

  `Of course,' the Dodo replied very gravely.  `What else have
you got in your pocket?' he went on, turning to Alice.

  `Only a thimble,' said Alice sadly.

  `Hand it over here,' said the Dodo.

  Then they all crowded round her once more, while the Dodo
solemnly presented the thimble, saying `We beg your acceptance of
this elegant thimble'; and, when it had finished this short
speech, they all cheered.

  Alice thought the whole thing very absurd, but they all looked
so grave that she did not dare to laugh; and, as she could not
think of anything to say, she simply bowed, and took the thimble,
looking as solemn as she could.

  The next thing was to eat the comfits:  this caused some noise
and confusion, as the large birds complained that they could not
taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be patted on
the back.  However, it was over at last, and they sat down again
in a ring, and begged the Mouse to tell them something more.

  `You promised to tell me your history, you know,' said Alice,
`and why it is you hate--C and D,' she added in a whisper, half
afraid that it would be offended again.

  `Mine is a long and a sad tale!' said the Mouse, turning to
Alice, and sighing.

  `It IS a long tail, certainly,' said Alice, looking down with
wonder at the Mouse's tail; `but why do you call it sad?'  And
she kept on puzzling about it while the Mouse was speaking, so
that her idea of the tale was something like this:--

                    `Fury said to a
                   mouse, That he
                 met in the
               house,
            "Let us
              both go to
                law:  I will
                  prosecute
                    YOU.  --Come,
                       I'll take no
                        denial; We
                     must have a
                 trial:  For
              really this
           morning I've
          nothing
         to do."
           Said the
             mouse to the
               cur, "Such
                 a trial,
                   dear Sir,
                         With
                     no jury
                  or judge,
                would be
              wasting
             our
              breath."
               "I'll be
                 judge, I'll
                   be jury,"
                         Said
                    cunning
                      old Fury:
                     "I'll
                      try the
                         whole
                          cause,
                             and
                        condemn
                       you
                      to
                       death."'


  `You are not attending!' said the Mouse to Alice severely.
`What are you thinking of?'

  `I beg your pardon,' said Alice very humbly:  `you had got to
the fifth bend, I think?'

  `I had NOT!' cried the Mouse, sharply and very angrily.

  `A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and
looking anxiously about her.  `Oh, do let me help to undo it!'

  `I shall do nothing of the sort,' said the Mouse, getting up
and walking away.  `You insult me by talking such nonsense!'

  `I didn't mean it!' pleaded poor Alice.  `But you're so easily
offended, you know!'

  The Mouse only growled in reply.

  `Please come back and finish your story!' Alice called after
it; and the others all joined in chorus, `Yes, please do!' but
the Mouse only shook its head impatiently, and walked a little
quicker.

  `What a pity it wouldn't stay!' sighed the Lory, as soon as it
was quite out of sight; and an old Crab took the opportunity of
saying to her daughter `Ah, my dear!  Let this be a lesson to you
never to lose YOUR temper!'  `Hold your tongue, Ma!' said the
young Crab, a little snappishly.  `You're enough to try the
patience of an oyster!'

  `I wish I had our Dinah here, I know I do!' said Alice aloud,
addressing nobody in particular.  `She'd soon fetch it back!'

  `And who is Dinah, if I might venture to ask the question?'
said the Lory.

  Alice replied eagerly, for she was always ready to talk about
her pet:  `Dinah's our cat.  And she's such a capital one for
catching mice you can't think!  And oh, I wish you could see her
after the birds!  Why, she'll eat a little bird as soon as look
at it!'

  This speech caused a remarkable sensation among the party.
Some of the birds hurried off at once:  one old Magpie began
wrapping itself up very carefully, remarking, `I really must be
getting home; the night-air doesn't suit my throat!' and a Canary
called out in a trembling voice to its children, `Come away, my
dears!  It's high time you were all in bed!'  On various pretexts
they all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.

  `I wish I hadn't mentioned Dinah!' she said to herself in a
melancholy tone.  `Nobody seems to like her, down here, and I'm
sure she's the best cat in the world!  Oh, my dear Dinah!  I
wonder if I shall ever see you any more!'  And here poor Alice
began to cry again, for she felt very lonely and low-spirited.
In a little while, however, she again heard a little pattering of
footsteps in the distance, and she looked up eagerly, half hoping
that the Mouse had changed his mind, and was coming back to
finish his story.



                           CHAPTER IV

                The Rabbit Sends in a Little Bill


  It was the White Rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and
looking anxiously about as it went, as if it had lost something;
and she heard it muttering to itself `The Duchess!  The Duchess!
Oh my dear paws!  Oh my fur and whiskers!  She'll get me
executed, as sure as ferrets are ferrets!  Where CAN I have
dropped them, I wonder?'  Alice guessed in a moment that it was
looking for the fan and the pair of white kid gloves, and she
very good-naturedly began hunting about for them, but they were
nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to have changed since her
swim in the pool, and the great hall, with the glass table and
the little door, had vanished completely.

  Very soon the Rabbit noticed Alice, as she went hunting about,
and called out to her in an angry tone, `Why, Mary Ann, what ARE
you doing out here?  Run home this moment, and fetch me a pair of
gloves and a fan!  Quick, now!'  And Alice was so much frightened
that she ran off at once in the direction it pointed to, without
trying to explain the mistake it had made.

  `He took me for his housemaid,' she said to herself as she ran.
`How surprised he'll be when he finds out who I am!  But I'd
better take him his fan and gloves--that is, if I can find them.'
As she said this, she came upon a neat little house, on the door
of which was a bright brass plate with the name `W. RABBIT'
engraved upon it.  She went in without knocking, and hurried
upstairs, in great fear lest she should meet the real Mary Ann,
and be turned out of the house before she had found the fan and
gloves.

  `How queer it seems,' Alice said to herself, `to be going
messages for a rabbit!  I suppose Dinah'll be sending me on
messages next!'  And she began fancying the sort of thing that
would happen:  `"Miss Alice!  Come here directly, and get ready
for your walk!" "Coming in a minute, nurse!  But I've got to see
that the mouse doesn't get out."  Only I don't think,' Alice went
on, `that they'd let Dinah stop in the house if it began ordering
people about like that!'

  By this time she had found her way into a tidy little room with
a table in the window, and on it (as she had hoped) a fan and two
or three pairs of tiny white kid gloves:  she took up the fan and
a pair of the gloves, and was just going to leave the room, when
her eye fell upon a little bottle that stood near the looking-
glass.  There was no label this time with the words `DRINK ME,'
but nevertheless she uncorked it and put it to her lips.  `I know
SOMETHING interesting is sure to happen,' she said to herself,
`whenever I eat or drink anything; so I'll just see what this
bottle does.  I do hope it'll make me grow large again, for
really I'm quite tired of being such a tiny little thing!'

  It did so indeed, and much sooner than she had expected:
before she had drunk half the bottle, she found her head pressing
against the ceiling, and had to stoop to save her neck from being
broken.  She hastily put down the bottle, saying to herself
`That's quite enough--I hope I shan't grow any more--As it is, I
can't get out at the door--I do wish I hadn't drunk quite so
much!'

  Alas! it was too late to wish that!  She went on growing, and
growing, and very soon had to kneel down on the floor:  in
another minute there was not even room for this, and she tried
the effect of lying down with one elbow against the door, and the
other arm curled round her head.  Still she went on growing, and,
as a last resource, she put one arm out of the window, and one
foot up the chimney, and said to herself `Now I can do no more,
whatever happens.  What WILL become of me?'

  Luckily for Alice, the little magic bottle had now had its full
effect, and she grew no larger:  still it was very uncomfortable,
and, as there seemed to be no sort of chance of her ever getting
out of the room again, no wonder she felt unhappy.

  `It was much pleasanter at home,' thought poor Alice, `when one
wasn't always growing larger and smaller, and being ordered about
by mice and rabbits.  I almost wish I hadn't gone down that
rabbit-hole--and yet--and yet--it's rather curious, you know,
this sort of life!  I do wonder what CAN have happened to me!
When I used to read fairy-tales, I fancied that kind of thing
never happened, and now here I am in the middle of one!  There
ought to be a book written about me, that there ought!  And when
I grow up, I'll write one--but I'm grown up now,' she added in a
sorrowful tone; `at least there's no room to grow up any more
HERE.'

  `But then,' thought Alice, `shall I NEVER get any older than I
am now?  That'll be a comfort, one way--never to be an old woman--
but then--always to have lessons to learn!  Oh, I shouldn't like THAT!'

  `Oh, you foolish Alice!' she answered herself.  `How can you
learn lessons in here?  Why, there's hardly room for YOU, and no
room at all for any lesson-books!'

  And so she went on, taking first one side and then the other,
and making quite a conversation of it altogether; but after a few
minutes she heard a voice outside, and stopped to listen.

  `Mary Ann!  Mary Ann!' said the voice.  `Fetch me my gloves
this moment!'  Then came a little pattering of feet on the
stairs.  Alice knew it was the Rabbit coming to look for her, and
she trembled till she shook the house, quite forgetting that she
was now about a thousand times as large as the Rabbit, and had no
reason to be afraid of it.

  Presently the Rabbit came up to the door, and tried to open it;
but, as the door opened inwards, and Alice's elbow was pressed
hard against it, that attempt proved a failure.  Alice heard it
say to itself `Then I'll go round and get in at the window.'

  `THAT you won't' thought Alice, and, after waiting till she
fancied she heard the Rabbit just under the window, she suddenly
spread out her hand, and made a snatch in the air.  She did not
get hold of anything, but she heard a little shriek and a fall,
and a crash of broken glass, from which she concluded that it was
just possible it had fallen into a cucumber-frame, or something
of the sort.

  Next came an angry voice--the Rabbit's--`Pat! Pat!  Where are
you?'  And then a voice she had never heard before, `Sure then
I'm here!  Digging for apples, yer honour!'

  `Digging for apples, indeed!' said the Rabbit angrily.  `Here!
Come and help me out of THIS!'  (Sounds of more broken glass.)

  `Now tell me, Pat, what's that in the window?'

  `Sure, it's an arm, yer honour!'  (He pronounced it `arrum.')

  `An arm, you goose!   Who ever saw one that size?  Why, it
fills the whole window!'

  `Sure, it does, yer honour:  but it's an arm for all that.'

  `Well, it's got no business there, at any rate:  go and take it
away!'

  There was a long silence after this, and Alice could only hear
whispers now and then; such as, `Sure, I don't like it, yer
honour, at all, at all!'  `Do as I tell you, you coward!' and at
last she spread out her hand again, and made another snatch in
the air.  This time there were TWO little shrieks, and more
sounds of broken glass.  `What a number of cucumber-frames there
must be!' thought Alice.  `I wonder what they'll do next!  As for
pulling me out of the window, I only wish they COULD!  I'm sure I
don't want to stay in here any longer!'

  She waited for some time without hearing anything more:  at
last came a rumbling of little cartwheels, and the sound of a
good many voices all talking together:  she made out the words:
`Where's the other ladder?--Why, I hadn't to bring but one;
Bill's got the other--Bill! fetch it here, lad!--Here, put 'em up
at this corner--No, tie 'em together first--they don't reach half
high enough yet--Oh! they'll do well enough; don't be particular--
Here, Bill! catch hold of this rope--Will the roof bear?--Mind
that loose slate--Oh, it's coming down!  Heads below!' (a loud
crash)--`Now, who did that?--It was Bill, I fancy--Who's to go
down the chimney?--Nay, I shan't! YOU do it!--That I won't,
then!--Bill's to go down--Here, Bill! the master says you're to
go down the chimney!'

  `Oh! So Bill's got to come down the chimney, has he?' said
Alice to herself.  `Shy, they seem to put everything upon Bill!
I wouldn't be in Bill's place for a good deal:  this fireplace is
narrow, to be sure; but I THINK I can kick a little!'

  She drew her foot as far down the chimney as she could, and
waited till she heard a little animal (she couldn't guess of what
sort it was) scratching and scrambling about in the chimney close
above her:  then, saying to herself `This is Bill,' she gave one
sharp kick, and waited to see what would happen next.

  The first thing she heard was a general chorus of `There goes
Bill!' then the Rabbit's voice along--`Catch him, you by the
hedge!' then silence, and then another confusion of voices--`Hold
up his head--Brandy now--Don't choke him--How was it, old fellow?
What happened to you?  Tell us all about it!'

  Last came a little feeble, squeaking voice, (`That's Bill,'
thought Alice,) `Well, I hardly know--No more, thank ye; I'm
better now--but I'm a deal too flustered to tell you--all I know
is, something comes at me like a Jack-in-the-box, and up I goes
like a sky-rocket!'

  `So you did, old fellow!' said the others.

  `We must burn the house down!' said the Rabbit's voice; and
Alice called out as loud as she could, `If you do.  I'll set
Dinah at you!'

  There was a dead silence instantly, and Alice thought to
herself, `I wonder what they WILL do next!  If they had any
sense, they'd take the roof off.'  After a minute or two, they
began moving about again, and Alice heard the Rabbit say, `A
barrowful will do, to begin with.'

  `A barrowful of WHAT?' thought Alice; but she had not long to
doubt, for the next moment a shower of little pebbles came
rattling in at the window, and some of them hit her in the face.
`I'll put a stop to this,' she said to herself, and shouted out,
`You'd better not do that again!' which produced another dead
silence.

  Alice noticed with some surprise that the pebbles were all
turning into little cakes as they lay on the floor, and a bright
idea came into her head.  `If I eat one of these cakes,' she
thought, `it's sure to make SOME change in my size; and as it
can't possibly make me larger, it must make me smaller, I
suppose.'

  So she swallowed one of the cakes, and was delighted to find
that she began shrinking directly.  As soon as she was small
enough to get through the door, she ran out of the house, and
found quite a crowd of little animals and birds waiting outside.
The poor little Lizard, Bill, was in the middle, being held up by
two guinea-pigs, who were giving it something out of a bottle.
They all made a rush at Alice the moment she appeared; but she
ran off as hard as she could, and soon found herself safe in a
thick wood.

  `The first thing I've got to do,' said Alice to herself, as she
wandered about in the wood, `is to grow to my right size again;
and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden.
I think that will be the best plan.'

  It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and
simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the
smallest idea how to set about it; and while she was peering
about anxiously among the trees, a little sharp bark just over
her head made her look up in a great hurry.

  An enormous puppy was looking down at her with large round
eyes, and feebly stretching out one paw, trying to touch her.
`Poor little thing!' said Alice, in a coaxing tone, and she tried
hard to whistle to it; but she was terribly frightened all the
time at the thought that it might be hungry, in which case it
would be very likely to eat her up in spite of all her coaxing.

  Hardly knowing what she did, she picked up a little bit of
stick, and held it out to the puppy; whereupon the puppy jumped
into the air off all its feet at once, with a yelp of delight,
and rushed at the stick, and made believe to worry it; then Alice
dodged behind a great thistle, to keep herself from being run
over; and the moment she appeared on the other side, the puppy
made another rush at the stick, and tumbled head over heels in
its hurry to get hold of it; then Alice, thinking it was very
like having a game of play with a cart-horse, and expecting every
moment to be trampled under its feet, ran round the thistle
again; then the puppy began a series of short charges at the
stick, running a very little way forwards each time and a long
way back, and barking hoarsely all the while, till at last it sat
down a good way off, panting, with its tongue hanging out of its
mouth, and its great eyes half shut.

  This seemed to Alice a good opportunity for making her escape;
so she set off at once, and ran till she was quite tired and out
of breath, and till the puppy's bark sounded quite faint in the
distance.

  `And yet what a dear little puppy it was!' said Alice, as she
leant against a buttercup to rest herself, and fanned herself
with one of the leaves:  `I should have liked teaching it tricks
very much, if--if I'd only been the right size to do it!  Oh
dear!  I'd nearly forgotten that I've got to grow up again!  Let
me see--how IS it to be managed?  I suppose I ought to eat or
drink something or other; but the great question is, what?'

  The great question certainly was, what?  Alice looked all round
her at the flowers and the blades of grass, but she did not see
anything that looked like the right thing to eat or drink under
the circumstances.  There was a large mushroom growing near her,
about the same height as herself; and when she had looked under
it, and on both sides of it, and behind it, it occurred to her
that she might as well look and see what was on the top of it.

  She stretched herself up on tiptoe, and peeped over the edge of
the mushroom, and her eyes immediately met those of a large
caterpillar, that was sitting on the top with its arms folded,
quietly smoking a long hookah, and taking not the smallest notice
of her or of anything else.



                            CHAPTER V

                    Advice from a Caterpillar


  The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in
silence:  at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its
mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.

  `Who are YOU?' said the Caterpillar.

  This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation.  Alice
replied, rather shyly, `I--I hardly know, sir, just at present--
at least I know who I WAS when I got up this morning, but I think
I must have been changed several times since then.'

  `What do you mean by that?' said the Caterpillar sternly.
`Explain yourself!'

  `I can't explain MYSELF, I'm afraid, sir' said Alice, `because
I'm not myself, you see.'

  `I don't see,' said the Caterpillar.

  `I'm afraid I can't put it more clearly,' Alice replied very
politely, `for I can't understand it myself to begin with; and
being so many different sizes in a day is very confusing.'

  `It isn't,' said the Caterpillar.

  `Well, perhaps you haven't found it so yet,' said Alice; `but
when you have to turn into a chrysalis--you will some day, you
know--and then after that into a butterfly, I should think you'll
feel it a little queer, won't you?'

  `Not a bit,' said the Caterpillar.

  `Well, perhaps your feelings may be different,' said Alice;
`all I know is, it would feel very queer to ME.'

  `You!' said the Caterpillar contemptuously.  `Who are YOU?'

  Which brought them back again to the beginning of the
conversation.  Alice felt a little irritated at the Caterpillar's
making such VERY short remarks, and she drew herself up and said,
very gravely, `I think, you ought to tell me who YOU are, first.'

  `Why?' said the Caterpillar.

  Here was another puzzling question; and as Alice could not
think of any good reason, and as the Caterpillar seemed to be in
a VERY unpleasant state of mind, she turned away.

  `Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her.  `I've something
important to say!'

  This sounded promising, certainly:  Alice turned and came back
again.

  `Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar.

  `Is that all?' said Alice, swallowing down her anger as well as
she could.

  `No,' said the Caterpillar.

  Alice thought she might as well wait, as she had nothing else
to do, and perhaps after all it might tell her something worth
hearing.  For some minutes it puffed away without speaking, but
at last it unfolded its arms, took the hookah out of its mouth
again, and said, `So you think you're changed, do you?'

  `I'm afraid I am, sir,' said Alice; `I can't remember things as
I used--and I don't keep the same size for ten minutes together!'

  `Can't remember WHAT things?' said the Caterpillar.

  `Well, I've tried to say "HOW DOTH THE LITTLE BUSY BEE," but it
all came different!' Alice replied in a very melancholy voice.

  `Repeat, "YOU ARE OLD, FATHER WILLIAM,"' said the Caterpillar.

  Alice folded her hands, and began:--

    `You are old, Father William,' the young man said,
      `And your hair has become very white;
    And yet you incessantly stand on your head--
      Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

    `In my youth,' Father William replied to his son,
      `I feared it might injure the brain;
    But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none,
      Why, I do it again and again.'

    `You are old,' said the youth, `as I mentioned before,
      And have grown most uncommonly fat;
    Yet you turned a back-somersault in at the door--
      Pray, what is the reason of that?'

    `In my youth,' said the sage, as he shook his grey locks,
      `I kept all my limbs very supple
    By the use of this ointment--one shilling the box--
      Allow me to sell you a couple?'

    `You are old,' said the youth, `and your jaws are too weak
      For anything tougher than suet;
    Yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak--
      Pray how did you manage to do it?'

    `In my youth,' said his father, `I took to the law,
      And argued each case with my wife;
    And the muscular strength, which it gave to my jaw,
      Has lasted the rest of my life.'

    `You are old,' said the youth, `one would hardly suppose
      That your eye was as steady as ever;
    Yet you balanced an eel on the end of your nose--
      What made you so awfully clever?'

    `I have answered three questions, and that is enough,'
      Said his father; `don't give yourself airs!
    Do you think I can listen all day to such stuff?
      Be off, or I'll kick you down stairs!'


  `That is not said right,' said the Caterpillar.

  `Not QUITE right, I'm afraid,' said Alice, timidly; `some of the
words have got altered.'

  `It is wrong from beginning to end,' said the Caterpillar
decidedly, and there was silence for some minutes.

  The Caterpillar was the first to speak.

  `What size do you want to be?' it asked.

  `Oh, I'm not particular as to size,' Alice hastily replied;
`only one doesn't like changing so often, you know.'

  `I DON'T know,' said the Caterpillar.

  Alice said nothing:  she had never been so much contradicted in
her life before, and she felt that she was losing her temper.

  `Are you content now?' said the Caterpillar.

  `Well, I should like to be a LITTLE larger, sir, if you
wouldn't mind,' said Alice:  `three inches is such a wretched
height to be.'

  `It is a very good height indeed!' said the Caterpillar
angrily, rearing itself upright as it spoke (it was exactly three
inches high).

  `But I'm not used to it!' pleaded poor Alice in a piteous tone.
And she thought of herself, `I wish the creatures wouldn't be so
easily offended!'

  `You'll get used to it in time,' said the Caterpillar; and it
put the hookah into its mouth and began smoking again.

  This time Alice waited patiently until it chose to speak again.
In a minute or two the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its
mouth and yawned once or twice, and shook itself.  Then it got
down off the mushroom, and crawled away in the grass, merely
remarking as it went, `One side will make you grow taller, and
the other side will make you grow shorter.'

  `One side of WHAT?  The other side of WHAT?' thought Alice to
herself.

  `Of the mushroom,' said the Caterpillar, just as if she had
asked it aloud; and in another moment it was out of sight.

  Alice remained looking thoughtfully at the mushroom for a
minute, trying to make out which were the two sides of it; and as
it was perfectly round, she found this a very difficult question.
However, at last she stretched her arms round it as far as they
would go, and broke off a bit of the edge with each hand.

  `And now which is which?' she said to herself, and nibbled a
little of the right-hand bit to try the effect:  the next moment
she felt a violent blow underneath her chin:  it had struck her
foot!

  She was a good deal frightened by this very sudden change, but
she felt that there was no time to be lost, as she was shrinking
rapidly; so she set to work at once to eat some of the other bit.
Her chin was pressed so closely against her foot, that there was
hardly room to open her mouth; but she did it at last, and
managed to swallow a morsel of the lefthand bit.


     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

         *       *       *       *       *       *

     *       *       *       *       *       *       *

  `Come, my head's free at last!' said Alice in a tone of
delight, which changed into alarm in another moment, when she
found that her shoulders were nowhere to be found:  all she could
see, when she looked down, was an immense length of neck, which
seemed to rise like a stalk out of a sea of green leaves that lay
far below her.

  `What CAN all that green stuff be?' said Alice.  `And where
HAVE my shoulders got to?  And oh, my poor hands, how is it I
can't see you?'  She was moving them about as she spoke, but no
result seemed to follow, except a little shaking among the
distant green leaves.

  As there seemed to be no chance of getting her hands up to her
head, she tried to get her head down to them, and was delighted
to find that her neck would bend about easily in any direction,
like a serpent.  She had just succeeded in curving it down into a
graceful zigzag, and was going to dive in among the leaves, which
she found to be nothing but the tops of the trees under which she
had been wandering, when a sharp hiss made her draw back in a
hurry:  a large pigeon had flown into her face, and was beating
her violently with its wings.

  `Serpent!' screamed the Pigeon.

  `I'm NOT a serpent!' said Alice indignantly.  `Let me alone!'

  `Serpent, I say again!' repeated the Pigeon, but in a more
subdued tone, and added with a kind of sob, `I've tried every
way, and nothing seems to suit them!'

  `I haven't the least idea what you're talking about,' said
Alice.

  `I've tried the roots of trees, and I've tried banks, and I've
tried hedges,' the Pigeon went on, without attending to her; `but
those serpents!  There's no pleasing them!'

  Alice was more and more puzzled, but she thought there was no
use in saying anything more till the Pigeon had finished.

  `As if it wasn't trouble enough hatching the eggs,' said the
Pigeon; `but I must be on the look-out for serpents night and
day!  Why, I haven't had a wink of sleep these three weeks!'

  `I'm very sorry you've been annoyed,' said Alice, who was
beginning to see its meaning.

  `And just as I'd taken the highest tree in the wood,' continued
the Pigeon, raising its voice to a shriek, `and just as I was
thinking I should be free of them at last, they must needs come
wriggling down from the sky!  Ugh, Serpent!'

  `But I'm NOT a serpent, I tell you!' said Alice.  `I'm a--I'm
a--'

  `Well!  WHAT are you?' said the Pigeon.  `I can see you're
trying to invent something!'

  `I--I'm a little girl,' said Alice, rather doubtfully, as she
remembered the number of changes she had gone through that day.

  `A likely story indeed!' said the Pigeon in a tone of the
deepest contempt.  `I've seen a good many little girls in my
time, but never ONE with such a neck as that!  No, no!  You're a
serpent; and there's no use denying it.  I suppose you'll be
telling me next that you never tasted an egg!'

  `I HAVE tasted eggs, certainly,' said Alice, who was a very
truthful child; `but little girls eat eggs quite as much as
serpents do, you know.'

  `I don't believe it,' said the Pigeon; `but if they do, why
then they're a kind of serpent, that's all I can say.'

  This was such a new idea to Alice, that she was quite silent
for a minute or two, which gave the Pigeon the opportunity of
adding, `You're looking for eggs, I know THAT well enough; and
what does it matter to me whether you're a little girl or a
serpent?'

  `It matters a good deal to ME,' said Alice hastily; `but I'm
not looking for eggs, as it happens; and if I was, I shouldn't
want YOURS:  I don't like them raw.'

  `Well, be off, then!' said the Pigeon in a sulky tone, as it
settled down again into its nest.  Alice crouched down among the
trees as well as she could, for her neck kept getting entangled
among the branches, and every now and then she had to stop and
untwist it.  After a while she remembered that she still held the
pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very
carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and
growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had
succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.

  It was so long since she had been anything near the right size,
that it felt quite strange at first; but she got used to it in a
few minutes, and began talking to herself, as usual.  `Come,
there's half my plan done now!  How puzzling all these changes
are!  I'm never sure what I'm going to be, from one minute to
another!  However, I've got back to my right size:  the next
thing is, to get into that beautiful garden--how IS that to be
done, I wonder?'  As she said this, she came suddenly upon an
open place, with a little house in it about four feet high.
`Whoever lives there,' thought Alice, `it'll never do to come
upon them THIS size:  why, I should frighten them out of their
wits!'  So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did
not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself
down to nine inches high.



                           CHAPTER VI

                         Pig and Pepper


  For a minute or two she stood looking at the house, and
wondering what to do next, when suddenly a footman in livery came
running out of the wood--(she considered him to be a footman
because he was in livery:  otherwise, judging by his face only,
she would have called him a fish)--and rapped loudly at the door
with his knuckles.  It was opened by another footman in livery,
with a round face, and large eyes like a frog; and both footmen,
Alice noticed, had powdered hair that curled all over their
heads.  She felt very curious to know what it was all about, and
crept a little way out of the wood to listen.

  The Fish-Footman began by producing from under his arm a great
letter, nearly as large as himself, and this he handed over to
the other, saying, in a solemn tone, `For the Duchess.  An
invitation from the Queen to play croquet.'  The Frog-Footman
repeated, in the same solemn tone, only changing the order of the
words a little, `From the Queen.  An invitation for the Duchess
to play croquet.'

  Then they both bowed low, and their curls got entangled
together.

  Alice laughed so much at this, that she had to run back into
the wood for fear of their hearing her; and when she next peeped
out the Fish-Footman was gone, and the other was sitting on the
ground near the door, staring stupidly up into the sky.

  Alice went timidly up to the door, and knocked.

  `There's no sort of use in knocking,' said the Footman, `and
that for two reasons.  First, because I'm on the same side of the
door as you are; secondly, because they're making such a noise
inside, no one could possibly hear you.'  And certainly there was
a most extraordinary noise going on within--a constant howling
and sneezing, and every now and then a great crash, as if a dish
or kettle had been broken to pieces.

  `Please, then,' said Alice, `how am I to get in?'

  `There might be some sense in your knocking,' the Footman went
on without attending to her, `if we had the door between us.  For
instance, if you were INSIDE, you might knock, and I could let
you out, you know.'  He was looking up into the sky all the time
he was speaking, and this Alice thought decidedly uncivil.  `But
perhaps he can't help it,' she said to herself; `his eyes are so
VERY nearly at the top of his head.  But at any rate he might
answer questions.--How am I to get in?' she repeated, aloud.

  `I shall sit here,' the Footman remarked, `till tomorrow--'

  At this moment the door of the house opened, and a large plate
came skimming out, straight at the Footman's head:  it just
grazed his nose, and broke to pieces against one of the trees
behind him.

  `--or next day, maybe,' the Footman continued in the same tone,
exactly as if nothing had happened.

  `How am I to get in?' asked Alice again, in a louder tone.

  `ARE you to get in at all?' said the Footman.  `That's the
first question, you know.'

  It was, no doubt:  only Alice did not like to be told so.
`It's really dreadful,' she muttered to herself, `the way all the
creatures argue.  It's enough to drive one crazy!'

  The Footman seemed to think this a good opportunity for
repeating his remark, with variations.  `I shall sit here,' he
said, `on and off, for days and days.'

  `But what am I to do?' said Alice.

  `Anything you like,' said the Footman, and began whistling.

  `Oh, there's no use in talking to him,' said Alice desperately:
`he's perfectly idiotic!'  And she opened the door and went in.

  The door led right into a large kitchen, which was full of
smoke from one end to the other:  the Duchess was sitting on a
three-legged stool in the middle, nursing a baby; the cook was
leaning over the fire, stirring a large cauldron which seemed to
be full of soup.

  `There's certainly too much pepper in that soup!' Alice said to
herself, as well as she could for sneezing.

  There was certainly too much of it in the air.  Even the
Duchess sneezed occasionally; and as for the baby, it was
sneezing and howling alternately without a moment's pause.  The
only things in the kitchen that did not sneeze, were the cook,
and a large cat which was sitting on the hearth and grinning from
ear to ear.

  `Please would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, for
she was not quite sure whether it was good manners for her to
speak first, `why your cat grins like that?'

  `It's a Cheshire cat,' said the Duchess, `and that's why.  Pig!'

  She said the last word with such sudden violence that Alice
quite jumped; but she saw in another moment that it was addressed
to the baby, and not to her, so she took courage, and went on
again:--

  `I didn't know that Cheshire cats always grinned; in fact, I
didn't know that cats COULD grin.'

  `They all can,' said the Duchess; `and most of 'em do.'

  `I don't know of any that do,' Alice said very politely,
feeling quite pleased to have got into a conversation.

  `You don't know much,' said the Duchess; `and that's a fact.'

  Alice did not at all like the tone of this remark, and thought
it would be as well to introduce some other subject of
conversation.  While she was trying to fix on one, the cook took
the cauldron of soup off the fire, and at once set to work
throwing everything within her reach at the Duchess and the baby
--the fire-irons came first; then followed a shower of saucepans,
plates, and dishes.  The Duchess took no notice of them even when
they hit her; and the baby was howling so much already, that it
was quite impossible to say whether the blows hurt it or not.

  `Oh, PLEASE mind what you're doing!' cried Alice, jumping up
and down in an agony of terror.  `Oh, there goes his PRECIOUS
nose'; as an unusually large saucepan flew close by it, and very
nearly carried it off.

  `If everybody minded their own business,' the Duchess said in a
hoarse growl, `the world would go round a deal faster than it
does.'

  `Which would NOT be an advantage,' said Alice, who felt very
glad to get an opportunity of showing off a little of her
knowledge.  `Just think of what work it would make with the day
and night!  You see the earth takes twenty-four hours to turn
round on its axis--'

  `Talking of axes,' said the Duchess, `chop off her head!'

  Alice glanced rather anxiously at the cook, to see if she meant
to take the hint; but the cook was busily stirring the soup, and
seemed not to be listening, so she went on again:  `Twenty-four
hours, I THINK; or is it twelve?  I--'

  `Oh, don't bother ME,' said the Duchess; `I never could abide
figures!'  And with that she began nursing her child again,
singing a sort of lullaby to it as she did so, and giving it a
violent shake at the end of every line:

        `Speak roughly to your little boy,
          And beat him when he sneezes:
        He only does it to annoy,
          Because he knows it teases.'

                    CHORUS.

    (In which the cook and the baby joined):--

                `Wow! wow! wow!'

  While the Duchess sang the second verse of the song, she kept
tossing the baby violently up and down, and the poor little thing
howled so, that Alice could hardly hear the words:--

        `I speak severely to my boy,
          I beat him when he sneezes;
        For he can thoroughly enjoy
          The pepper when he pleases!'

                    CHORUS.

                `Wow! wow! wow!'

  `Here! you may nurse it a bit, if you like!' the Duchess said
to Alice, flinging the baby at her as she spoke.  `I must go and
get ready to play croquet with the Queen,' and she hurried out of
the room.  The cook threw a frying-pan after her as she went out,
but it just missed her.

  Alice caught the baby with some difficulty, as it was a queer-
shaped little creature, and held out its arms and legs in all
directions, `just like a star-fish,' thought Alice.  The poor
little thing was snorting like a steam-engine when she caught it,
and kept doubling itself up and straightening itself out again,
so that altogether, for the first minute or two, it was as much
as she could do to hold it.

  As soon as she had made out the proper way of nursing it,
(which was to twist it up into a sort of knot, and then keep
tight hold of its right ear and left foot, so as to prevent its
undoing itself,) she carried it out into the open air.  `IF I
don't take this child away with me,' thought Alice, `they're sure
to kill it in a day or two:  wouldn't it be murder to leave it
behind?'  She said the last words out loud, and the little thing
grunted in reply (it had left off sneezing by this time).  `Don't
grunt,' said Alice; `that's not at all a proper way of expressing
yourself.'

  The baby grunted again, and Alice looked very anxiously into
its face to see what was the matter with it.  There could be no
doubt that it had a VERY turn-up nose, much more like a snout
than a real nose; also its eyes were getting extremely small for
a baby:  altogether Alice did not like the look of the thing at
all.  `But perhaps it was only sobbing,' she thought, and looked
into its eyes again, to see if there were any tears.

  No, there were no tears.  `If you're going to turn into a pig,
my dear,' said Alice, seriously, `I'll have nothing more to do
with you.  Mind now!'  The poor little thing sobbed again (or
grunted, it was impossible to say which), and they went on for
some while in silence.

  Alice was just beginning to think to herself, `Now, what am I
to do with this creature when I get it home?' when it grunted
again, so violently, that she looked down into its face in some
alarm.  This time there could be NO mistake about it:  it was
neither more nor less than a pig, and she felt that it would be
quite absurd for her to carry it further.

  So she set the little creature down, and felt quite relieved to
see it trot away quietly into the wood.  `If it had grown up,'
she said to herself, `it would have made a dreadfully ugly child:
but it makes rather a handsome pig, I think.'  And she began
thinking over other children she knew, who might do very well as
pigs, and was just saying to herself, `if one only knew the right
way to change them--' when she was a little startled by seeing
the Cheshire Cat sitting on a bough of a tree a few yards off.

  The Cat only grinned when it saw Alice.  It looked good-
natured, she thought:  still it had VERY long claws and a great
many teeth, so she felt that it ought to be treated with respect.

  `Cheshire Puss,' she began, rather timidly, as she did not at
all know whether it would like the name:  however, it only
grinned a little wider.  `Come, it's pleased so far,' thought
Alice, and she went on.  `Would you tell me, please, which way I
ought to go from here?'

  `That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said
the Cat.

  `I don't much care where--' said Alice.

  `Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat.

  `--so long as I get SOMEWHERE,' Alice added as an explanation.

  `Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk
long enough.'

  Alice felt that this could not be denied, so she tried another
question.  `What sort of people live about here?'

  `In THAT direction,' the Cat said, waving its right paw round,
`lives a Hatter:  and in THAT direction,' waving the other paw,
`lives a March Hare.  Visit either you like:  they're both mad.'

  `But I don't want to go among mad people,' Alice remarked.

  `Oh, you can't help that,' said the Cat:  `we're all mad here.
I'm mad.  You're mad.'

  `How do you know I'm mad?' said Alice.

  `You must be,' said the Cat, `or you wouldn't have come here.'

  Alice didn't think that proved it at all; however, she went on
`And how do you know that you're mad?'

  `To begin with,' said the Cat, `a dog's not mad.  You grant
that?'

  `I suppose so,' said Alice.

  `Well, then,' the Cat went on, `you see, a dog growls when it's
angry, and wags its tail when it's pleased.  Now I growl when I'm
pleased, and wag my tail when I'm angry.  Therefore I'm mad.'

  `I call it purring, not growling,' said Alice.

  `Call it what you like,' said the Cat.  `Do you play croquet
with the Queen to-day?'

  `I should like it very much,' said Alice, `but I haven't been
invited yet.'

  `You'll see me there,' said the Cat, and vanished.

  Alice was not much surprised at this, she was getting so used
to queer things happening.  While she was looking at the place
where it had been, it suddenly appeared again.

  `By-the-bye, what became of the baby?' said the Cat.  `I'd
nearly forgotten to ask.'

  `It turned into a pig,' Alice quietly said, just as if it had
come back in a natural way.

  `I thought it would,' said the Cat, and vanished again.

  Alice waited a little, half expecting to see it again, but it
did not appear, and after a minute or two she walked on in the
direction in which the March Hare was said to live.  `I've seen
hatters before,' she said to herself; `the March Hare will be
much the most interesting, and perhaps as this is May it won't be
raving mad--at least not so mad as it was in March.'  As she said
this, she looked up, and there was the Cat again, sitting on a
branch of a tree.

  `Did you say pig, or fig?' said the Cat.

  `I said pig,' replied Alice; `and I wish you wouldn't keep
appearing and vanishing so suddenly:  you make one quite giddy.'

  `All right,' said the Cat; and this time it vanished quite slowly,
beginning with the end of the tail, and ending with the grin,
which remained some time after the rest of it had gone.

  `Well!  I've often seen a cat without a grin,' thought Alice;
`but a grin without a cat!  It's the most curious thing I ever
saw in my life!'

  She had not gone much farther before she came in sight of the
house of the March Hare:  she thought it must be the right house,
because the chimneys were shaped like ears and the roof was
thatched with fur.  It was so large a house, that she did not
like to go nearer till she had nibbled some more of the lefthand
bit of mushroom, and raised herself to about two feet high:  even
then she walked up towards it rather timidly, saying to herself
`Suppose it should be raving mad after all!  I almost wish I'd
gone to see the Hatter instead!'



                           CHAPTER VII

                         A Mad Tea-Party


  There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house,
and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it:  a
Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two
were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking
over its head.  `Very uncomfortable for the Dormouse,' thought Alice;
`only, as it's asleep, I suppose it doesn't mind.'

  The table was a large one, but the three were all crowded
together at one corner of it:  `No room!  No room!' they cried
out when they saw Alice coming.  `There's PLENTY of room!' said
Alice indignantly, and she sat down in a large arm-chair at one
end of the table.

  `Have some wine,' the March Hare said in an encouraging tone.

  Alice looked all round the table, but there was nothing on it
but tea.  `I don't see any wine,' she remarked.

  `There isn't any,' said the March Hare.

  `Then it wasn't very civil of you to offer it,' said Alice
angrily.

  `It wasn't very civil of you to sit down without being
invited,' said the March Hare.

  `I didn't know it was YOUR table,' said Alice; `it's laid for a
great many more than three.'

  `Your hair wants cutting,' said the Hatter.  He had been
looking at Alice for some time with great curiosity, and this was
his first speech.

  `You should learn not to make personal remarks,' Alice said
with some severity; `it's very rude.'

  The Hatter opened his eyes very wide on hearing this; but all
he SAID was, `Why is a raven like a writing-desk?'

  `Come, we shall have some fun now!' thought Alice.  `I'm glad
they've begun asking riddles.--I believe I can guess that,' she
added aloud.

  `Do you mean that you think you can find out the answer to it?'
said the March Hare.

  `Exactly so,' said Alice.

  `Then you should say what you mean,' the March Hare went on.

  `I do,' Alice hastily replied; `at least--at least I mean what
I say--that's the same thing, you know.'

  `Not the same thing a bit!' said the Hatter.  `You might just
as well say that "I see what I eat" is the same thing as "I eat
what I see"!'

  `You might just as well say,' added the March Hare, `that "I
like what I get" is the same thing as "I get what I like"!'

  `You might just as well say,' added the Dormouse, who seemed to
be talking in his sleep, `that "I breathe when I sleep" is the
same thing as "I sleep when I breathe"!'

  `It IS the same thing with you,' said the Hatter, and here the
conversation dropped, and the party sat silent for a minute,
while Alice thought over all she could remember about ravens and
writing-desks, which wasn't much.

  The Hatter was the first to break the silence.  `What day of
the month is it?' he said, turning to Alice:  he had taken his
watch out of his pocket, and was looking at it uneasily, shaking
it every now and then, and holding it to his ear.

  Alice considered a little, and then said `The fourth.'

  `Two days wrong!' sighed the Hatter.  `I told you butter
wouldn't suit the works!' he added looking angrily at the March
Hare.

  `It was the BEST butter,' the March Hare meekly replied.

  `Yes, but some crumbs must have got in as well,' the Hatter
grumbled:  `you shouldn't have put it in with the bread-knife.'

  The March Hare took the watch and looked at it gloomily:  then
he dipped it into his cup of tea, and looked at it again:  but he
could think of nothing better to say than his first remark, `It
was the BEST butter, you know.'

  Alice had been looking over his shoulder with some curiosity.
`What a funny watch!' she remarked.  `It tells the day of the
month, and doesn't tell what o'clock it is!'

  `Why should it?' muttered the Hatter.  `Does YOUR watch tell
you what year it is?'

  `Of course not,' Alice replied very readily:  `but that's
because it stays the same year for such a long time together.'

  `Which is just the case with MINE,' said the Hatter.

  Alice felt dreadfully puzzled.  The Hatter's remark seemed to
have no sort of meaning in it, and yet it was certainly English.
`I don't quite understand you,' she said, as politely as she
could.

  `The Dormouse is asleep again,' said the Hatter, and he poured
a little hot tea upon its nose.

  The Dormouse shook its head impatiently, and said, without
opening its eyes, `Of course, of course; just what I was going to
remark myself.'

  `Have you guessed the riddle yet?' the Hatter said, turning to
Alice again.

  `No, I give it up,' Alice replied:  `what's the answer?'

  `I haven't the slightest idea,' said the Hatter.

  `Nor I,' said the March Hare.

  Alice sighed wearily.  `I think you might do something better
with the time,' she said, `than waste it in asking riddles that
have no answers.'

  `If you knew Time as well as I do,' said the Hatter, `you
wouldn't talk about wasting IT.  It's HIM.'

  `I don't know what you mean,' said Alice.

  `Of course you don't!' the Hatter said, tossing his head
contemptuously.  `I dare say you never even spoke to Time!'

  `Perhaps not,' Alice cautiously replied:  `but I know I have to
beat time when I learn music.'

  `Ah! that accounts for it,' said the Hatter.  `He won't stand
beating.  Now, if you only kept on good terms with him, he'd do
almost anything you liked with the clock.  For instance, suppose
it were nine o'clock in the morning, just time to begin lessons:
you'd only have to whisper a hint to Time, and round goes the
clock in a twinkling!  Half-past one, time for dinner!'

  (`I only wish it was,' the March Hare said to itself in a
whisper.)

  `That would be grand, certainly,' said Alice thoughtfully:
`but then--I shouldn't be hungry for it, you know.'

  `Not at first, perhaps,' said the Hatter:  `but you could keep
it to half-past one as long as you liked.'

  `Is that the way YOU manage?' Alice asked.

  The Hatter shook his head mournfully.  `Not I!' he replied.
`We quarrelled last March--just before HE went mad, you know--'
(pointing with his tea spoon at the March Hare,) `--it was at the
great concert given by the Queen of Hearts, and I had to sing

            "Twinkle, twinkle, little bat!
            How I wonder what you're at!"

You know the song, perhaps?'

  `I've heard something like it,' said Alice.

  `It goes on, you know,' the Hatter continued, `in this way:--

            "Up above the world you fly,
            Like a tea-tray in the sky.
                    Twinkle, twinkle--"'

Here the Dormouse shook itself, and began singing in its sleep
`Twinkle, twinkle, twinkle, twinkle--' and went on so long that
they had to pinch it to make it stop.

  `Well, I'd hardly finished the first verse,' said the Hatter,
`when the Queen jumped up and bawled out, "He's murdering the
time!  Off with his head!"'

  `How dreadfully savage!' exclaimed Alice.

  `And ever since that,' the Hatter went on in a mournful tone,
`he won't do a thing I ask!  It's always six o'clock now.'

  A bright idea came into Alice's head.  `Is that the reason so
many tea-things are put out here?' she asked.

  `Yes, that's it,' said the Hatter with a sigh:  `it's always
tea-time, and we've no time to wash the things between whiles.'

  `Then you keep moving round, I suppose?' said Alice.

  `Exactly so,' said the Hatter:  `as the things get used up.'

  `But what happens when you come to the beginning again?' Alice
ventured to ask.

  `Suppose we change the subject,' the March Hare interrupted,
yawning.  `I'm getting tired of this.  I vote the young lady
tells us a story.'

  `I'm afraid I don't know one,' said Alice, rather alarmed at
the proposal.

  `Then the Dormouse shall!' they both cried.  `Wake up,
Dormouse!'  And they pinched it on both sides at once.

  The Dormouse slowly opened his eyes.  `I wasn't asleep,' he
said in a hoarse, feeble voice:  `I heard every word you fellows
were saying.'

  `Tell us a story!' said the March Hare.

  `Yes, please do!' pleaded Alice.

  `And be quick about it,' added the Hatter, `or you'll be asleep
again before it's done.'

  `Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the
Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie,
Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--'

  `What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great
interest in questions of eating and drinking.

  `They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a
minute or two.

  `They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently
remarked; `they'd have been ill.'

  `So they were,' said the Dormouse; `VERY ill.'

  Alice tried to fancy to herself what such an extraordinary ways
of living would be like, but it puzzled her too much, so she went
on:  `But why did they live at the bottom of a well?'

  `Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very
earnestly.

  `I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so
I can't take more.'

  `You mean you can't take LESS,' said the Hatter:  `it's very
easy to take MORE than nothing.'

  `Nobody asked YOUR opinion,' said Alice.

  `Who's making personal remarks now?' the Hatter asked
triumphantly.

  Alice did not quite know what to say to this:  so she helped
herself to some tea and bread-and-butter, and then turned to the
Dormouse, and repeated her question.  `Why did they live at the
bottom of a well?'

  The Dormouse again took a minute or two to think about it, and
then said, `It was a treacle-well.'

  `There's no such thing!'  Alice was beginning very angrily, but
the Hatter and the March Hare went `Sh! sh!' and the Dormouse
sulkily remarked, `If you can't be civil, you'd better finish the
story for yourself.'

  `No, please go on!' Alice said very humbly; `I won't interrupt
again.  I dare say there may be ONE.'

  `One, indeed!' said the Dormouse indignantly.  However, he
consented to go on.  `And so these three little sisters--they
were learning to draw, you know--'

  `What did they draw?' said Alice, quite forgetting her promise.

  `Treacle,' said the Dormouse, without considering at all this
time.

  `I want a clean cup,' interrupted the Hatter:  `let's all move
one place on.'

  He moved on as he spoke, and the Dormouse followed him:  the
March Hare moved into the Dormouse's place, and Alice rather
unwillingly took the place of the March Hare.  The Hatter was the
only one who got any advantage from the change:  and Alice was a
good deal worse off than before, as the March Hare had just upset
the milk-jug into his plate.

  Alice did not wish to offend the Dormouse again, so she began
very cautiously:  `But I don't understand.  Where did they draw
the treacle from?'

  `You can draw water out of a water-well,' said the Hatter; `so
I should think you could draw treacle out of a treacle-well--eh,
stupid?'

  `But they were IN the well,' Alice said to the Dormouse, not
choosing to notice this last remark.

  `Of course they were', said the Dormouse; `--well in.'

  This answer so confused poor Alice, that she let the Dormouse
go on for some time without interrupting it.

  `They were learning to draw,' the Dormouse went on, yawning and
rubbing its eyes, for it was getting very sleepy; `and they drew
all manner of things--everything that begins with an M--'

  `Why with an M?' said Alice.

  `Why not?' said the March Hare.

  Alice was silent.

  The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going
off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up
again with a little shriek, and went on:  `--that begins with an
M, such as mouse-traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness--
you know you say things are "much of a muchness"--did you ever
see such a thing as a drawing of a muchness?'

  `Really, now you ask me,' said Alice, very much confused, `I
don't think--'

  `Then you shouldn't talk,' said the Hatter.

  This piece of rudeness was more than Alice could bear:  she got
up in great disgust, and walked off; the Dormouse fell asleep
instantly, and neither of the others took the least notice of her
going, though she looked back once or twice, half hoping that
they would call after her:  the last time she saw them, they were
trying to put the Dormouse into the teapot.

  `At any rate I'll never go THERE again!' said Alice as she
picked her way through the wood.  `It's the stupidest tea-party I
ever was at in all my life!'

  Just as she said this, she noticed that one of the trees had a
door leading right into it.  `That's very curious!' she thought.
`But everything's curious today.  I think I may as well go in at once.'
And in she went.

  Once more she found herself in the long hall, and close to the
little glass table.  `Now, I'll manage better this time,'
she said to herself, and began by taking the little golden key,
and unlocking the door that led into the garden.  Then she went
to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it
in her pocket) till she was about a foot high:  then she walked down
the little passage:  and THEN--she found herself at last in the
beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.



                          CHAPTER VIII

                   The Queen's Croquet-Ground


  A large rose-tree stood near the entrance of the garden:  the
roses growing on it were white, but there were three gardeners at
it, busily painting them red.  Alice thought this a very curious
thing, and she went nearer to watch them, and just as she came up
to them she heard one of them say, `Look out now, Five!  Don't go
splashing paint over me like that!'

  `I couldn't help it,' said Five, in a sulky tone; `Seven jogged
my elbow.'

  On which Seven looked up and said, `That's right, Five!  Always
lay the blame on others!'

  `YOU'D better not talk!' said Five.  `I heard the Queen say only
yesterday you deserved to be beheaded!'

  `What for?' said the one who had spoken first.

  `That's none of YOUR business, Two!' said Seven.

  `Yes, it IS his business!' said Five, `and I'll tell him--it
was for bringing the cook tulip-roots instead of onions.'

  Seven flung down his brush, and had just begun `Well, of all
the unjust things--' when his eye chanced to fall upon Alice, as
she stood watching them, and he checked himself suddenly:  the
others looked round also, and all of them bowed low.

  `Would you tell me,' said Alice, a little timidly, `why you are
painting those roses?'

  Five and Seven said nothing, but looked at Two.  Two began in a
low voice, `Why the fact is, you see, Miss, this here ought to
have been a RED rose-tree, and we put a white one in by mistake;
and if the Queen was to find it out, we should all have our heads
cut off, you know.  So you see, Miss, we're doing our best, afore
she comes, to--'  At this moment Five, who had been anxiously
looking across the garden, called out `The Queen!  The Queen!'
and the three gardeners instantly threw themselves flat upon
their faces.  There was a sound of many footsteps, and Alice
looked round, eager to see the Queen.

  First came ten soldiers carrying clubs; these were all shaped
like the three gardeners, oblong and flat, with their hands and
feet at the corners:  next the ten courtiers; these were
ornamented all over with diamonds, and walked two and two, as the
soldiers did.  After these came the royal children; there were
ten of them, and the little dears came jumping merrily along hand
in hand, in couples:  they were all ornamented with hearts.  Next
came the guests, mostly Kings and Queens, and among them Alice
recognised the White Rabbit:  it was talking in a hurried nervous
manner, smiling at everything that was said, and went by without
noticing her.  Then followed the Knave of Hearts, carrying the
King's crown on a crimson velvet cushion; and, last of all this
grand procession, came THE KING AND QUEEN OF HEARTS.

  Alice was rather doubtful whether she ought not to lie down on
her face like the three gardeners, but she could not remember
ever having heard of such a rule at processions; `and besides,
what would be the use of a procession,' thought she, `if people
had all to lie down upon their faces, so that they couldn't see it?'
So she stood still where she was, and waited.

  When the procession came opposite to Alice, they all stopped
and looked at her, and the Queen said severely `Who is this?'
She said it to the Knave of Hearts, who only bowed and smiled in reply.

  `Idiot!' said the Queen, tossing her head impatiently; and,
turning to Alice, she went on, `What's your name, child?'

  `My name is Alice, so please your Majesty,' said Alice very
politely; but she added, to herself, `Why, they're only a pack of
cards, after all.  I needn't be afraid of them!'

  `And who are THESE?' said the Queen, pointing to the three
gardeners who were lying round the rosetree; for, you see, as
they were lying on their faces, and the pattern on their backs
was the same as the rest of the pack, she could not tell whether
they were gardeners, or soldiers, or courtiers, or three of her
own children.

  `How should I know?' said Alice, surprised at her own courage.
`It's no business of MINE.'

  The Queen turned crimson with fury, and, after glaring at her
for a moment like a wild beast, screamed `Off with her head!
Off--'

  `Nonsense!' said Alice, very loudly and decidedly, and the
Queen was silent.

  The King laid his hand upon her arm, and timidly said
`Consider, my dear:  she is only a child!'

  The Queen turned angrily away from him, and said to the Knave
`Turn them over!'

  The Knave did so, very carefully, with one foot.

  `Get up!' said the Queen, in a shrill, loud voice, and the
three gardeners instantly jumped up, and began bowing to the
King, the Queen, the royal children, and everybody else.

  `Leave off that!' screamed the Queen.  `You make me giddy.'
And then, turning to the rose-tree, she went on, `What HAVE you
been doing here?'

  `May it please your Majesty,' said Two, in a very humble tone,
going down on one knee as he spoke, `we were trying--'

  `I see!' said the Queen, who had meanwhile been examining the
roses.  `Off with their heads!' and the procession moved on,
three of the soldiers remaining behind to execute the unfortunate
gardeners, who ran to Alice for protection.

  `You shan't be beheaded!' said Alice, and she put them into a
large flower-pot that stood near.  The three soldiers wandered
about for a minute or two, looking for them, and then quietly
marched off after the others.

  `Are their heads off?' shouted the Queen.

  `Their heads are gone, if it please your Majesty!' the soldiers
shouted in reply.

  `That's right!' shouted the Queen.  `Can you play croquet?'

  The soldiers were silent, and looked at Alice, as the question
was evidently meant for her.

  `Yes!' shouted Alice.

  `Come on, then!' roared the Queen, and Alice joined the
procession, wondering very much what would happen next.

  `It's--it's a very fine day!' said a timid voice at her side.
She was walking by the White Rabbit, who was peeping anxiously
into her face.

  `Very,' said Alice:  `--where's the Duchess?'

  `Hush!  Hush!' said the Rabbit in a low, hurried tone.  He
looked anxiously over his shoulder as he spoke, and then raised
himself upon tiptoe, put his mouth close to her ear, and
whispered `She's under sentence of execution.'

  `What for?' said Alice.

  `Did you say "What a pity!"?' the Rabbit asked.

  `No, I didn't,' said Alice:  `I don't think it's at all a pity.
I said "What for?"'

  `She boxed the Queen's ears--' the Rabbit began.  Alice gave a
little scream of laughter.  `Oh, hush!' the Rabbit whispered in a
frightened tone.  `The Queen will hear you!  You see, she came
rather late, and the Queen said--'

  `Get to your places!' shouted the Queen in a voice of thunder,
and people began running about in all directions, tumbling up
against each other; however, they got settled down in a minute or
two, and the game began.  Alice thought she had never seen such a
curious croquet-ground in her life; it was all ridges and
furrows; the balls were live hedgehogs, the mallets live
flamingoes, and the soldiers had to double themselves up and to
stand on their hands and feet, to make the arches.

  The chief difficulty Alice found at first was in managing her
flamingo:  she succeeded in getting its body tucked away,
comfortably enough, under her arm, with its legs hanging down,
but generally, just as she had got its neck nicely straightened
out, and was going to give the hedgehog a blow with its head, it
WOULD twist itself round and look up in her face, with such a
puzzled expression that she could not help bursting out laughing:
and when she had got its head down, and was going to begin again,
it was very provoking to find that the hedgehog had unrolled
itself, and was in the act of crawling away:  besides all this,
there was generally a ridge or furrow in the way wherever she
wanted to send the hedgehog to, and, as the doubled-up soldiers
were always getting up and walking off to other parts of the
ground, Alice soon came to the conclusion that it was a very
difficult game indeed.

  The players all played at once without waiting for turns,
quarrelling all the while, and fighting for the hedgehogs; and in
a very short time the Queen was in a furious passion, and went
stamping about, and shouting `Off with his head!' or `Off with
her head!' about once in a minute.

  Alice began to feel very uneasy:  to be sure, she had not as
yet had any dispute with the Queen, but she knew that it might
happen any minute, `and then,' thought she, `what would become of
me?  They're dreadfully fond of beheading people here; the great
wonder is, that there's any one left alive!'

  She was looking about for some way of escape, and wondering
whether she could get away without being seen, when she noticed a
curious appearance in the air:  it puzzled her very much at
first, but, after watching it a minute or two, she made it out to
be a grin, and she said to herself `It's the Cheshire Cat:  now I
shall have somebody to talk to.'

  `How are you getting on?' said the Cat, as soon as there was
mouth enough for it to speak with.

  Alice waited till the eyes appeared, and then nodded.  `It's no
use speaking to it,' she thought, `till its ears have come, or at
least one of them.'  In another minute the whole head appeared,
and then Alice put down her flamingo, and began an account of the
game, feeling very glad she had someone to listen to her.  The
Cat seemed to think that there was enough of it now in sight, and
no more of it appeared.

  `I don't think they play at all fairly,' Alice began, in rather
a complaining tone, `and they all quarrel so dreadfully one can't
hear oneself speak--and they don't seem to have any rules in
particular; at least, if there are, nobody attends to them--and
you've no idea how confusing it is all the things being alive;
for instance, there's the arch I've got to go through next
walking about at the other end of the ground--and I should have
croqueted the Queen's hedgehog just now, only it ran away when it
saw mine coming!'

  `How do you like the Queen?' said the Cat in a low voice.

  `Not at all,' said Alice:  `she's so extremely--'  Just then
she noticed that the Queen was close behind her, listening:  so
she went on, `--likely to win, that it's hardly worth while
finishing the game.'

  The Queen smiled and passed on.

  `Who ARE you talking to?' said the King, going up to Alice, and
looking at the Cat's head with great curiosity.

  `It's a friend of mine--a Cheshire Cat,' said Alice:  `allow me
to introduce it.'

  `I don't like the look of it at all,' said the King:
`however, it may kiss my hand if it likes.'

  `I'd rather not,' the Cat remarked.

  `Don't be impertinent,' said the King, `and don't look at me
like that!'  He got behind Alice as he spoke.

  `A cat may look at a king,' said Alice.  `I've read that in
some book, but I don't remember where.'

  `Well, it must be removed,' said the King very decidedly, and
he called the Queen, who was passing at the moment, `My dear!  I
wish you would have this cat removed!'

  The Queen had only one way of settling all difficulties, great
or small.  `Off with his head!' she said, without even looking
round.

  `I'll fetch the executioner myself,' said the King eagerly, and
he hurried off.

  Alice thought she might as well go back, and see how the game
was going on, as she heard the Queen's voice in the distance,
screaming with passion.  She had already heard her sentence three
of the players to be executed for having missed their turns, and
she did not like the look of things at all, as the game was in
such confusion that she never knew whether it was her turn or
not.  So she went in search of her hedgehog.

  The hedgehog was engaged in a fight with another hedgehog,
which seemed to Alice an excellent opportunity for croqueting one
of them with the other:  the only difficulty was, that her
flamingo was gone across to the other side of the garden, where
Alice could see it trying in a helpless sort of way to fly up
into a tree.

  By the time she had caught the flamingo and brought it back,
the fight was over, and both the hedgehogs were out of sight:
`but it doesn't matter much,' thought Alice, `as all the arches
are gone from this side of the ground.'  So she tucked it away
under her arm, that it might not escape again, and went back for
a little more conversation with her friend.

  When she got back to the Cheshire Cat, she was surprised to
find quite a large crowd collected round it:  there was a dispute
going on between the executioner, the King, and the Queen, who
were all talking at once, while all the rest were quite silent,
and looked very uncomfortable.

  The moment Alice appeared, she was appealed to by all three to
settle the question, and they repeated their arguments to her,
though, as they all spoke at once, she found it very hard indeed
to make out exactly what they said.

  The executioner's argument was, that you couldn't cut off a
head unless there was a body to cut it off from:  that he had
never had to do such a thing before, and he wasn't going to begin
at HIS time of life.

  The King's argument was, that anything that had a head could be
beheaded, and that you weren't to talk nonsense.

  The Queen's argument was, that if something wasn't done about
it in less than no time she'd have everybody executed, all round.
(It was this last remark that had made the whole party look so
grave and anxious.)

  Alice could think of nothing else to say but `It belongs to the
Duchess:  you'd better ask HER about it.'

  `She's in prison,' the Queen said to the executioner:  `fetch
her here.'  And the executioner went off like an arrow.

   The Cat's head began fading away the moment he was gone, and,
by the time he had come back with the Dutchess, it had entirely
disappeared; so the King and the executioner ran wildly up and down
looking for it, while the rest of the party went back to the game.



                           CHAPTER IX

                     The Mock Turtle's Story


  `You can't think how glad I am to see you again, you dear old
thing!' said the Duchess, as she tucked her arm affectionately
into Alice's, and they walked off together.

  Alice was very glad to find her in such a pleasant temper, and
thought to herself that perhaps it was only the pepper that had
made her so savage when they met in the kitchen.

  `When I'M a Duchess,' she said to herself, (not in a very
hopeful tone though), `I won't have any pepper in my kitchen AT
ALL.  Soup does very well without--Maybe it's always pepper that
makes people hot-tempered,' she went on, very much pleased at
having found out a new kind of rule, `and vinegar that makes them
sour--and camomile that makes them bitter--and--and barley-sugar
and such things that make children sweet-tempered.  I only wish
people knew that:  then they wouldn't be so stingy about it, you
know--'

  She had quite forgotten the Duchess by this time, and was a
little startled when she heard her voice close to her ear.
`You're thinking about something, my dear, and that makes you
forget to talk.  I can't tell you just now what the moral of that
is, but I shall remember it in a bit.'

  `Perhaps it hasn't one,' Alice ventured to remark.

  `Tut, tut, child!' said the Duchess.  `Everything's got a
moral, if only you can find it.'  And she squeezed herself up
closer to Alice's side as she spoke.

  Alice did not much like keeping so close to her:  first,
because the Duchess was VERY ugly; and secondly, because she was
exactly the right height to rest her chin upon Alice's shoulder,
and it was an uncomfortably sharp chin.  However, she did not
like to be rude, so she bore it as well as she could.

  `The game's going on rather better now,' she said, by way of
keeping up the conversation a little.

  `'Tis so,' said the Duchess:  `and the moral of that is--"Oh,
'tis love, 'tis love, that makes the world go round!"'

  `Somebody said,' Alice whispered, `that it's done by everybody
minding their own business!'

  `Ah, well!  It means much the same thing,' said the Duchess,
digging her sharp little chin into Alice's shoulder as she added,
`and the moral of THAT is--"Take care of the sense, and the
sounds will take care of themselves."'

  `How fond she is of finding morals in things!' Alice thought to
herself.

  `I dare say you're wondering why I don't put my arm round your
waist,' the Duchess said after a pause:  `the reason is, that I'm
doubtful about the temper of your flamingo.  Shall I try the
experiment?'

  `HE might bite,' Alice cautiously replied, not feeling at all
anxious to have the experiment tried.

  `Very true,' said the Duchess:  `flamingoes and mustard both
bite.  And the moral of that is--"Birds of a feather flock
together."'

  `Only mustard isn't a bird,' Alice remarked.

  `Right, as usual,' said the Duchess:  `what a clear way you
have of putting things!'

  `It's a mineral, I THINK,' said Alice.

  `Of course it is,' said the Duchess, who seemed ready to agree
to everything that Alice said; `there's a large mustard-mine near
here.  And the moral of that is--"The more there is of mine, the
less there is of yours."'

  `Oh, I know!' exclaimed Alice, who had not attended to this
last remark, `it's a vegetable.  It doesn't look like one, but it
is.'

  `I quite agree with you,' said the Duchess; `and the moral of
that is--"Be what you would seem to be"--or if you'd like it put
more simply--"Never imagine yourself not to be otherwise than
what it might appear to others that what you were or might have
been was not otherwise than what you had been would have appeared
to them to be otherwise."'

  `I think I should understand that better,' Alice said very
politely, `if I had it written down:  but I can't quite follow it
as you say it.'

  `That's nothing to what I could say if I chose,' the Duchess
replied, in a pleased tone.

  `Pray don't trouble yourself to say it any longer than that,'
said Alice.

  `Oh, don't talk about trouble!' said the Duchess.  `I make you
a present of everything I've said as yet.'

  `A cheap sort of present!' thought Alice.  `I'm glad they don't
give birthday presents like that!'  But she did not venture to
say it out loud.

  `Thinking again?' the Duchess asked, with another dig of her
sharp little chin.

  `I've a right to think,' said Alice sharply, for she was
beginning to feel a little worried.

  `Just about as much right,' said the Duchess, `as pigs have to fly;
and the m--'

  But here, to Alice's great surprise, the Duchess's voice died
away, even in the middle of her favourite word `moral,' and the
arm that was linked into hers began to tremble.  Alice looked up,
and there stood the Queen in front of them, with her arms folded,
frowning like a thunderstorm.

  `A fine day, your Majesty!' the Duchess began in a low, weak
voice.

  `Now, I give you fair warning,' shouted the Queen, stamping on
the ground as she spoke; `either you or your head must be off,
and that in about half no time!  Take your choice!'

  The Duchess took her choice, and was gone in a moment.

  `Let's go on with the game,' the Queen said to Alice; and Alice
was too much frightened to say a word, but slowly followed her
back to the croquet-ground.

  The other guests had taken advantage of the Queen's absence,
and were resting in the shade:  however, the moment they saw her,
they hurried back to the game, the Queen merely remarking that a
moment's delay would cost them their lives.

  All the time they were playing the Queen never left off
quarrelling with the other players, and shouting `Off with his
head!' or `Off with her head!'  Those whom she sentenced were
taken into custody by the soldiers, who of course had to leave
off being arches to do this, so that by the end of half an hour
or so there were no arches left, and all the players, except the
King, the Queen, and Alice, were in custody and under sentence of
execution.

  Then the Queen left off, quite out of breath, and said to
Alice, `Have you seen the Mock Turtle yet?'

  `No,' said Alice.  `I don't even know what a Mock Turtle is.'

  `It's the thing Mock Turtle Soup is made from,' said the Queen.

  `I never saw one, or heard of one,' said Alice.

  `Come on, then,' said the Queen, `and he shall tell you his
history,'

  As they walked off together, Alice heard the King say in a low
voice, to the company generally, `You are all pardoned.'  `Come,
THAT'S a good thing!' she said to herself, for she had felt quite
unhappy at the number of executions the Queen had ordered.

  They very soon came upon a Gryphon, lying fast asleep in the
sun.  (IF you don't know what a Gryphon is, look at the picture.)
`Up, lazy thing!' said the Queen, `and take this young lady to
see the Mock Turtle, and to hear his history.  I must go back and
see after some executions I have ordered'; and she walked off,
leaving Alice alone with the Gryphon.  Alice did not quite like
the look of the creature, but on the whole she thought it would
be quite as safe to stay with it as to go after that savage
Queen:  so she waited.

  The Gryphon sat up and rubbed its eyes:  then it watched the
Queen till she was out of sight:  then it chuckled.  `What fun!'
said the Gryphon, half to itself, half to Alice.

  `What IS the fun?' said Alice.

  `Why, SHE,' said the Gryphon.  `It's all her fancy, that:  they
never executes nobody, you know.  Come on!'

  `Everybody says "come on!" here,' thought Alice, as she went
slowly after it:  `I never was so ordered about in all my life,
never!'

  They had not gone far before they saw the Mock Turtle in the
distance, sitting sad and lonely on a little ledge of rock, and,
as they came nearer, Alice could hear him sighing as if his heart
would break.  She pitied him deeply.  `What is his sorrow?' she
asked the Gryphon, and the Gryphon answered, very nearly in the
same words as before, `It's all his fancy, that:  he hasn't got
no sorrow, you know.  Come on!'

  So they went up to the Mock Turtle, who looked at them with
large eyes full of tears, but said nothing.

  `This here young lady,' said the Gryphon, `she wants for to
know your history, she do.'

  `I'll tell it her,' said the Mock Turtle in a deep, hollow
tone:  `sit down, both of you, and don't speak a word till I've
finished.'

  So they sat down, and nobody spoke for some minutes.  Alice
thought to herself, `I don't see how he can EVEN finish, if he
doesn't begin.'  But she waited patiently.

  `Once,' said the Mock Turtle at last, with a deep sigh, `I was
a real Turtle.'

  These words were followed by a very long silence, broken only
by an occasional exclamation of `Hjckrrh!' from the Gryphon, and
the constant heavy sobbing of the Mock Turtle.  Alice was very
nearly getting up and saying, `Thank you, sir, for your
interesting story,' but she could not help thinking there MUST be
more to come, so she sat still and said nothing.

  `When we were little,' the Mock Turtle went on at last, more
calmly, though still sobbing a little now and then, `we went to
school in the sea.  The master was an old Turtle--we used to call
him Tortoise--'

  `Why did you call him Tortoise, if he wasn't one?' Alice asked.

  `We called him Tortoise because he taught us,' said the Mock
Turtle angrily:  `really you are very dull!'

  `You ought to be ashamed of yourself for asking such a simple
question,' added the Gryphon; and then they both sat silent and
looked at poor Alice, who felt ready to sink into the earth.  At
last the Gryphon said to the Mock Turtle, `Drive on, old fellow!
Don't be all day about it!' and he went on in these words:

  `Yes, we went to school in the sea, though you mayn't believe
it--'

  `I never said I didn't!' interrupted Alice.

  `You did,' said the Mock Turtle.

  `Hold your tongue!' added the Gryphon, before Alice could speak
again.  The Mock Turtle went on.

  `We had the best of educations--in fact, we went to school
every day--'

  `I'VE been to a day-school, too,' said Alice; `you needn't be
so proud as all that.'

  `With extras?' asked the Mock Turtle a little anxiously.

  `Yes,' said Alice, `we learned French and music.'

  `And washing?' said the Mock Turtle.

  `Certainly not!' said Alice indignantly.

  `Ah! then yours wasn't a really good school,' said the Mock
Turtle in a tone of great relief.  `Now at OURS they had at the
end of the bill, "French, music, AND WASHING--extra."'

  `You couldn't have wanted it much,' said Alice; `living at the
bottom of the sea.'

  `I couldn't afford to learn it.' said the Mock Turtle with a
sigh.  `I only took the regular course.'

  `What was that?' inquired Alice.

  `Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with,' the Mock
Turtle replied; `and then the different branches of Arithmetic--
Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision.'

  `I never heard of "Uglification,"' Alice ventured to say.  `What is it?'

  The Gryphon lifted up both its paws in surprise.  `What!  Never
heard of uglifying!' it exclaimed.  `You know what to beautify is,
I suppose?'

  `Yes,' said Alice doubtfully:  `it means--to--make--anything--prettier.'

  `Well, then,' the Gryphon went on, `if you don't know what to
uglify is, you ARE a simpleton.'

  Alice did not feel encouraged to ask any more questions about
it, so she turned to the Mock Turtle, and said `What else had you
to learn?'

  `Well, there was Mystery,' the Mock Turtle replied, counting
off the subjects on his flappers, `--Mystery, ancient and modern,
with Seaography:  then Drawling--the Drawling-master was an old
conger-eel, that used to come once a week:  HE taught us
Drawling, Stretching, and Fainting in Coils.'

  `What was THAT like?' said Alice.

  `Well, I can't show it you myself,' the Mock Turtle said:  `I'm
too stiff.  And the Gryphon never learnt it.'

  `Hadn't time,' said the Gryphon:  `I went to the Classics
master, though.  He was an old crab, HE was.'

  `I never went to him,' the Mock Turtle said with a sigh:  `he
taught Laughing and Grief, they used to say.'

  `So he did, so he did,' said the Gryphon, sighing in his turn;
and both creatures hid their faces in their paws.

  `And how many hours a day did you do lessons?' said Alice, in a
hurry to change the subject.

  `Ten hours the first day,' said the Mock Turtle: `nine the
next, and so on.'

  `What a curious plan!' exclaimed Alice.

  `That's the reason they're called lessons,' the Gryphon
remarked:  `because they lessen from day to day.'

  This was quite a new idea to Alice, and she thought it over a
little before she made her next remark.  `Then the eleventh day
must have been a holiday?'

  `Of course it was,' said the Mock Turtle.

  `And how did you manage on the twelfth?' Alice went on eagerly.

  `That's enough about lessons,' the Gryphon interrupted in a
very decided tone:  `tell her something about the games now.'



                            CHAPTER X

                      The Lobster Quadrille


  The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and drew the back of one flapper
across his eyes.  He looked at Alice, and tried to speak, but for
a minute or two sobs choked his voice.  `Same as if he had a bone
in his throat,' said the Gryphon:  and it set to work shaking him
and punching him in the back.  At last the Mock Turtle recovered
his voice, and, with tears running down his cheeks, he went on
again:--

  `You may not have lived much under the sea--' (`I haven't,' said Alice)--
`and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster--'
(Alice began to say `I once tasted--' but checked herself hastily,
and said `No, never') `--so you can have no idea what a delightful
thing a Lobster Quadrille is!'

  `No, indeed,' said Alice.  `What sort of a dance is it?'

  `Why,' said the Gryphon, `you first form into a line along the sea-shore--'

  `Two lines!' cried the Mock Turtle.  `Seals, turtles, salmon, and so on;
then, when you've cleared all the jelly-fish out of the way--'

  `THAT generally takes some time,' interrupted the Gryphon.

  `--you advance twice--'

  `Each with a lobster as a partner!' cried the Gryphon.

  `Of course,' the Mock Turtle said:  `advance twice, set to
partners--'

  `--change lobsters, and retire in same order,' continued the
Gryphon.

  `Then, you know,' the Mock Turtle went on, `you throw the--'

  `The lobsters!' shouted the Gryphon, with a bound into the air.

  `--as far out to sea as you can--'

  `Swim after them!' screamed the Gryphon.

  `Turn a somersault in the sea!' cried the Mock Turtle,
capering wildly about.

  `Change lobster's again!' yelled the Gryphon at the top of its voice.

  `Back to land again, and that's all the first figure,' said the
Mock Turtle, suddenly dropping his voice; and the two creatures,
who had been jumping about like mad things all this time, sat
down again very sadly and quietly, and looked at Alice.

  `It must be a very pretty dance,' said Alice timidly.

  `Would you like to see a little of it?' said the Mock Turtle.

  `Very much indeed,' said Alice.

  `Come, let's try the first figure!' said the Mock Turtle to the
Gryphon.  `We can do without lobsters, you know.  Which shall
sing?'

  `Oh, YOU sing,' said the Gryphon.  `I've forgotten the words.'

  So they began solemnly dancing round and round Alice, every now
and then treading on her toes when they passed too close, and
waving their forepaws to mark the time, while the Mock Turtle
sang this, very slowly and sadly:--


`"Will you walk a little faster?" said a whiting to a snail.
"There's a porpoise close behind us, and he's treading on my
 tail.
See how eagerly the lobsters and the turtles all advance!
They are waiting on the shingle--will you come and join the
dance?

Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
dance?
Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
dance?


"You can really have no notion how delightful it will be
When they take us up and throw us, with the lobsters, out to
                                                      sea!"
But the snail replied "Too far, too far!" and gave a look
                                                       askance--
Said he thanked the whiting kindly, but he would not join the
   dance.
    Would not, could not, would not, could not, would not join
        the dance.
    Would not, could not, would not, could not, could not join
        the dance.

`"What matters it how far we go?" his scaly friend replied.
"There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.
The further off from England the nearer is to France--
Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

    Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, will you join the
         dance?
    Will you, won't you, will you, won't you, won't you join the
         dance?"'



  `Thank you, it's a very interesting dance to watch,' said
Alice, feeling very glad that it was over at last:  `and I do so
like that curious song about the whiting!'

  `Oh, as to the whiting,' said the Mock Turtle, `they--you've
seen them, of course?'

  `Yes,' said Alice, `I've often seen them at dinn--' she
checked herself hastily.

  `I don't know where Dinn may be,' said the Mock Turtle, `but
if you've seen them so often, of course you know what they're
like.'

  `I believe so,' Alice replied thoughtfully.  `They have their
tails in their mouths--and they're all over crumbs.'

  `You're wrong about the crumbs,' said the Mock Turtle:
`crumbs would all wash off in the sea.  But they HAVE their tails
in their mouths; and the reason is--' here the Mock Turtle
yawned and shut his eyes.--`Tell her about the reason and all
that,' he said to the Gryphon.

  `The reason is,' said the Gryphon, `that they WOULD go with
the lobsters to the dance.  So they got thrown out to sea.  So
they had to fall a long way.  So they got their tails fast in
their mouths.  So they couldn't get them out again.  That's all.'

  `Thank you,' said Alice, `it's very interesting.  I never knew
so much about a whiting before.'

  `I can tell you more than that, if you like,' said the
Gryphon.  `Do you know why it's called a whiting?'

  `I never thought about it,' said Alice.  `Why?'

  `IT DOES THE BOOTS AND SHOES.' the Gryphon replied very
solemnly.

  Alice was thoroughly puzzled.  `Does the boots and shoes!' she
repeated in a wondering tone.

  `Why, what are YOUR shoes done with?' said the Gryphon.  `I
mean, what makes them so shiny?'

  Alice looked down at them, and considered a little before she
gave her answer.  `They're done with blacking, I believe.'

  `Boots and shoes under the sea,' the Gryphon went on in a deep
voice, `are done with a whiting.  Now you know.'

  `And what are they made of?' Alice asked in a tone of great
curiosity.

  `Soles and eels, of course,' the Gryphon replied rather
impatiently:  `any shrimp could have told you that.'

  `If I'd been the whiting,' said Alice, whose thoughts were
still running on the song, `I'd have said to the porpoise, "Keep
back, please:  we don't want YOU with us!"'

  `They were obliged to have him with them,' the Mock Turtle
said:  `no wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise.'

  `Wouldn't it really?' said Alice in a tone of great surprise.

  `Of course not,' said the Mock Turtle:  `why, if a fish came
to ME, and told me he was going a journey, I should say "With
what porpoise?"'

  `Don't you mean "purpose"?' said Alice.

  `I mean what I say,' the Mock Turtle replied in an offended
tone.  And the Gryphon added `Come, let's hear some of YOUR
adventures.'

  `I could tell you my adventures--beginning from this morning,'
said Alice a little timidly:  `but it's no use going back to
yesterday, because I was a different person then.'

  `Explain all that,' said the Mock Turtle.

  `No, no!  The adventures first,' said the Gryphon in an
impatient tone:  `explanations take such a dreadful time.'

  So Alice began telling them her adventures from the time when
she first saw the White Rabbit.  She was a little nervous about
it just at first, the two creatures got so close to her, one on
each side, and opened their eyes and mouths so VERY wide, but she
gained courage as she went on.  Her listeners were perfectly
quiet till she got to the part about her repeating `YOU ARE OLD,

FATHER WILLIAM,' to the Caterpillar, and the words all coming
different, and then the Mock Turtle drew a long breath, and said
`That's very curious.'

  `It's all about as curious as it can be,' said the Gryphon.

  `It all came different!' the Mock Turtle repeated
thoughtfully.  `I should like to hear her try and repeat
something now.  Tell her to begin.'  He looked at the Gryphon as
if he thought it had some kind of authority over Alice.

  `Stand up and repeat "'TIS THE VOICE OF THE SLUGGARD,"' said
the Gryphon.

  `How the creatures order one about, and make one repeat
lessons!' thought Alice; `I might as well be at school at once.'
However, she got up, and began to repeat it, but her head was so
full of the Lobster Quadrille, that she hardly knew what she was
saying, and the words came very queer indeed:--

    `'Tis the voice of the Lobster; I heard him declare,
    "You have baked me too brown, I must sugar my hair."
    As a duck with its eyelids, so he with his nose
    Trims his belt and his buttons, and turns out his toes.'

              [later editions continued as follows
    When the sands are all dry, he is gay as a lark,
    And will talk in contemptuous tones of the Shark,
    But, when the tide rises and sharks are around,
    His voice has a timid and tremulous sound.]

  `That's different from what I used to say when I was a child,'
said the Gryphon.

  `Well, I never heard it before,' said the Mock Turtle; `but it
sounds uncommon nonsense.'

  Alice said nothing; she had sat down with her face in her
hands, wondering if anything would EVER happen in a natural way
again.

  `I should like to have it explained,' said the Mock Turtle.

  `She can't explain it,' said the Gryphon hastily.  `Go on with
the next verse.'

  `But about his toes?' the Mock Turtle persisted.  `How COULD
he turn them out with his nose, you know?'

  `It's the first position in dancing.' Alice said; but was
dreadfully puzzled by the whole thing, and longed to change the
subject.

  `Go on with the next verse,' the Gryphon repeated impatiently:
`it begins "I passed by his garden."'

  Alice did not dare to disobey, though she felt sure it would
all come wrong, and she went on in a trembling voice:--

    `I passed by his garden, and marked, with one eye,
    How the Owl and the Panther were sharing a pie--'

        [later editions continued as follows
    The Panther took pie-crust, and gravy, and meat,
    While the Owl had the dish as its share of the treat.
    When the pie was all finished, the Owl, as a boon,
    Was kindly permitted to pocket the spoon:
    While the Panther received knife and fork with a growl,
    And concluded the banquet--]

  `What IS the use of repeating all that stuff,' the Mock Turtle
interrupted, `if you don't explain it as you go on?  It's by far
the most confusing thing I ever heard!'

  `Yes, I think you'd better leave off,' said the Gryphon:  and
Alice was only too glad to do so.

  `Shall we try another figure of the Lobster Quadrille?' the
Gryphon went on.  `Or would you like the Mock Turtle to sing you
a song?'

  `Oh, a song, please, if the Mock Turtle would be so kind,'
Alice replied, so eagerly that the Gryphon said, in a rather
offended tone, `Hm!  No accounting for tastes!  Sing her
"Turtle Soup," will you, old fellow?'

  The Mock Turtle sighed deeply, and began, in a voice sometimes
choked with sobs, to sing this:--


    `Beautiful Soup, so rich and green,
    Waiting in a hot tureen!
    Who for such dainties would not stoop?
    Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
    Soup of the evening, beautiful Soup!
        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
    Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
        Beautiful, beautiful Soup!

    `Beautiful Soup!  Who cares for fish,
    Game, or any other dish?
    Who would not give all else for two p
    ennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
    Pennyworth only of beautiful Soup?
        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
        Beau--ootiful Soo--oop!
    Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
        Beautiful, beauti--FUL SOUP!'

  `Chorus again!' cried the Gryphon, and the Mock Turtle had
just begun to repeat it, when a cry of `The trial's beginning!'
was heard in the distance.

  `Come on!' cried the Gryphon, and, taking Alice by the hand,
it hurried off, without waiting for the end of the song.

  `What trial is it?' Alice panted as she ran; but the Gryphon
only answered `Come on!' and ran the faster, while more and more
faintly came, carried on the breeze that followed them, the
melancholy words:--

    `Soo--oop of the e--e--evening,
        Beautiful, beautiful Soup!'



                           CHAPTER XI

                      Who Stole the Tarts?


  The King and Queen of Hearts were seated on their throne when
they arrived, with a great crowd assembled about them--all sorts
of little birds and beasts, as well as the whole pack of cards:
the Knave was standing before them, in chains, with a soldier on
each side to guard him; and near the King was the White Rabbit,
with a trumpet in one hand, and a scroll of parchment in the
other.  In the very middle of the court was a table, with a large
dish of tarts upon it:  they looked so good, that it made Alice
quite hungry to look at them--`I wish they'd get the trial done,'
she thought, `and hand round the refreshments!'  But there seemed
to be no chance of this, so she began looking at everything about
her, to pass away the time.

  Alice had never been in a court of justice before, but she had
read about them in books, and she was quite pleased to find that
she knew the name of nearly everything there.  `That's the
judge,' she said to herself, `because of his great wig.'

  The judge, by the way, was the King; and as he wore his crown
over the wig, (look at the frontispiece if you want to see how he
did it,) he did not look at all comfortable, and it was certainly
not becoming.

  `And that's the jury-box,' thought Alice, `and those twelve
creatures,' (she was obliged to say `creatures,' you see, because
some of them were animals, and some were birds,) `I suppose they
are the jurors.'  She said this last word two or three times over
to herself, being rather proud of it:  for she thought, and
rightly too, that very few little girls of her age knew the
meaning of it at all.  However, `jury-men' would have done just
as well.

  The twelve jurors were all writing very busily on slates.
`What are they doing?'  Alice whispered to the Gryphon.  `They
can't have anything to put down yet, before the trial's begun.'

  `They're putting down their names,' the Gryphon whispered in
reply, `for fear they should forget them before the end of the
trial.'

  `Stupid things!' Alice began in a loud, indignant voice, but
she stopped hastily, for the White Rabbit cried out, `Silence in
the court!' and the King put on his spectacles and looked
anxiously round, to make out who was talking.

  Alice could see, as well as if she were looking over their
shoulders, that all the jurors were writing down `stupid things!'
on their slates, and she could even make out that one of them
didn't know how to spell `stupid,' and that he had to ask his
neighbour to tell him.  `A nice muddle their slates'll be in
before the trial's over!' thought Alice.

  One of the jurors had a pencil that squeaked.  This of course,
Alice could not stand, and she went round the court and got
behind him, and very soon found an opportunity of taking it
away.  She did it so quickly that the poor little juror (it was
Bill, the Lizard) could not make out at all what had become of
it; so, after hunting all about for it, he was obliged to write
with one finger for the rest of the day; and this was of very
little use, as it left no mark on the slate.

  `Herald, read the accusation!' said the King.

  On this the White Rabbit blew three blasts on the trumpet, and
then unrolled the parchment scroll, and read as follows:--

    `The Queen of Hearts, she made some tarts,
          All on a summer day:
      The Knave of Hearts, he stole those tarts,
          And took them quite away!'

  `Consider your verdict,' the King said to the jury.

  `Not yet, not yet!' the Rabbit hastily interrupted.  `There's
a great deal to come before that!'

  `Call the first witness,' said the King; and the White Rabbit
blew three blasts on the trumpet, and called out, `First
witness!'

  The first witness was the Hatter.  He came in with a teacup in
one hand and a piece of bread-and-butter in the other.  `I beg
pardon, your Majesty,' he began, `for bringing these in:  but I
hadn't quite finished my tea when I was sent for.'

  `You ought to have finished,' said the King.  `When did you
begin?'

  The Hatter looked at the March Hare, who had followed him into
the court, arm-in-arm with the Dormouse.  `Fourteenth of March, I
think it was,' he said.

  `Fifteenth,' said the March Hare.

  `Sixteenth,' added the Dormouse.

  `Write that down,' the King said to the jury, and the jury
eagerly wrote down all three dates on their slates, and then
added them up, and reduced the answer to shillings and pence.

  `Take off your hat,' the King said to the Hatter.

  `It isn't mine,' said the Hatter.

  `Stolen!' the King exclaimed, turning to the jury, who
instantly made a memorandum of the fact.

  `I keep them to sell,' the Hatter added as an explanation;
`I've none of my own.  I'm a hatter.'

  Here the Queen put on her spectacles, and began staring at the
Hatter, who turned pale and fidgeted.

  `Give your evidence,' said the King; `and don't be nervous, or
I'll have you executed on the spot.'

  This did not seem to encourage the witness at all:  he kept
shifting from one foot to the other, looking uneasily at the
Queen, and in his confusion he bit a large piece out of his
teacup instead of the bread-and-butter.

  Just at this moment Alice felt a very curious sensation, which
puzzled her a good deal until she made out what it was:  she was
beginning to grow larger again, and she thought at first she
would get up and leave the court; but on second thoughts she
decided to remain where she was as long as there was room for
her.

  `I wish you wouldn't squeeze so.' said the Dormouse, who was
sitting next to her.  `I can hardly breathe.'

  `I can't help it,' said Alice very meekly:  `I'm growing.'

  `You've no right to grow here,' said the Dormouse.

  `Don't talk nonsense,' said Alice more boldly:  `you know
you're growing too.'

  `Yes, but I grow at a reasonable pace,' said the Dormouse:
`not in that ridiculous fashion.'  And he got up very sulkily
and crossed over to the other side of the court.

  All this time the Queen had never left off staring at the
Hatter, and, just as the Dormouse crossed the court, she said to
one of the officers of the court, `Bring me the list of the
singers in the last concert!' on which the wretched Hatter
trembled so, that he shook both his shoes off.

  `Give your evidence,' the King repeated angrily, `or I'll have
you executed, whether you're nervous or not.'

  `I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' the Hatter began, in a
trembling voice, `--and I hadn't begun my tea--not above a week
or so--and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin--and
the twinkling of the tea--'

  `The twinkling of the what?' said the King.

  `It began with the tea,' the Hatter replied.

  `Of course twinkling begins with a T!' said the King sharply.
`Do you take me for a dunce?  Go on!'

  `I'm a poor man,' the Hatter went on, `and most things
twinkled after that--only the March Hare said--'

  `I didn't!' the March Hare interrupted in a great hurry.

  `You did!' said the Hatter.

  `I deny it!' said the March Hare.

  `He denies it,' said the King:  `leave out that part.'

  `Well, at any rate, the Dormouse said--' the Hatter went on,
looking anxiously round to see if he would deny it too:  but the
Dormouse denied nothing, being fast asleep.

  `After that,' continued the Hatter, `I cut some more bread-
and-butter--'

  `But what did the Dormouse say?' one of the jury asked.

  `That I can't remember,' said the Hatter.

  `You MUST remember,' remarked the King, `or I'll have you
executed.'

  The miserable Hatter dropped his teacup and bread-and-butter,
and went down on one knee.  `I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' he
began.

  `You're a very poor speaker,' said the King.

  Here one of the guinea-pigs cheered, and was immediately
suppressed by the officers of the court.  (As that is rather a
hard word, I will just explain to you how it was done.  They had
a large canvas bag, which tied up at the mouth with strings:
into this they slipped the guinea-pig, head first, and then sat
upon it.)

  `I'm glad I've seen that done,' thought Alice.  `I've so often
read in the newspapers, at the end of trials, "There was some
attempts at applause, which was immediately suppressed by the
officers of the court," and I never understood what it meant
till now.'

  `If that's all you know about it, you may stand down,'
continued the King.

  `I can't go no lower,' said the Hatter:  `I'm on the floor, as
it is.'

  `Then you may SIT down,' the King replied.

  Here the other guinea-pig cheered, and was suppressed.

  `Come, that finished the guinea-pigs!' thought Alice.  `Now we
shall get on better.'

  `I'd rather finish my tea,' said the Hatter, with an anxious
look at the Queen, who was reading the list of singers.

  `You may go,' said the King, and the Hatter hurriedly left the
court, without even waiting to put his shoes on.

  `--and just take his head off outside,' the Queen added to one
of the officers:  but the Hatter was out of sight before the
officer could get to the door.

  `Call the next witness!' said the King.

  The next witness was the Duchess's cook.  She carried the
pepper-box in her hand, and Alice guessed who it was, even before
she got into the court, by the way the people near the door began
sneezing all at once.

  `Give your evidence,' said the King.

  `Shan't,' said the cook.

  The King looked anxiously at the White Rabbit, who said in a
low voice, `Your Majesty must cross-examine THIS witness.'

  `Well, if I must, I must,' the King said, with a melancholy
air, and, after folding his arms and frowning at the cook till
his eyes were nearly out of sight, he said in a deep voice, `What
are tarts made of?'

  `Pepper, mostly,' said the cook.

  `Treacle,' said a sleepy voice behind her.

  `Collar that Dormouse,' the Queen shrieked out.  `Behead that
Dormouse!  Turn that Dormouse out of court!  Suppress him!  Pinch
him!  Off with his whiskers!'

  For some minutes the whole court was in confusion, getting the
Dormouse turned out, and, by the time they had settled down
again, the cook had disappeared.

  `Never mind!' said the King, with an air of great relief.
`Call the next witness.'  And he added in an undertone to the
Queen, `Really, my dear, YOU must cross-examine the next witness.
It quite makes my forehead ache!'

  Alice watched the White Rabbit as he fumbled over the list,
feeling very curious to see what the next witness would be like,
`--for they haven't got much evidence YET,' she said to herself.
Imagine her surprise, when the White Rabbit read out, at the top
of his shrill little voice, the name `Alice!'



                           CHAPTER XII

                        Alice's Evidence


  `Here!' cried Alice, quite forgetting in the flurry of the
moment how large she had grown in the last few minutes, and she
jumped up in such a hurry that she tipped over the jury-box with
the edge of her skirt, upsetting all the jurymen on to the heads
of the crowd below, and there they lay sprawling about, reminding
her very much of a globe of goldfish she had accidentally upset
the week before.

  `Oh, I BEG your pardon!' she exclaimed in a tone of great
dismay, and began picking them up again as quickly as she could,
for the accident of the goldfish kept running in her head, and
she had a vague sort of idea that they must be collected at once
and put back into the jury-box, or they would die.

  `The trial cannot proceed,' said the King in a very grave
voice, `until all the jurymen are back in their proper places--
ALL,' he repeated with great emphasis, looking hard at Alice as
he said do.

  Alice looked at the jury-box, and saw that, in her haste, she
had put the Lizard in head downwards, and the poor little thing
was waving its tail about in a melancholy way, being quite unable
to move.  She soon got it out again, and put it right; `not that
it signifies much,' she said to herself; `I should think it
would be QUITE as much use in the trial one way up as the other.'

  As soon as the jury had a little recovered from the shock of
being upset, and their slates and pencils had been found and
handed back to them, they set to work very diligently to write
out a history of the accident, all except the Lizard, who seemed
too much overcome to do anything but sit with its mouth open,
gazing up into the roof of the court.

  `What do you know about this business?' the King said to
Alice.

  `Nothing,' said Alice.

  `Nothing WHATEVER?' persisted the King.

  `Nothing whatever,' said Alice.

  `That's very important,' the King said, turning to the jury.
They were just beginning to write this down on their slates, when
the White Rabbit interrupted:  `UNimportant, your Majesty means,
of course,' he said in a very respectful tone, but frowning and
making faces at him as he spoke.

  `UNimportant, of course, I meant,' the King hastily said, and
went on to himself in an undertone, `important--unimportant--
unimportant--important--' as if he were trying which word
sounded best.

  Some of the jury wrote it down `important,' and some
`unimportant.'  Alice could see this, as she was near enough to
look over their slates; `but it doesn't matter a bit,' she
thought to herself.

  At this moment the King, who had been for some time busily
writing in his note-book, cackled out `Silence!' and read out
from his book, `Rule Forty-two.  ALL PERSONS MORE THAN A MILE
HIGH TO LEAVE THE COURT.'

  Everybody looked at Alice.

  `I'M not a mile high,' said Alice.

  `You are,' said the King.

  `Nearly two miles high,' added the Queen.

  `Well, I shan't go, at any rate,' said Alice:  `besides,
that's not a regular rule:  you invented it just now.'

  `It's the oldest rule in the book,' said the King.

  `Then it ought to be Number One,' said Alice.

  The King turned pale, and shut his note-book hastily.
`Consider your verdict,' he said to the jury, in a low, trembling
voice.

  `There's more evidence to come yet, please your Majesty,' said
the White Rabbit, jumping up in a great hurry; `this paper has
just been picked up.'

  `What's in it?' said the Queen.

  `I haven't opened it yet,' said the White Rabbit, `but it seems
to be a letter, written by the prisoner to--to somebody.'

  `It must have been that,' said the King, `unless it was
written to nobody, which isn't usual, you know.'

  `Who is it directed to?' said one of the jurymen.

  `It isn't directed at all,' said the White Rabbit; `in fact,
there's nothing written on the OUTSIDE.'  He unfolded the paper
as he spoke, and added `It isn't a letter, after all:  it's a set
of verses.'

  `Are they in the prisoner's handwriting?' asked another of
they jurymen.

  `No, they're not,' said the White Rabbit, `and that's the
queerest thing about it.'  (The jury all looked puzzled.)

  `He must have imitated somebody else's hand,' said the King.
(The jury all brightened up again.)

  `Please your Majesty,' said the Knave, `I didn't write it, and
they can't prove I did:  there's no name signed at the end.'

  `If you didn't sign it,' said the King, `that only makes the
matter worse.  You MUST have meant some mischief, or else you'd
have signed your name like an honest man.'

  There was a general clapping of hands at this:  it was the
first really clever thing the King had said that day.

  `That PROVES his guilt,' said the Queen.

  `It proves nothing of the sort!' said Alice.  `Why, you don't
even know what they're about!'

  `Read them,' said the King.

  The White Rabbit put on his spectacles.  `Where shall I begin,
please your Majesty?' he asked.

  `Begin at the beginning,' the King said gravely, `and go on
till you come to the end:  then stop.'

  These were the verses the White Rabbit read:--

        `They told me you had been to her,
          And mentioned me to him:
        She gave me a good character,
          But said I could not swim.

        He sent them word I had not gone
          (We know it to be true):
        If she should push the matter on,
          What would become of you?

        I gave her one, they gave him two,
          You gave us three or more;
        They all returned from him to you,
          Though they were mine before.

        If I or she should chance to be
          Involved in this affair,
        He trusts to you to set them free,
          Exactly as we were.

        My notion was that you had been
          (Before she had this fit)
        An obstacle that came between
          Him, and ourselves, and it.

        Don't let him know she liked them best,
          For this must ever be
        A secret, kept from all the rest,
          Between yourself and me.'

  `That's the most important piece of evidence we've heard yet,'
said the King, rubbing his hands; `so now let the jury--'

  `If any one of them can explain it,' said Alice, (she had
grown so large in the last few minutes that she wasn't a bit
afraid of interrupting him,) `I'll give him sixpence.  _I_ don't
believe there's an atom of meaning in it.'

  The jury all wrote down on their slates, `SHE doesn't believe
there's an atom of meaning in it,' but none of them attempted to
explain the paper.

  `If there's no meaning in it,' said the King, `that saves a
world of trouble, you know, as we needn't try to find any.  And
yet I don't know,' he went on, spreading out the verses on his
knee, and looking at them with one eye; `I seem to see some
meaning in them, after all.  "--SAID I COULD NOT SWIM--" you
can't swim, can you?' he added, turning to the Knave.

  The Knave shook his head sadly.  `Do I look like it?' he said.
(Which he certainly did NOT, being made entirely of cardboard.)

  `All right, so far,' said the King, and he went on muttering
over the verses to himself:  `"WE KNOW IT TO BE TRUE--" that's
the jury, of course-- "I GAVE HER ONE, THEY GAVE HIM TWO--" why,
that must be what he did with the tarts, you know--'

  `But, it goes on "THEY ALL RETURNED FROM HIM TO YOU,"' said
Alice.

  `Why, there they are!' said the King triumphantly, pointing to
the tarts on the table.  `Nothing can be clearer than THAT.
Then again--"BEFORE SHE HAD THIS FIT--"  you never had fits, my
dear, I think?' he said to the Queen.

  `Never!' said the Queen furiously, throwing an inkstand at the
Lizard as she spoke.  (The unfortunate little Bill had left off
writing on his slate with one finger, as he found it made no
mark; but he now hastily began again, using the ink, that was
trickling down his face, as long as it lasted.)

  `Then the words don't FIT you,' said the King, looking round
the court with a smile.  There was a dead silence.

  `It's a pun!' the King added in an offended tone, and
everybody laughed, `Let the jury consider their verdict,' the
King said, for about the twentieth time that day.

  `No, no!' said the Queen.  `Sentence first--verdict afterwards.'

  `Stuff and nonsense!' said Alice loudly.  `The idea of having
the sentence first!'

  `Hold your tongue!' said the Queen, turning purple.

  `I won't!' said Alice.

  `Off with her head!' the Queen shouted at the top of her voice.
Nobody moved.

  `Who cares for you?' said Alice, (she had grown to her full
size by this time.)  `You're nothing but a pack of cards!'

  At this the whole pack rose up into the air, and came flying
down upon her:  she gave a little scream, half of fright and half
of anger, and tried to beat them off, and found herself lying on
the bank, with her head in the lap of her sister, who was gently
brushing away some dead leaves that had fluttered down from the
trees upon her face.

  `Wake up, Alice dear!' said her sister; `Why, what a long
sleep you've had!'

  `Oh, I've had such a curious dream!' said Alice, and she told
her sister, as well as she could remember them, all these strange
Adventures of hers that you have just been reading about; and
when she had finished, her sister kissed her, and said, `It WAS a
curious dream, dear, certainly:  but now run in to your tea; it's
getting late.'  So Alice got up and ran off, thinking while she
ran, as well she might, what a wonderful dream it had been.

  But her sister sat still just as she left her, leaning her
head on her hand, watching the setting sun, and thinking of
little Alice and all her wonderful Adventures, till she too began
dreaming after a fashion, and this was her dream:--

  First, she dreamed of little Alice herself, and once again the
tiny hands were clasped upon her knee, and the bright eager eyes
were looking up into hers--she could hear the very tones of her
voice, and see that queer little toss of her head to keep back
the wandering hair that WOULD always get into her eyes--and
still as she listened, or seemed to listen, the whole place
around her became alive the strange creatures of her little
sister's dream.

  The long grass rustled at her feet as the White Rabbit hurried
by--the frightened Mouse splashed his way through the
neighbouring pool--she could hear the rattle of the teacups as
the March Hare and his friends shared their never-ending meal,
and the shrill voice of the Queen ordering off her unfortunate
guests to execution--once more the pig-baby was sneezing on the
Duchess's knee, while plates and dishes crashed around it--once
more the shriek of the Gryphon, the squeaking of the Lizard's
slate-pencil, and the choking of the suppressed guinea-pigs,
filled the air, mixed up with the distant sobs of the miserable
Mock Turtle.

  So she sat on, with closed eyes, and half believed herself in
Wonderland, though she knew she had but to open them again, and
all would change to dull reality--the grass would be only
rustling in the wind, and the pool rippling to the waving of the
reeds--the rattling teacups would change to tinkling sheep-
bells, and the Queen's shrill cries to the voice of the shepherd
boy--and the sneeze of the baby, the shriek of the Gryphon, and
all thy other queer noises, would change (she knew) to the
confused clamour of the busy farm-yard--while the lowing of the
cattle in the distance would take the place of the Mock Turtle's
heavy sobs.

  Lastly, she pictured to herself how this same little sister of
hers would, in the after-time, be herself a grown woman; and how
she would keep, through all her riper years, the simple and
loving heart of her childhood:  and how she would gather about
her other little children, and make THEIR eyes bright and eager
with many a strange tale, perhaps even with the dream of
Wonderland of long ago:  and how she would feel with all their
simple sorrows, and find a pleasure in all their simple joys,
remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days.

                             THE END
            THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE

                     by Robert Louis Stevenson


            THE STRANGE CASE OF DR. JEKYLL AND MR. HYDE


                         Story of the Door



Mr. Utterson the lawyer was a man of a rugged countenance that was
never lighted by a smile; cold, scanty and embarrassed in
discourse; backward in sentiment; lean, long, dusty, dreary and
yet somehow lovable.  At friendly meetings, and when the wine was
to his taste, something eminently human beaconed from his eye;
something indeed which never found its way into his talk, but
which spoke not only in these silent symbols of the after-dinner
face, but more often and loudly in the acts of his life.  He was
austere with himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a
taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theater, had not
crossed the doors of one for twenty years.  But he had an approved
tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at
the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in
any extremity inclined to help rather than to reprove.  "I incline
to Cain's heresy," he used to say quaintly:  "I let my brother go
to the devil in his own way."  In this character, it was
frequently his fortune to be the last reputable acquaintance and
the last good influence in the lives of downgoing men.  And to
such as these, so long as they came about his chambers, he never
marked a shade of change in his demeanour.

    No doubt the feat was easy to Mr. Utterson; for he was
undemonstrative at the best, and even his friendship seemed to be
founded in a similar catholicity of good-nature.  It is the mark
of a modest man to accept his friendly circle ready-made from the
hands of opportunity; and that was the lawyer's way.  His friends
were those of his own blood or those whom he had known the
longest; his affections, like ivy, were the growth of time, they
implied no aptness in the object.  Hence, no doubt the bond that
united him to Mr. Richard Enfield, his distant kinsman, the
well-known man about town.  It was a nut to crack for many, what
these two could see in each other, or what subject they could find
in common.  It was reported by those who encountered them in their
Sunday walks, that they said nothing, looked singularly dull and
would hail with obvious relief the appearance of a friend.  For
all that, the two men put the greatest store by these excursions,
counted them the chief jewel of each week, and not only set aside
occasions of pleasure, but even resisted the calls of business,
that they might enjoy them uninterrupted.

    It chanced on one of these rambles that their way led them
down a by-street in a busy quarter of London.  The street was
small and what is called quiet, but it drove a thriving trade on
the weekdays.  The inhabitants were all doing well, it seemed and
all emulously hoping to do better still, and laying out the
surplus of their grains in coquetry; so that the shop fronts stood
along that thoroughfare with an air of invitation, like rows of
smiling saleswomen.  Even on Sunday, when it veiled its more
florid charms and lay comparatively empty of passage, the street
shone out in contrast to its dingy neighbourhood, like a fire in a
forest; and with its freshly painted shutters, well-polished
brasses, and general cleanliness and gaiety of note, instantly
caught and pleased the eye of the passenger.

    Two doors from one corner, on the left hand going east the
line was broken by the entry of a court; and just at that point a
certain sinister block of building thrust forward its gable on the
street.  It was two storeys high; showed no window, nothing but a
door on the lower storey and a blind forehead of discoloured wall
on the upper; and bore in every feature, the marks of prolonged
and sordid negligence.  The door, which was equipped with neither
bell nor knocker, was blistered and distained.  Tramps slouched
into the recess and struck matches on the panels; children kept
shop upon the steps; the schoolboy had tried his knife on the
mouldings; and for close on a generation, no one had appeared to
drive away these random visitors or to repair their ravages.

    Mr. Enfield and the lawyer were on the other side of the
by-street; but when they came abreast of the entry, the former
lifted up his cane and pointed.

    "Did you ever remark that door?" he asked; and when his
companion had replied in the affirmative.  "It is connected in my
mind," added he, "with a very odd story."

   "Indeed?" said Mr. Utterson, with a slight change of voice,
"and what was that?"

    "Well, it was this way," returned Mr. Enfield:  "I was coming
home from some place at the end of the world, about three o'clock
of a black winter morning, and my way lay through a part of town
where there was literally nothing to be seen but lamps.  Street
after street and all the folks asleep--street after street, all
lighted up as if for a procession and all as empty as a church--
till at last I got into that state of mind when a man listens and
listens and begins to long for the sight of a policeman.  All at
once, I saw two figures:  one a little man who was stumping along
eastward at a good walk, and the other a girl of maybe eight or
ten who was running as hard as she was able down a cross street.
Well, sir, the two ran into one another naturally enough at the
corner; and then came the horrible part of the thing; for the man
trampled calmly over the child's body and left her screaming on
the ground.  It sounds nothing to hear, but it was hellish to see.
It wasn't like a man; it was like some damned Juggernaut.  I gave
a few halloa, took to my heels, collared my gentleman, and brought
him back to where there was already quite a group about the
screaming child.  He was perfectly cool and made no resistance,
but gave me one look, so ugly that it brought out the sweat on me
like running.  The people who had turned out were the girl's own
family; and pretty soon, the doctor, for whom she had been sent
put in his appearance.  Well, the child was not much the worse,
more frightened, according to the Sawbones; and there you might
have supposed would be an end to it.  But there was one curious
circumstance.  I had taken a loathing to my gentleman at first
sight.  So had the child's family, which was only natural.  But
the doctor's case was what struck me.  He was the usual cut and
dry apothecary, of no particular age and colour, with a strong
Edinburgh accent and about as emotional as a bagpipe.  Well, sir,
he was like the rest of us; every time he looked at my prisoner, I
saw that Sawbones turn sick and white with desire to kill him.  I
knew what was in his mind, just as he knew what was in mine; and
killing being out of the question, we did the next best.  We told
the man we could and would make such a scandal out of this as
should make his name stink from one end of London to the other.
If he had any friends or any credit, we undertook that he should
lose them.  And all the time, as we were pitching it in red hot,
we were keeping the women off him as best we could for they were
as wild as harpies.  I never saw a circle of such hateful faces;
and there was the man in the middle, with a kind of black sneering
coolness--frightened to, I could see that--but carrying it
off, sir, really like Satan.  `If you choose to make capital out
of this accident,' said he, `I am naturally helpless.  No
gentleman but wishes to avoid a scene,' says he.  `Name your
figure.'  Well, we screwed him up to a hundred pounds for the
child's family; he would have clearly liked to stick out; but
there was something about the lot of us that meant mischief, and
at last he struck.  The next thing was to get the money; and where
do you think he carried us but to that place with the
door?--whipped out a key, went in, and presently came back with
the matter of ten pounds in gold and a cheque for the balance on
Coutts's, drawn payable to bearer and signed with a name that I
can't mention, though it's one of the points of my story, but it
was a name at least very well known and often printed.  The figure
was stiff; but the signature was good for more than that if it was
only genuine.  I took the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman
that the whole business looked apocryphal, and that a man does
not, in real life, walk into a cellar door at four in the morning
and come out with another man's cheque for close upon a hundred
pounds.  But he was quite easy and sneering.  `Set your mind at
rest,' says he, `I will stay with you till the banks open and cash
the cheque myself.'  So we all set of, the doctor, and the child's
father, and our friend and myself, and passed the rest of the
night in my chambers; and next day, when we had breakfasted, went
in a body to the bank.  I gave in the cheque myself, and said I
had every reason to believe it was a forgery.  Not a bit of it.
The cheque was genuine."

    "Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson.

    "I see you feel as I do," said Mr. Enfield.  "Yes, it's a bad
story.  For my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with,
a really damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the
very pink of the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it
worse) one of your fellows who do what they call good.  Black mail
I suppose; an honest man paying through the nose for some of the
capers of his youth.  Black Mail House is what I call the place
with the door, in consequence.  Though even that, you know, is far
from explaining all," he added, and with the words fell into a
vein of musing.

    From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather
suddenly:  "And you don't know if the drawer of the cheque lives
there?"

    "A likely place, isn't it?" returned Mr. Enfield.  "But I
happen to have noticed his address; he lives in some square or
other."

    "And you never asked about the--place with the door?" said
Mr. Utterson.

    "No, sir:  I had a delicacy," was the reply.  "I feel very
strongly about putting questions; it partakes too much of the style
of the day of judgment.  You start a question, and it's like
starting a stone.  You sit quietly on the top of a hill; and away
the stone goes, starting others; and presently some bland old bird
(the last you would have thought of) is knocked on the head in his
own back garden and the family have to change their name.  No sir,
I make it a rule of mine:  the more it looks like Queer Street, the
less I ask."

    "A very good rule, too," said the lawyer.

    "But I have studied the place for myself," continued Mr.
Enfield.  "It seems scarcely a house.  There is no other door, and
nobody goes in or out of that one but, once in a great while, the
gentleman of my adventure.  There are three windows looking on the
court on the first floor; none below; the windows are always shut
but they're clean.  And then there is a chimney which is generally
smoking; so somebody must live there.  And yet it's not so sure;
for the buildings are so packed together about the court, that
it's hard to say where one ends and another begins."

    The pair walked on again for a while in silence; and then
"Enfield," said Mr. Utterson, "that's a good rule of yours."

    "Yes, I think it is," returned Enfield.

    "But for all that," continued the lawyer, "there's one point I
want to ask:  I want to ask the name of that man who walked over
the child."

    "Well," said Mr. Enfield, "I can't see what harm it would do.
It was a man of the name of Hyde."

    "Hm," said Mr. Utterson.  "What sort of a man is he to see?"

    "He is not easy to describe.  There is something wrong with his
appearance; something displeasing, something down-right
detestable.  I never saw a man I so disliked, and yet I scarce
know why.  He must be deformed somewhere; he gives a strong
feeling of deformity, although I couldn't specify the point.  He's
an extraordinary looking man, and yet I really can name nothing
out of the way.  No, sir; I can make no hand of it; I can't
describe him.  And it's not want of memory; for I declare I can
see him this moment."

    Mr. Utterson again walked some way in silence and obviously
under a weight of consideration.  "You are sure he used a key?" he
inquired at last.

    "My dear sir ..." began Enfield, surprised out of himself.

    "Yes, I know," said Utterson; "I know it must seem strange.
The fact is, if I do not ask you the name of the other party, it
is because I know it already.  You see, Richard, your tale has
gone home.  If you have been inexact in any point you had better
correct it."

    "I think you might have warned me," returned the other with a
touch of sullenness.  "But I have been pedantically exact, as you
call it.  The fellow had a key; and what's more, he has it still.
I saw him use it not a week ago."

    Mr. Utterson sighed deeply but said never a word; and the
young man presently resumed.  "Here is another lesson to say
nothing,"  said he.  "I am ashamed of my long tongue.  Let us make
a bargain never to refer to this again."

    "With all my heart," said the lawyer.  I shake hands on that,
Richard."




                        Search for Mr. Hyde



That evening Mr. Utterson came home to his bachelor house in
sombre spirits and sat down to dinner without relish.  It was his
custom of a Sunday, when this meal was over, to sit close by the
fire, a volume of some dry divinity on his reading desk, until the
clock of the neighbouring church rang out the hour of twelve, when
he would go soberly and gratefully to bed.  On this night however,
as soon as the cloth was taken away, he took up a candle and went
into his business room.  There he opened his safe, took from the
most private part of it a document endorsed on the envelope as Dr.
Jekyll's Will and sat down with a clouded brow to study its
contents.  The will was holograph, for Mr. Utterson though he took
charge of it now that it was made, had refused to lend the least
assistance in the making of it; it provided not only that, in case
of the decease of Henry Jekyll, M.D., D.C.L., L.L.D., F.R.S.,
etc., all his possessions were to pass into the hands of his
"friend and benefactor Edward Hyde," but that in case of Dr.
Jekyll's "disappearance or unexplained absence for any period
exceeding three calendar months," the said Edward Hyde should step
into the said Henry Jekyll's shoes without further delay and free
from any burthen or obligation beyond the payment of a few small
sums to the members of the doctor's household.  This document had
long been the lawyer's eyesore.  It offended him both as a lawyer
and as a lover of the sane and customary sides of life, to whom
the fanciful was the immodest.  And hitherto it was his ignorance
of Mr. Hyde that had swelled his indignation; now, by a sudden
turn, it was his knowledge.  It was already bad enough when the
name was but a name of which he could learn no more.  It was worse
when it began to be clothed upon with detestable attributes; and
out of the shifting, insubstantial mists that had so long baffled
his eye, there leaped up the sudden, definite presentment of a
fiend.

    "I thought it was madness," he said, as he replaced the
obnoxious paper in the safe, "and now I begin to fear it is
disgrace."

    With that he blew out his candle, put on a greatcoat, and set
forth in the direction of Cavendish Square, that citadel of
medicine, where his friend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his house
and received his crowding patients.  "If anyone knows, it will be
Lanyon," he had thought.

    The solemn butler knew and welcomed him; he was subjected to
no stage of delay, but ushered direct from the door to the
dining-room where Dr. Lanyon sat alone over his wine.  This was a
hearty, healthy, dapper, red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair
prematurely white, and a boisterous and decided manner.  At sight
of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up from his chair and welcomed him with
both hands.  The geniality, as was the way of the man, was
somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed on genuine feeling.
For these two were old friends, old mates both at school and
college, both thorough respectors of themselves and of each other,
and what does not always follow, men who thoroughly enjoyed each
other's company.

    After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject
which so disagreeably preoccupied his mind.

    "I suppose, Lanyon," said he, "you and I must be the two
oldest friends that Henry Jekyll has?"

    "I wish the friends were younger," chuckled Dr. Lanyon.  "But
I suppose we are.  And what of that?  I see little of him now."

    "Indeed?" said Utterson.  "I thought you had a bond of common
interest."

    "We had," was the reply.  "But it is more than ten years since
Henry Jekyll became too fanciful for me.  He began to go wrong,
wrong in mind; and though of course I continue to take an interest
in him for old sake's sake, as they say, I see and I have seen
devilish little of the man.  Such unscientific balderdash," added
the doctor, flushing suddenly purple, "would have estranged Damon
and Pythias."

    This little spirit of temper was somewhat of a relief to
Mr. Utterson.  "They have only differed on some point of science,"
he thought; and being a man of no scientific passions (except in
the matter of conveyancing), he even added:  "It is nothing worse
than that!"  He gave his friend a few seconds to recover his
composure, and then approached the question he had come to put.
Did you ever come across a protege of his--one Hyde?" he asked.

    "Hyde?" repeated Lanyon.  "No.  Never heard of him.  Since my
time."***

    That was the amount of information that the lawyer carried
back with him to the great, dark bed on which he tossed to and
fro, until the small hours of the morning began to grow large.  It
was a night of little ease to his toiling mind, toiling in mere
darkness and beseiged by questions.

    Six o'clock stuck on the bells of the church that was so
conveniently near to Mr. Utterson's dwelling, and still he was
digging at the problem.  Hitherto it had touched him on the
intellectual side alone; but now his imagination also was engaged,
or rather enslaved; and as he lay and tossed in the gross darkness
of the night and the curtained room, Mr. Enfield's tale went by
before his mind in a scroll of lighted pictures.  He would be
aware of the great field of lamps of a nocturnal city; then of the
figure of a man walking swiftly; then of a child running from the
doctor's; and then these met, and that human Juggernaut trod the
child down and passed on regardless of her screams.  Or else he
would see a room in a rich house, where his friend lay asleep,
dreaming and smiling at his dreams; and then the door of that room
would be opened, the curtains of the bed plucked apart, the
sleeper recalled, and lo! there would stand by his side a figure
to whom power was given, and even at that dead hour, he must rise
and do its bidding.  The figure in these two phases haunted the
lawyer all night; and if at any time he dozed over, it was but to
see it glide more stealthily through sleeping houses, or move the
more swiftly and still the more swiftly, even to dizziness,
through wider labyrinths of lamplighted city, and at every street
corner crush a child and leave her screaming.  And still the
figure had no face by which he might know it; even in his dreams,
it had no face, or one that baffled him and melted before his
eyes; and thus it was that there sprang up and grew apace in the
lawyer's mind a singularly strong, almost an inordinate, curiosity
to behold the features of the real Mr. Hyde.  If he could but once
set eyes on him, he thought the mystery would lighten and perhaps
roll altogether away, as was the habit of mysterious things when
well examined.  He might see a reason for his friend's strange
preference or bondage (call it which you please) and even for the
startling clause of the will.  At least it would be a face worth
seeing:  the face of a man who was without bowels of mercy:  a face
which had but to show itself to raise up, in the mind of the
unimpressionable Enfield, a spirit of enduring hatred.

    From that time forward, Mr. Utterson began to haunt the door
in the by-street of shops.  In the morning before office hours, at
noon when business was plenty, and time scarce, at night under the
face of the fogged city moon, by all lights and at all hours of
solitude or concourse, the lawyer was to be found on his chosen
post.

    "If he be Mr. Hyde," he had thought, "I shall be Mr. Seek."

    And at last his patience was rewarded.  It was a fine dry
night; frost in the air; the streets as clean as a ballroom floor;
the lamps, unshaken by any wind, drawing a regular pattern of
light and shadow.  By ten o'clock, when the shops were closed the
by-street was very solitary and, in spite of the low growl of
London from all round, very silent.  Small sounds carried far;
domestic sounds out of the houses were clearly audible on either
side of the roadway; and the rumour of the approach of any
passenger preceded him by a long time.  Mr. Utterson had been some
minutes at his post, when he was aware of an odd light footstep
drawing near.  In the course of his nightly patrols, he had long
grown accustomed to the quaint effect with which the footfalls
of a single person, while he is still a great way off, suddenly
spring out distinct from the vast hum and clatter of the city.
Yet his attention had never before been so sharply and decisively
arrested; and it was with a strong, superstitious prevision of
success that he withdrew into the entry of the court.

    The steps drew swiftly nearer, and swelled out suddenly louder
as they turned the end of the street.  The lawyer, looking forth
from the entry, could soon see what manner of man he had to deal
with.  He was small and very plainly dressed and the look of him,
even at that distance, went somehow strongly against the watcher's
inclination.  But he made straight for the door, crossing the
roadway to save time; and as he came, he drew a key from his
pocket like one approaching home.

    Mr. Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he
passed.  "Mr. Hyde, I think?"

    Mr. Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath.  But
his fear was only momentary; and though he did not look the lawyer
in the face, he answered coolly enough:  "That is my name.  What do
you want?"

    "I see you are going in," returned the lawyer.  "I am an old
friend of Dr. Jekyll's--Mr. Utterson of Gaunt Street--you must
have heard of my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought
you might admit me."

    "You will not find Dr. Jekyll; he is from home," replied Mr.
Hyde, blowing in the key.  And then suddenly, but still without
looking up, "How did you know me?" he asked.

    "On your side," said Mr. Utterson "will you do me a favour?"

    "With pleasure," replied the other.  "What shall it be?"

    "Will you let me see your face?" asked the lawyer.

    Mr. Hyde appeared to hesitate, and then, as if upon some
sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the
pair stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds.  "Now
I shall know you again," said Mr. Utterson.  "It may be useful."

    "Yes," returned Mr. Hyde, "lt is as well we have met; and
apropos, you should have my address."  And he gave a number of a
street in Soho.

    "Good God!" thought Mr. Utterson, "can he, too, have been
thinking of the will?"  But he kept his feelings to himself and
only grunted in acknowledgment of the address.

    "And now," said the other, "how did you know me?"

    "By description," was the reply.

    "Whose description?"

    "We have common friends," said Mr. Utterson.

    "Common friends," echoed Mr. Hyde, a little hoarsely.  "Who
are they?"

    "Jekyll, for instance," said the lawyer.

    "He never told you," cried Mr. Hyde, with a flush of anger.
"I did not think you would have lied."

    "Come," said Mr. Utterson, "that is not fitting language."

    The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next
moment, with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and
disappeared into the house.

    The lawyer stood awhile when Mr. Hyde had left him, the
picture of disquietude.  Then he began slowly to mount the street,
pausing every step or two and putting his hand to his brow like a
man in mental perplexity.  The problem he was thus debating as he
walked, was one of a class that is rarely solved.  Mr. Hyde was
pale and dwarfish, he gave an impression of deformity without any
nameable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne
himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity
and boldness, and he spoke with a husky, whispering and somewhat
broken voice; all these were points against him, but not all of
these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust,
loathing and fear with which Mr. Utterson regarded him.  "There
must be something else,"  said the perplexed gentleman.  "There
is something more, if I could find a name for it.  God bless me,
the man seems hardly human!  Something troglodytic, shall we say?
or can it be the old story of Dr. Fell? or is it the mere radience
of a foul soul that thus transpires through, and transfigures, its
clay continent?  The last,I think; for, O my poor old Harry
Jekyll, if ever I read Satan's signature upon a face, it is on
that of your new friend."

    Round the corner from the by-street, there was a square of
ancient, handsome houses, now for the most part decayed from their
high estate and let in flats and chambers to all sorts and
conditions of men; map-engravers, architects, shady lawyers and
the agents of obscure enterprises.  One house, however, second
from the corner, was still occupied entire; and at the door of
this, which wore a great air of wealth and comfort, though it was
now plunged in darkness except for the fanlight, Mr. Utterson
stopped and knocked.  A well-dressed, elderly servant opened the
door.

    "Is Dr. Jekyll at home, Poole?" asked the lawyer.

    "I will see, Mr. Utterson," said Poole, admitting the visitor,
as he spoke, into a large, low-roofed, comfortable hall paved with
flags, warmed (after the fashion of a country house) by a bright,
open fire, and furnished with costly cabinets of oak.  "Will you
wait here by the fire, sir? or shall I give you a light in the
dining-room?"

    "Here, thank you," said the lawyer, and he drew near and
leaned on the tall fender.  This hall, in which he was now left
alone, was a pet fancy of his friend the doctor's; and Utterson
himself was wont to speak of it as the pleasantest room in London.
But tonight there was a shudder in his blood; the face of Hyde sat
heavy on his memory; he felt (what was rare with him) a nausea
and distaste of life; and in the gloom of his spirits, he seemed
to read a menace in the flickering of the firelight on the
polished cabinets and the uneasy starting of the shadow on the
roof.  He was ashamed of his relief, when Poole presently
returned to announce that Dr. Jekyll was gone out.

    "I saw Mr. Hyde go in by the old dissecting room, Poole," he
said.  "Is that right, when Dr. Jekyll is from home?"

    "Quite right, Mr. Utterson, sir," replied the servant.  "Mr.
Hyde has a key."

    "Your master seems to repose a great deal of trust in that
young man, Poole," resumed the other musingly.

    "Yes, sir, he does indeed," said Poole.  "We have all orders
to obey him."

    "I do not think I ever met Mr. Hyde?" asked Utterson.

    "O, dear no, sir.  He never dines here," replied the butler.
Indeed we see very little of him on this side of the house; he
mostly comes and goes by the laboratory."

    "Well, good-night, Poole."

    "Good-night, Mr. Utterson."

    And the lawyer set out homeward with a very heavy heart.
"Poor Harry Jekyll," he thought, "my mind misgives me he is in
deep waters!  He was wild when he was young; a long while ago to
be sure; but in the law of God, there is no statute of
limitations.  Ay, it must be that; the ghost of some old sin, the
cancer of some concealed disgrace:  punishment coming, PEDE CLAUDO,
years after memory has forgotten and self-love condoned the
fault."  And the lawyer, scared by the thought, brooded awhile on
his own past, groping in all the corners of memory, least by
chance some Jack-in-the-Box of an old iniquity should leap to
light there.  His past was fairly blameless; few men could read
the rolls of their life with less apprehension; yet he was humbled
to the dust by the many ill things he had done, and raised up
again into a sober and fearful gratitude by the many he had come
so near to doing yet avoided.  And then by a return on his former
subject, he conceived a spark of hope.  "This Master Hyde, if he
were studied," thought he, "must have secrets of his own; black
secrets, by the look of him; secrets compared to which poor
Jekyll's worst would be like sunshine.  Things cannot continue as
they are.  It turns me cold to think of this creature stealing
like a thief to Harry's bedside; poor Harry, what a wakening!  And
the danger of it; for if this Hyde suspects the existence of the
will, he may grow impatient to inherit.  Ay, I must put my
shoulders to the wheel--if Jekyll will but let me," he added,
"if Jekyll will only let me."  For once more he saw before his
mind's eye, as clear as transparency, the strange clauses of the
will.





                   Dr. Jekyll Was Quite at Ease



    A fortnight later, by excellent good fortune, the doctor gave
one of his pleasant dinners to some five or six old cronies, all
intelligent, reputable men and all judges of good wine; and Mr.
Utterson so contrived that he remained behind after the others had
departed.  This was no new arrangement, but a thing that had
befallen many scores of times.  Where Utterson was liked, he was
liked well.  Hosts loved to detain the dry lawyer, when the
light-hearted and loose-tongued had already their foot on the
threshold; they liked to sit a while in his unobtrusive company,
practising for solitude, sobering their minds in the man's rich
silence after the expense and strain of gaiety.  To this rule, Dr.
Jekyll was no exception; and as he now sat on the opposite side of
the fire--a large, well-made, smooth-faced man of fifty, with
something of a stylish cast perhaps, but every mark of capacity
and kindness--you could see by his looks that he cherished for
Mr. Utterson a sincere and warm affection.

    "I have been wanting to speak to you, Jekyll," began the
latter.  "You know that will of yours?"

    A close observer might have gathered that the topic was
distasteful; but the doctor carried it off gaily.  "My poor
Utterson," said he, "you are unfortunate in such a client.  I
never saw a man so distressed as you were by my will; unless it
were that hide-bound pedant, Lanyon, at what he called my
scientific heresies.  O, I know he's a good fellow--you needn't
frown--an excellent fellow, and I always mean to see more of
him; but a hide-bound pedant for all that; an ignorant, blatant
pedant.  I was never more disappointed in any man than Lanyon."

    "You know I never approved of it," pursued Utterson,
ruthlessly disregarding the fresh topic.

    "My will?  Yes, certainly, I know that," said the doctor, a
trifle sharply.  "You have told me so."

    "Well, I tell you so again," continued the lawyer.  "I have
been learning something of young Hyde."

    The large handsome face of Dr. Jekyll grew pale to the very
lips, and there came a blackness about his eyes.  "I do not care
to hear more," said he.  "This is a matter I thought we had agreed
to drop."

    "What I heard was abominable," said Utterson.

    "It can make no change.  You do not understand my position,"
returned the doctor, with a certain incoherency of manner.  "I am
painfully situated, Utterson; my position is a very strange--a
very strange one.  It is one of those affairs that cannot be
mended by talking."

    "Jekyll," said Utterson, "you know me:  I am a man to be
trusted.  Make a clean breast of this in confidence; and I make no
doubt I can get you out of it."

    "My good Utterson," said the doctor, "this is very good of
you, this is downright good of you, and I cannot find words to
thank you in.  I believe you fully; I would trust you before any
man alive, ay, before myself, if I could make the choice; but
indeed it isn't what you fancy; it is not as bad as that; and just
to put your good heart at rest, I will tell you one thing:  the
moment I choose, I can be rid of Mr. Hyde.  I give you my hand
upon that; and I thank you again and again; and I will just add
one little word, Utterson, that I'm sure you'll take in good part: 
this is a private matter, and I beg of you to let it sleep."

    Utterson reflected a little, looking in the fire.

    "I have no doubt you are perfectly right," he said at last,
getting to his feet.

    "Well, but since we have touched upon this business, and for
the last time I hope," continued the doctor, "there is one point I
should like you to understand.  I have really a very great
interest in poor Hyde.  I know you have seen him; he told me so;
and I fear he was rude.  But I do sincerely take a great, a very
great interest in that young man; and if I am taken away,
Utterson, I wish you to promise me that you will bear with him and
get his rights for him.  I think you would, if you knew all; and
it would be a weight off my mind if you would promise."

    "I can't pretend that I shall ever like him," said the lawyer.

    "I don't ask that," pleaded Jekyll, laying his hand upon the
other's arm; "I only ask for justice; I only ask you to help him
for my sake, when I am no longer here."

    Utterson heaved an irrepressible sigh.  "Well," said he,
"I promise."





                       The Carew Murder Case



    Nearly a year later, in the month of October, 18--, London was
startled by a crime of singular ferocity and rendered all the more
notable by the high position of the victim.  The details were few
and startling.  A maid servant living alone in a house not far
from the river, had gone upstairs to bed about eleven.  Although a
fog rolled over the city in the small hours, the early part of the
night was cloudless, and the lane, which the maid's window
overlooked, was brilliantly lit by the full moon.  It seems she
was romantically given, for she sat down upon her box, which stood
immediately under the window, and fell into a dream of musing.
Never (she used to say, with streaming tears, when she narrated
that experience), never had she felt more at peace with all men
or thought more kindly of the world.  And as she so sat she became
aware of an aged beautiful gentleman with white hair, drawing near
along the lane; and advancing to meet him, another and very small
gentleman, to whom at first she paid less attention.  When they
had come within speech (which was just under the maid's eyes) the
older man bowed and accosted the other with a very pretty manner
of politeness.  It did not seem as if the subject of his address
were of great importance; indeed, from his pointing, it some times
appeared as if he were only inquiring his way; but the moon shone
on his face as he spoke, and the girl was pleased to watch it, it
seemed to breathe such an innocent and old-world kindness of
disposition, yet with something high too, as of a well-founded
self-content.  Presently her eye wandered to the other, and she
was surprised to recognise in him a certain Mr. Hyde, who had once
visited her master and for whom she had conceived a dislike.  He
had in his hand a heavy cane, with which he was trifling; but he
answered never a word, and seemed to listen with an ill-contained
impatience.  And then all of a sudden he broke out in a great
flame of anger, stamping with his foot, brandishing the cane, and
carrying on (as the maid described it) like a madman.  The old
gentleman took a step back, with the air of one very much
surprised and a trifle hurt; and at that Mr. Hyde broke out of all
bounds and clubbed him to the earth.  And next moment, with
ape-like fury, he was trampling his victim under foot and hailing
down a storm of blows, under which the bones were audibly
shattered and the body jumped upon the roadway.  At the horror of
these sights and sounds, the maid fainted.

    It was two o'clock when she came to herself and called for the
police.  The murderer was gone long ago; but there lay his victim
in the middle of the lane, incredibly mangled.  The stick with
which the deed had been done, although it was of some rare and
very tough and heavy wood, had broken in the middle under the
stress of this insensate cruelty; and one splintered half had
rolled in the neighbouring gutter--the other, without doubt, had
been carried away by the murderer.  A purse and gold watch were
found upon the victim:  but no cards or papers, except a sealed and
stamped envelope, which he had been probably carrying to the post,
and which bore the name and address of Mr. Utterson.

    This was brought to the lawyer the next morning, before he was
out of bed; and he had no sooner seen it and been told the
circumstances, than he shot out a solemn lip.  "I shall say
nothing till I have seen the body," said he; "this may be very
serious.  Have the kindness to wait while I dress."  And with the
same grave countenance he hurried through his breakfast and drove
to the police station, whither the body had been carried.  As soon
as he came into the cell, he nodded.

    "Yes," said he, "I recognise him.  I am sorry to say that this
is Sir Danvers Carew."

    "Good God, sir," exclaimed the officer, "is it possible?"  And
the next moment his eye lighted up with professional ambition.
"This will make a deal of noise," he said.  "And perhaps you can
help us to the man."  And he briefly narrated what the maid had
seen, and showed the broken stick.

    Mr. Utterson had already quailed at the name of Hyde; but when
the stick was laid before him, he could doubt no longer; broken
and battered as it was, he recognized it for one that he had
himself presented many years before to Henry Jekyll.

    "Is this Mr. Hyde a person of small stature?"  he inquired.

    "Particularly small and particularly wicked-looking, is what
the maid calls him," said the officer.

    Mr. Utterson reflected; and then, raising his head, "If you
will come with me in my cab," he said, "I think I can take you to
his house."

    It was by this time about nine in the morning, and the first
fog of the season.  A great chocolate-coloured pall lowered over
heaven, but the wind was continually charging and routing these
embattled vapours; so that as the cab crawled from street to
street, Mr. Utterson beheld a marvelous number of degrees and hues
of twilight; for here it would be dark like the back-end of
evening; and there would be a glow of a rich, lurid brown, like
the light of some strange conflagration; and here, for a moment,
the fog would be quite broken up, and a haggard shaft of daylight
would glance in between the swirling wreaths.  The dismal quarter
of Soho seen under these changing glimpses, with its muddy ways,
and slatternly passengers, and its lamps, which had never been
extinguished or had been kindled afresh to combat this mournful
reinvasion of darkness, seemed, in the lawyer's eyes, like a
district of some city in a nightmare.  The thoughts of his mind,
besides, were of the gloomiest dye; and when he glanced at the
companion of his drive, he was conscious of some touch of that
terror of the law and the law's officers, which may at times
assail the most honest.

    As the cab drew up before the address indicated, the fog
lifted a little and showed him a dingy street, a gin palace, a low
French eating house, a shop for the retail of penny numbers and
twopenny salads, many ragged children huddled in the doorways, and
many women of many different nationalities passing out, key in
hand, to have a morning glass; and the next moment the fog settled
down again upon that part, as brown as umber, and cut him off from
his blackguardly surroundings.  This was the home of Henry
Jekyll's favourite; of a man who was heir to a quarter of a
million sterling.

    An ivory-faced and silvery-haired old woman opened the door.
She had an evil face, smoothed by hypocrisy:  but her manners were
excellent.  Yes, she said, this was Mr. Hyde's, but he was not at
home; he had been in that night very late, but he had gone away
again in less than an hour; there was nothing strange in that; his
habits were very irregular, and he was often absent; for instance,
it was nearly two months since she had seen him till yesterday.

    "Very well, then, we wish to see his rooms," said the lawyer;
and when the woman began to declare it was impossible, "I had
better tell you who this person is," he added.  "This is Inspector
Newcomen of Scotland Yard."

    A flash of odious joy appeared upon the woman's face.  "Ah!"
said she, "he is in trouble!  What has he done?"

    Mr. Utterson and the inspector exchanged glances.  "He don't
seem a very popular character," observed the latter.  "And now, my
good woman, just let me and this gentleman have a look about us."

    In the whole extent of the house, which but for the old woman
remained otherwise empty, Mr. Hyde had only used a couple of
rooms; but these were furnished with luxury and good taste.  A
closet was filled with wine; the plate was of silver, the napery
elegant; a good picture hung upon the walls, a gift (as Utterson
supposed) from Henry Jekyll, who was much of a connoisseur; and
the carpets were of many plies and agreeable in colour.  At this
moment, however, the rooms bore every mark of having been recently
and hurriedly ransacked; clothes lay about the floor, with their
pockets inside out; lock-fast drawers stood open; and on the
hearth there lay a pile of grey ashes, as though many papers had
been burned.  From these embers the inspector disinterred the butt
end of a green cheque book, which had resisted the action of the
fire; the other half of the stick was found behind the door; and
as this clinched his suspicions, the officer declared himself
delighted.  A visit to the bank, where several thousand pounds
were found to be lying to the murderer's credit, completed his
gratification.

    "You may depend upon it, sir," he told Mr. Utterson:  "I have
him in my hand.  He must have lost his head, or he never would
have left the stick or, above all, burned the cheque book.  Why,
money's life to the man.  We have nothing to do but wait for him
at the bank, and get out the handbills."

    This last, however, was not so easy of accomplishment; for Mr.
Hyde had numbered few familiars--even the master of the servant
maid had only seen him twice; his family could nowhere be traced;
he had never been photographed; and the few who could describe him
differed widely, as common observers will.  Only on one point were
they agreed; and that was the haunting sense of unexpressed
deformity with which the fugitive impressed his beholders.





                      Incident of the Letter



It was late in the afternoon, when Mr. Utterson found his way to
Dr. Jekyll's door, where he was at once admitted by Poole, and
carried down by the kitchen offices and across a yard which had
once been a garden, to the building which was indifferently known
as the laboratory or dissecting rooms.  The doctor had bought the
house from the heirs of a celebrated surgeon; and his own tastes
being rather chemical than anatomical, had changed the destination
of the block at the bottom of the garden.  It was the first time
that the lawyer had been received in that part of his friend's
quarters; and he eyed the dingy, windowless structure with
curiosity, and gazed round with a distasteful sense of strangeness
as he crossed the theatre, once crowded with eager students and
now lying gaunt and silent, the tables laden with chemical
apparatus, the floor strewn with crates and littered with packing
straw, and the light falling dimly through the foggy cupola.  At
the further end, a flight of stairs mounted to a door covered with
red baize; and through this, Mr. Utterson was at last received
into the doctor's cabinet.  It was a large room fitted round with
glass presses, furnished, among other things, with a cheval-glass
and a business table, and looking out upon the court by three
dusty windows barred with iron.  The fire burned in the grate; a
lamp was set lighted on the chimney shelf, for even in the houses
the fog began to lie thickly; and there, close up to the warmth,
sat Dr. Jekyll, looking deathly sick.  He did not rise to meet his
visitor, but held out a cold hand and bade him welcome in a
changed voice.

    "And now," said Mr. Utterson, as soon as Poole had left them,
"you have heard the news?"

    The doctor shuddered.  "They were crying it in the square," he
said.  "I heard them in my dining-room."

    "One word," said the lawyer.  "Carew was my client, but so are
you, and I want to know what I am doing.  You have not been mad
enough to hide this fellow?"

    "Utterson, I swear to God," cried the doctor, "I swear to God
I will never set eyes on him again.  I bind my honour to you that
I am done with him in this world.  It is all at an end.  And
indeed he does not want my help; you do not know him as I do; he
is safe, he is quite safe; mark my words, he will never more be
heard of."

    The lawyer listened gloomily; he did not like his friend's
feverish manner.  "You seem pretty sure of him," said he; "and for
your sake, I hope you may be right.  If it came to a trial, your
name might appear."

    "I am quite sure of him," replied Jekyll; "I have grounds
for certainty that I cannot share with any one.  But there is one
thing on which you may advise me.  I have--I have received a
letter; and I am at a loss whether I should show it to the police.
I should like to leave it in your hands, Utterson; you would judge
wisely, I am sure; I have so great a trust in you."

    "You fear, I suppose, that it might lead to his detection?"
asked the lawyer.

    "No," said the other.  "I cannot say that I care what becomes
of Hyde; I am quite done with him.  I was thinking of my own
character, which this hateful business has rather exposed."

    Utterson ruminated awhile; he was surprised at his friend's
selfishness, and yet relieved by it.  "Well," said he, at last,
let me see the letter."

    The letter was written in an odd, upright hand and signed
"Edward Hyde":  and it signified, briefly enough, that the writer's
benefactor, Dr. Jekyll, whom he had long so unworthily repaid for
a thousand generosities, need labour under no alarm for his
safety, as he had means of escape on which he placed a sure
dependence.  The lawyer liked this letter well enough; it put a
better colour on the intimacy than he had looked for; and he
blamed himself for some of his past suspicions.

    "Have you the envelope?" he asked.

    "I burned it," replied Jekyll, "before I thought what I was
about.  But it bore no postmark.  The note was handed in."

    "Shall I keep this and sleep upon it?" asked Utterson.

    "I wish you to judge for me entirely," was the reply.  "I have
lost confidence in myself."

    "Well, I shall consider," returned the lawyer.  "And now one
word more:  it was Hyde who dictated the terms in your will about
that disappearance?"

    The doctor seemed seized with a qualm of faintness; he shut
his mouth tight and nodded.

    "I knew it," said Utterson.  "He meant to murder you.  You had
a fine escape."

    "I have had what is far more to the purpose," returned the
doctor solemnly:  "I have had a lesson--O God, Utterson, what a
lesson I have had!"  And he covered his face for a moment with his
hands.

    On his way out, the lawyer stopped and had a word or two with
Poole.  "By the bye," said he, "there was a letter handed in
to-day:  what was the messenger like?"  But Poole was positive
nothing had come except by post; "and only circulars by that," he
added.

    This news sent off the visitor with his fears renewed.
Plainly the letter had come by the laboratory door; possibly,
indeed, it had been written in the cabinet; and if that were so,
it must be differently judged, and handled with the more caution.
The newsboys, as he went, were crying themselves hoarse along the
footways:  "Special edition.  Shocking murder of an M.P."  That was
the funeral oration of one friend and client; and he could not
help a certain apprehension lest the good name of another should
be sucked down in the eddy of the scandal.  It was, at least, a
ticklish decision that he had to make; and self-reliant as he was
by habit, he began to cherish a longing for advice.  It was not to
be had directly; but perhaps, he thought, it might be fished for.

    Presently after, he sat on one side of his own hearth, with
Mr. Guest, his head clerk, upon the other, and midway between, at
a nicely calculated distance from the fire, a bottle of a
particular old wine that had long dwelt unsunned in the
foundations of his house.  The fog still slept on the wing above
the drowned city, where the lamps glimmered like carbuncles; and
through the muffle and smother of these fallen clouds, the
procession of the town's life was still rolling in through the
great arteries with a sound as of a mighty wind.  But the room was
gay with firelight.  In the bottle the acids were long ago
resolved; the imperial dye had softened with time, as the colour
grows richer in stained windows; and the glow of hot autumn
afternoons on hillside vineyards, was ready to be set free and to
disperse the fogs of London.  Insensibly the lawyer melted.  There
was no man from whom he kept fewer secrets than Mr. Guest; and he
was not always sure that he kept as many as he meant.  Guest had
often been on business to the doctor's; he knew Poole; he could
scarce have failed to hear of Mr. Hyde's familiarity about the
house; he might draw conclusions:  was it not as well, then, that
he should see a letter which put that mystery to right? and above
all since Guest, being a great student and critic of handwriting,
would consider the step natural and obliging?  The clerk, besides,
was a man of counsel; he could scarce read so strange a document
without dropping a remark; and by that remark Mr. Utterson might
shape his future course.

    "This is a sad business about Sir Danvers," he said.

    "Yes, sir, indeed.  It has elicited a great deal of public
feeling," returned Guest.  "The man, of course, was mad."

    "I should like to hear your views on that," replied Utterson.
"I have a document here in his handwriting; it is between
ourselves, for I scarce know what to do about it; it is an ugly
business at the best.  But there it is; quite in your way:  a
murderer's autograph."

    Guest's eyes brightened, and he sat down at once and studied
it with passion.  "No sir," he said:  "not mad; but it is an odd
hand."

    "And by all accounts a very odd writer," added the lawyer.

    Just then the servant entered with a note.

    "Is that from Dr. Jekyll, sir?" inquired the clerk.  "I
thought I knew the writing.  Anything private, Mr. Utterson?

    "Only an invitation to dinner.  Why?  Do you want to see it?"

    "One moment.  I thank you, sir;" and the clerk laid the two
sheets of paper alongside and sedulously compared their contents.
"Thank you, sir," he said at last, returning both; "it's a very
interesting autograph."

    There was a pause, during which Mr. Utterson struggled with
himself.  "Why did you compare them, Guest?" he inquired suddenly.

    "Well, sir," returned the clerk, "there's a rather singular
resemblance; the two hands are in many points identical:  only
differently sloped."

    "Rather quaint," said Utterson.

    "It is, as you say, rather quaint," returned Guest.

    "I wouldn't speak of this note, you know," said the master.

    "No, sir," said the clerk.  "I understand."

    But no sooner was Mr. Utterson alone that night, than he
locked the note into his safe, where it reposed from that time
forward.  "What!" he thought.  "Henry Jekyll forge for a
murderer!"  And his blood ran cold in his veins.





                      Incident of Dr. Lanyon



Time ran on; thousands of pounds were offered in reward, for the
death of Sir Danvers was resented as a public injury; but Mr.
Hyde had disappeared out of the ken of the police as though he had
never existed.  Much of his past was unearthed, indeed, and all
disreputable:  tales came out of the man's cruelty, at once so
callous and violent; of his vile life, of his strange associates,
of the hatred that seemed to have surrounded his career; but of
his present whereabouts, not a whisper.  From the time he had left
the house in Soho on the morning of the murder, he was simply
blotted out; and gradually, as time drew on, Mr. Utterson began to
recover from the hotness of his alarm, and to grow more at quiet
with himself.  The death of Sir Danvers was, to his way of
thinking, more than paid for by the disappearance of Mr. Hyde.
Now that that evil influence had been withdrawn, a new life began
for Dr. Jekyll.  He came out of his seclusion, renewed relations
with his friends, became once more their familiar guest and
entertainer; and whilst he had always been known for charities, he
was now no less distinguished for religion.  He was busy, he was
much in the open air, he did good; his face seemed to open and
brighten, as if with an inward consciousness of service; and for
more than two months, the doctor was at peace.

    On the 8th of January Utterson had dined at the doctor's with
a small party; Lanyon had been there; and the face of the host had
looked from one to the other as in the old days when the trio were
inseparable friends.  On the 12th, and again on the 14th, the door
was shut against the lawyer.  "The doctor was confined to the
house," Poole said, "and saw no one."  On the 15th, he tried again,
and was again refused; and having now been used for the last two
months to see his friend almost daily, he found this return of
solitude to weigh upon his spirits.  The fifth night he had in
Guest to dine with him; and the sixth he betook himself to Dr.
Lanyon's.

    There at least he was not denied admittance; but when he came
in, he was shocked at the change which had taken place in the
doctor's appearance.  He had his death-warrant written legibly
upon his face.  The rosy man had grown pale; his flesh had fallen
away; he was visibly balder and older; and yet it was not so much
these tokens of a swift physical decay that arrested the lawyer's
notice, as a look in the eye and quality of manner that seemed to
testify to some deep-seated terror of the mind.  It was unlikely
that the doctor should fear death; and yet that was what Utterson
was tempted to suspect.  "Yes," he thought; he is a doctor, he
must know his own state and that his days are counted; and the
knowledge is more than he can bear."  And yet when Utterson
remarked on his ill-looks, it was with an air of great firmness
that Lanyon declared himself a doomed man.

    "I have had a shock," he said, "and I shall never recover.  It
is a question of weeks.  Well, life has been pleasant; I liked it;
yes, sir, I used to like it.  I sometimes think if we knew all, we
should be more glad to get away."

    "Jekyll is ill, too," observed Utterson.  "Have you seen him?"

    But Lanyon's face changed, and he held up a trembling hand.
"I wish to see or hear no more of Dr. Jekyll," he said in a loud,
unsteady voice.  "I am quite done with that person; and I beg that
you will spare me any allusion to one whom I regard as dead."

    "Tut-tut," said Mr. Utterson; and then after a considerable
pause, "Can't I do anything?" he inquired.  "We are three very old
friends, Lanyon; we shall not live to make others."

    "Nothing can be done," returned Lanyon; "ask himself."

    "He will not see me," said the lawyer.

    "I am not surprised at that," was the reply.  "Some day,
Utterson, after I am dead, you may perhaps come to learn the right
and wrong of this.  I cannot tell you.  And in the meantime, if
you can sit and talk with me of other things, for God's sake, stay
and do so; but if you cannot keep clear of this accursed topic,
then in God's name, go, for I cannot bear it."

    As soon as he got home, Utterson sat down and wrote to Jekyll,
complaining of his exclusion from the house, and asking the cause
of this unhappy break with Lanyon; and the next day brought him a
long answer, often very pathetically worded, and sometimes darkly
mysterious in drift.  The quarrel with Lanyon was incurable.  "I
do not blame our old friend," Jekyll wrote, but I share his view
that we must never meet.  I mean from henceforth to lead a life of
extreme seclusion; you must not be surprised, nor must you doubt
my friendship, if my door is often shut even to you.  You must
suffer me to go my own dark way.  I have brought on myself a
punishment and a danger that I cannot name.  If I am the chief of
sinners, I am the chief of sufferers also.  I could not think that
this earth contained a place for sufferings and terrors so
unmanning; and you can do but one thing, Utterson, to lighten this
destiny, and that is to respect my silence."  Utterson was amazed;
the dark influence of Hyde had been withdrawn, the doctor had
returned to his old tasks and amities; a week ago, the prospect
had smiled with every promise of a cheerful and an honoured age;
and now in a moment, friendship, and peace of mind, and the whole
tenor of his life were wrecked.  So great and unprepared a change
pointed to madness; but in view of Lanyon's manner and words,
there must lie for it some deeper ground.

    A week afterwards Dr. Lanyon took to his bed, and in something
less than a fortnight he was dead.  The night after the funeral,
at which he had been sadly affected, Utterson locked the door of
his business room, and sitting there by the light of a melancholy
candle, drew out and set before him an envelope addressed by the
hand and sealed with the seal of his dead friend.  "PRIVATE:  for
the hands of G. J. Utterson ALONE, and in case of his predecease
to be destroyed unread," so it was emphatically superscribed; and
the lawyer dreaded to behold the contents.  "I have buried one
friend to-day," he thought:  "what if this should cost me another?"
And then he condemned the fear as a disloyalty, and broke the
seal.  Within there was another enclosure, likewise sealed, and
marked upon the cover as "not to be opened till the death or
disappearance of Dr. Henry Jekyll."  Utterson could not trust his
eyes.  Yes, it was disappearance; here again, as in the mad will
which he had long ago restored to its author, here again were the
idea of a disappearance and the name of Henry Jekyll bracketted.
But in the will, that idea had sprung from the sinister suggestion
of the man Hyde; it was set there with a purpose all too plain and
horrible.  Written by the hand of Lanyon, what should it mean?  A
great curiosity came on the trustee, to disregard the prohibition
and dive at once to the bottom of these mysteries; but
professional honour and faith to his dead friend were stringent
obligations; and the packet slept in the inmost corner of his
private safe.

    It is one thing to mortify curiosity, another to conquer it;
and it may be doubted if, from that day forth, Utterson desired
the society of his surviving friend with the same eagerness.  He
thought of him kindly; but his thoughts were disquieted and
fearful.  He went to call indeed; but he was perhaps relieved to
be denied admittance; perhaps, in his heart, he preferred to speak
with Poole upon the doorstep and surrounded by the air and sounds
of the open city, rather than to be admitted into that house of
voluntary bondage, and to sit and speak with its inscrutable
recluse.  Poole had, indeed, no very pleasant news to communicate.
The doctor, it appeared, now more than ever confined himself to
the cabinet over the laboratory, where he would sometimes even
sleep; he was out of spirits, he had grown very silent, he did not
read; it seemed as if he had something on his mind.  Utterson
became so used to the unvarying character of these reports, that
he fell off little by little in the frequency of his visits.





                      Incident at the Window



It chanced on Sunday, when Mr. Utterson was on his usual walk with
Mr. Enfield, that their way lay once again through the by-street;
and that when they came in front of the door, both stopped to gaze
on it.

    "Well," said Enfield, "that story's at an end at least.  We
shall never see more of Mr. Hyde."

    "I hope not," said Utterson.  "Did I ever tell you that I once
saw him, and shared your feeling of repulsion?"

    "It was impossible to do the one without the other," returned
Enfield.  "And by the way, what an ass you must have thought me,
not to know that this was a back way to Dr. Jekyll's!  It was
partly your own fault that I found it out, even when I did."

    "So you found it out, did you?" said Utterson.  "But if that
be so, we may step into the court and take a look at the windows.
To tell you the truth, I am uneasy about poor Jekyll; and even
outside, I feel as if the presence of a friend might do him good."

    The court was very cool and a little damp, and full of
premature twilight, although the sky, high up overhead, was still
bright with sunset.  The middle one of the three windows was
half-way open; and sitting close beside it, taking the air with an
infinite sadness of mien, like some disconsolate prisoner,
Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll.

    "What!  Jekyll!" he cried.  "I trust you are better."

    "I am very low, Utterson," replied the doctor drearily, "very
low.  It will not last long, thank God."

    "You stay too much indoors," said the lawyer.  "You should be
out, whipping up the circulation like Mr. Enfield and me.  (This
is my cousin--Mr. Enfield--Dr. Jekyll.)  Come now; get your
hat and take a quick turn with us."

    "You are very good," sighed the other.  "I should like to very
much; but no, no, no, it is quite impossible; I dare not.  But
indeed, Utterson, I am very glad to see you; this is really a
great pleasure; I would ask you and Mr. Enfield up, but the place
is really not fit."

    "Why, then," said the lawyer, good-naturedly, "the best thing
we can do is to stay down here and speak with you from where we
are."

    "That is just what I was about to venture to propose,"
returned the doctor with a smile.  But the words were hardly
uttered, before the smile was struck out of his face and succeeded
by an expression of such abject terror and despair, as froze the
very blood of the two gentlemen below.  They saw it but for a
glimpse for the window was instantly thrust down; but that glimpse
had been sufficient, and they turned and left the court without a
word.  In silence, too, they traversed the by-street; and it was
not until they had come into a neighbouring thoroughfare, where
even upon a Sunday there were still some stirrings of life, that
Mr. Utterson at last turned and looked at his companion.  They
were both pale; and there was an answering horror in their eyes.

    "God forgive us, God forgive us," said Mr. Utterson.

    But Mr. Enfield only nodded his head very seriously, and
walked on once more in silence.





                          The Last Night



Mr. Utterson was sitting by his fireside one evening after dinner,
when he was surprised to receive a visit from Poole.

    "Bless me, Poole, what brings you here?" he cried; and then
taking a second look at him, "What ails you?" he added; is the
doctor ill?"

    "Mr. Utterson," said the man, "there is something wrong."

    "Take a seat, and here is a glass of wine for you," said the
lawyer.  "Now, take your time, and tell me plainly what you want."

    "You know the doctor's ways, sir," replied Poole, "and how he
shuts himself up.  Well, he's shut up again in the cabinet; and I
don't like it, sir--I wish I may die if I like it.  Mr.
Utterson, sir, I'm afraid."

    "Now, my good man," said the lawyer, "be explicit.  What are
you afraid of?"

    "I've been afraid for about a week," returned Poole, doggedly
disregarding the question, "and I can bear it no more."

    The man's appearance amply bore out his words; his manner was
altered for the worse; and except for the moment when he had first
announced his terror, he had not once looked the lawyer in the
face.  Even now, he sat with the glass of wine untasted on his
knee, and his eyes directed to a corner of the floor.  "I can bear
it no more,"he repeated.

    "Come," said the lawyer, "I see you have some good reason,
Poole; I see there is something seriously amiss.  Try to tell me
what it is."

    "I think there's been foul play," said Poole, hoarsely.

    "Foul play!" cried the lawyer, a good deal frightened and
rather inclined to be irritated in consequence.  "What foul play!
What does the man mean?"

    "I daren't say, sir," was the answer; but will you come along
with me and see for yourself?"

    Mr. Utterson's only answer was to rise and get his hat and
greatcoat; but he observed with wonder the greatness of the relief
that appeared upon the butler's face, and perhaps with no less,
that the wine was still untasted when he set it down to follow.

    It was a wild, cold, seasonable night of March, with a pale
moon, lying on her back as though the wind had tilted her, and
flying wrack of the most diaphanous and lawny texture.  The wind
made talking difficult, and flecked the blood into the face.  It
seemed to have swept the streets unusually bare of passengers,
besides; for Mr. Utterson thought he had never seen that part of
London so deserted.  He could have wished it otherwise; never in
his life had he been conscious of so sharp a wish to see and touch
his fellow-creatures; for struggle as he might, there was borne in
upon his mind a crushing anticipation of calamity.  The square,
when they got there, was full of wind and dust, and the thin trees
in the garden were lashing themselves along the railing.  Poole,
who had kept all the way a pace or two ahead, now pulled up in the
middle of the pavement, and in spite of the biting weather, took
off his hat and mopped his brow with a red pocket-handkerchief.
But for all the hurry of his coming, these were not the dews of
exertion that he wiped away, but the moisture of some strangling
anguish; for his face was white and his voice, when he spoke,
harsh and broken.

    "Well, sir," he said, "here we are, and God grant there be
nothing wrong."

    "Amen, Poole," said the lawyer.

    Thereupon the servant knocked in a very guarded manner; the
door was opened on the chain; and a voice asked from within, "Is
that you, Poole?"

    "It's all right," said Poole.  "Open the door."

    The hall, when they entered it, was brightly lighted up; the
fire was built high; and about the hearth the whole of the
servants, men and women, stood huddled together like a flock of
sheep.  At the sight of Mr. Utterson, the housemaid broke into
hysterical whimpering; and the cook, crying out "Bless God! it's
Mr. Utterson," ran forward as if to take him in her arms.

    "What, what?  Are you all here?" said the lawyer peevishly.
"Very irregular, very unseemly; your master would be far from
pleased."

    "They're all afraid," said Poole.

    Blank silence followed, no one protesting; only the maid
lifted her voice and now wept loudly.

    "Hold your tongue!"  Poole said to her, with a ferocity of
accent that testified to his own jangled nerves; and indeed, when
the girl had so suddenly raised the note of her lamentation, they
had all started and turned towards the inner door with faces of
dreadful expectation.  "And now," continued the butler, addressing
the knife-boy, "reach me a candle, and we'll get this through
hands at once."  And then he begged Mr. Utterson to follow him,
and led the way to the back garden.

    "Now, sir," said he, "you come as gently as you can.  I want
you to hear, and I don't want you to be heard.  And see here, sir,
if by any chance he was to ask you in, don't go."

    Mr. Utterson's nerves, at this unlooked-for termination, gave
a jerk that nearly threw him from his balance; but he recollected
his courage and followed the butler into the laboratory building
through the surgical theatre, with its lumber of crates and
bottles, to the foot of the stair.  Here Poole motioned him to
stand on one side and listen; while he himself, setting down the
candle and making a great and obvious call on his resolution,
mounted the steps and knocked with a somewhat uncertain hand on
the red baize of the cabinet door.

    "Mr. Utterson, sir, asking to see you," he called; and even as
he did so, once more violently signed to the lawyer to give ear.

    A voice answered from within:  "Tell him I cannot see anyone,"
it said complainingly.

    "Thank you, sir," said Poole, with a note of something like
triumph in his voice; and taking up his candle, he led Mr.
Utterson back across the yard and into the great kitchen, where
the fire was out and the beetles were leaping on the floor.

    "Sir," he said, looking Mr. Utterson in the eyes, "Was that my
master's voice?"

    "It seems much changed," replied the lawyer, very pale, but
giving look for look.

    "Changed?  Well, yes, I think so," said the butler.  "Have I
been twenty years in this man's house, to be deceived about his
voice?  No, sir; master's made away with; he was made away with
eight days ago, when we heard him cry out upon the name of God;
and who's in there instead of him, and why it stays there, is a
thing that cries to Heaven, Mr. Utterson!"

    "This is a very strange tale, Poole; this is rather a wild
tale my man," said Mr. Utterson, biting his finger.  "Suppose it
were as you suppose, supposing Dr. Jekyll to have been--well,
murdered what could induce the murderer to stay?  That won't hold
water; it doesn't commend itself to reason."

    "Well, Mr. Utterson, you are a hard man to satisfy, but I'll
do it yet," said Poole.  "All this last week (you must know) him,
or it, whatever it is that lives in that cabinet, has been crying
night and day for some sort of medicine and cannot get it to his
mind.  It was sometimes his way--the master's, that is--to
write his orders on a sheet of paper and throw it on the stair.
We've had nothing else this week back; nothing but papers, and a
closed door, and the very meals left there to be smuggled in when
nobody was looking.  Well, sir, every day, ay, and twice and
thrice in the same day, there have been orders and complaints, and
I have been sent flying to all the wholesale chemists in town.
Every time I brought the stuff back, there would be another paper
telling me to return it, because it was not pure, and another
order to a different firm.  This drug is wanted bitter bad, sir,
whatever for."

    "Have you any of these papers?" asked Mr. Utterson.

    Poole felt in his pocket and handed out a crumpled note, which
the lawyer, bending nearer to the candle, carefully examined.  Its
contents ran thus:  "Dr. Jekyll presents his compliments to Messrs.
Maw.  He assures them that their last sample is impure and quite
useless for his present purpose.  In the year 18--, Dr. J.
purchased a somewhat large quantity from Messrs. M.  He now begs
them to search with most sedulous care,and should any of the same
quality be left, forward it to him at once.  Expense is no
consideration.  The importance of this to Dr. J. can hardly be
exaggerated."  So far the letter had run composedly enough, but
here with a sudden splutter of the pen, the writer's emotion had
broken loose.  "For God's sake," he added, "find me some of the
old."

    "This is a strange note," said Mr. Utterson; and then sharply,
"How do you come to have it open?"

    "The man at Maw's was main angry, sir, and he threw it back to
me like so much dirt," returned Poole.

    "This is unquestionably the doctor's hand, do you know?"
resumed the lawyer.

    "I thought it looked like it," said the servant rather
sulkily; and then, with another voice, "But what matters hand of
write?" he said.  "I've seen him!"

    "Seen him?" repeated Mr. Utterson.  "Well?"

    "That's it!" said Poole.  "It was this way.  I came suddenly
into the theater from the garden.  It seems he had slipped out to
look for this drug or whatever it is; for the cabinet door was
open, and there he was at the far end of the room digging among
the crates.  He looked up when I came in, gave a kind of cry, and
whipped upstairs into the cabinet.  It was but for one minute that
I saw him, but the hair stood upon my head like quills.  Sir, if
that was my master, why had he a mask upon his face?  If it was my
master, why did he cry out like a rat, and run from me?  I have
served him long enough.  And then..."  The man paused and passed
his hand over his face.

    "These are all very strange circumstances," said Mr.
Utterson, "but I think I begin to see daylight.  Your master,
Poole, is plainly seized with one of those maladies that both
torture and deform the sufferer; hence, for aught I know, the
alteration of his voice; hence the mask and the avoidance of his
friends; hence his eagerness to find this drug, by means of which
the poor soul retains some hope of ultimate recovery--God grant
that he be not deceived!  There is my explanation; it is sad
enough, Poole, ay, and appalling to consider; but it is plain and
natural, hangs well together, and delivers us from all exorbitant
alarms."

    "Sir," said the butler, turning to a sort of mottled pallor,
"that thing was not my master, and there's the truth.  My
master"--here he looked round him and began to whisper--"is a
tall, fine build of a man, and this was more of a dwarf."
Utterson attempted to protest.  "O, sir," cried Poole, "do you
think I do not know my master after twenty years?  Do you think I
do not know where his head comes to in the cabinet door, where I
saw him every morning of my life?  No, sir, that thing in the mask
was never Dr. Jekyll--God knows what it was, but it was never
Dr. Jekyll; and it is the belief of my heart that there was murder
done."

    "Poole," replied the lawyer, "if you say that, it will become
my duty to make certain.  Much as I desire to spare your master's
feelings, much as I am puzzled by this note which seems to prove
him to be still alive, I shall consider it my duty to break in
that door."

    "Ah, Mr. Utterson, that's talking!" cried the butler.

    "And now comes the second question," resumed Utterson:  "Who
is going to do it?"

    "Why, you and me, sir," was the undaunted reply.

    "That's very well said," returned the lawyer; "and whatever
comes of it, I shall make it my business to see you are no loser."

    "There is an axe in the theatre," continued Poole; "and you
might take the kitchen poker for yourself."

    The lawyer took that rude but weighty instrument into his
hand, and balanced it.  "Do you know, Poole," he said, looking up,
"that you and I are about to place ourselves in a position of
some peril?"

    "You may say so, sir, indeed," returned the butler.

    "It is well, then that we should be frank," said the other.
"We both think more than we have said; let us make a clean breast.
This masked figure that you saw, did you recognise it?"

    "Well, sir, it went so quick, and the creature was so doubled
up, that I could hardly swear to that," was the answer.  "But if
you mean, was it Mr. Hyde?--why, yes, I think it was!"  You see,
it was much of the same bigness; and it had the same quick, light
way with it; and then who else could have got in by the laboratory
door?  You have not forgot, sir, that at the time of the murder he
had still the key with him?  But that's not all.  I don't know,
Mr. Utterson, if you ever met this Mr. Hyde?"

    "Yes," said the lawyer, "I once spoke with him."

    "Then you must know as well as the rest of us that there was
something queer about that gentleman--something that gave a man
a turn--I don't know rightly how to say it, sir, beyond this: 
that you felt in your marrow kind of cold and thin."

    "I own I felt something of what you describe," said Mr.
Utterson.

    "Quite so, sir," returned Poole.  "Well, when that masked
thing like a monkey jumped from among the chemicals and whipped
into the cabinet, it went down my spine like ice.  O, I know it's
not evidence, Mr. Utterson; I'm book-learned enough for that; but
a man has his feelings, and I give you my bible-word it was Mr.
Hyde!"

    "Ay, ay," said the lawyer.  "My fears incline to the same
point.  Evil, I fear, founded--evil was sure to come--of that
connection.  Ay truly, I believe you; I believe poor Harry is
killed; and I believe his murderer (for what purpose, God alone
can tell) is still lurking in his victim's room.  Well, let our
name be vengeance.  Call Bradshaw."

    The footman came at the summons, very white and nervous.

    "Put yourself together, Bradshaw," said the lawyer.  "This
suspense, I know, is telling upon all of you; but it is now our
intention to make an end of it.  Poole, here, and I are going to
force our way into the cabinet.  If all is well, my shoulders are
broad enough to bear the blame.  Meanwhile, lest anything should
really be amiss, or any malefactor seek to escape by the back, you
and the boy must go round the corner with a pair of good sticks
and take your post at the laboratory door.  We give you ten
minutes, to get to your stations."

    As Bradshaw left, the lawyer looked at his watch.  "And now,
Poole, let us get to ours," he said; and taking the poker under
his arm, led the way into the yard.  The scud had banked over the
moon, and it was now quite dark.  The wind, which only broke in
puffs and draughts into that deep well of building, tossed the
light of the candle to and fro about their steps, until they came
into the shelter of the theatre, where they sat down silently to
wait.  London hummed solemnly all around; but nearer at hand, the
stillness was only broken by the sounds of a footfall moving to
and fro along the cabinet floor.

    "So it will walk all day, sir," whispered Poole; "ay, and the
better part of the night.  Only when a new sample comes from the
chemist, there's a bit of a break.  Ah, it's an ill conscience
that's such an enemy to rest!  Ah, sir, there's blood foully shed
in every step of it!  But hark again, a little closer--put your
heart in your ears, Mr. Utterson, and tell me, is that the
doctor's foot?"

    The steps fell lightly and oddly, with a certain swing, for
all they went so slowly; it was different indeed from the heavy
creaking tread of Henry Jekyll.  Utterson sighed.  "Is there never
anything else?" he asked.

    Poole nodded.  "Once," he said.  "Once I heard it weeping!"

    "Weeping? how that?" said the lawyer, conscious of a sudden
chill of horror.

    "Weeping like a woman or a lost soul," said the butler.  "I
came away with that upon my heart, that I could have wept too."

    But now the ten minutes drew to an end.  Poole disinterred the
axe from under a stack of packing straw; the candle was set upon
the nearest table to light them to the attack; and they drew near
with bated breath to where that patient foot was still going up
and down, up and down, in the quiet of the night.  "Jekyll," cried
Utterson, with a loud voice, "I demand to see you."  He paused a
moment, but there came no reply.  "I give you fair warning, our
suspicions are aroused, and I must and shall see you," he resumed;
"if not by fair means, then by foul--if not of your consent,
then by brute force!"

    "Utterson," said the voice, "for God's sake, have mercy!"

    "Ah, that's not Jekyll's voice--it's Hyde's!" cried
Utterson.  "Down with the door, Poole!"

    Poole swung the axe over his shoulder; the blow shook the
building, and the red baize door leaped against the lock and
hinges.  A dismal screech, as of mere animal terror, rang from the
cabinet.  Up went the axe again, and again the panels crashed and
the frame bounded; four times the blow fell; but the wood was
tough and the fittings were of excellent workmanship; and it was
not until the fifth, that the lock burst and the wreck of the door
fell inwards on the carpet.

    The besiegers, appalled by their own riot and the stillness
that had succeeded, stood back a little and peered in.  There lay
the cabinet before their eyes in the quiet lamplight, a good fire
glowing and chattering on the hearth, the kettle singing its thin
strain, a drawer or two open, papers neatly set forth on the
business table, and nearer the fire, the things laid out for tea;
the quietest room, you would have said, and, but for the glazed
presses full of chemicals, the most commonplace that night in
London.

    Right in the middle there lay the body of a man sorely
contorted and still twitching.  They drew near on tiptoe, turned
it on its back and beheld the face of Edward Hyde.  He was dressed
in clothes far to large for him, clothes of the doctor's bigness;
the cords of his face still moved with a semblance of life, but
life was quite gone:  and by the crushed phial in the hand and the
strong smell of kernels that hung upon the air, Utterson knew that
he was looking on the body of a self-destroyer.

    "We have come too late," he said sternly, "whether to save or
punish.  Hyde is gone to his account; and it only remains for us
to find the body of your master."

    The far greater proportion of the building was occupied by
the theatre, which filled almost the whole ground storey and was
lighted from above, and by the cabinet, which formed an upper
story at one end and looked upon the court.  A corridor joined the
theatre to the door on the by-street; and with this the cabinet
communicated separately by a second flight of stairs.  There were
besides a few dark closets and a spacious cellar.  All these they
now thorougly examined.  Each closet needed but a glance, for all
were empty, and all, by the dust that fell from their doors, had
stood long unopened.  The cellar, indeed, was filled with crazy
lumber, mostly dating from the times of the surgeon who was
Jekyll's predecessor; but even as they opened the door they were
advertised of the uselessness of further search, by the fall of a
perfect mat of cobweb which had for years sealed up the entrance.
No where was there any trace of Henry Jekyll dead or alive.

    Poole stamped on the flags of the corridor.  "He must be
buried here," he said, hearkening to the sound.

    "Or he may have fled," said Utterson, and he turned to examine
the door in the by-street.  It was locked; and lying near by on
the flags, they found the key, already stained with rust.

    "This does not look like use," observed the lawyer.

    "Use!" echoed Poole.  "Do you not see, sir, it is broken?
much as if a man had stamped on it."

    "Ay," continued Utterson, "and the fractures, too, are rusty."
The two men looked at each other with a scare.  "This is beyond
me, Poole," said the lawyer.  "Let us go back to the cabinet."

    They mounted the stair in silence, and still with an
occasional awestruck glance at the dead body, proceeded more
thoroughly to examine the contents of the cabinet.  At one table,
there were traces of chemical work, various measured heaps of some
white salt being laid on glass saucers, as though for an
experiment in which the unhappy man had been prevented.

    "That is the same drug that I was always bringing him," said
Poole; and even as he spoke, the kettle with a startling noise
boiled over.

    This brought them to the fireside, where the easy-chair was
drawn cosily up, and the tea things stood ready to the sitter's
elbow, the very sugar in the cup.  There were several books on a
shelf; one lay beside the tea things open, and Utterson was amazed
to find it a copy of a pious work, for which Jekyll had several
times expressed a great esteem, annotated, in his own hand with
startling blasphemies.

    Next, in the course of their review of the chamber, the
searchers came to the cheval-glass, into whose depths they looked
with an involuntary horror.  But it was so turned as to show them
nothing but the rosy glow playing on the roof, the fire sparkling
in a hundred repetitions along the glazed front of the presses,
and their own pale and fearful countenances stooping to look in.

    "This glass has seen some strange things, sir," whispered
Poole.

    "And surely none stranger than itself," echoed the lawyer in
the same tones.  "For what did Jekyll"--he caught himself up at
the word with a start, and then conquering the weakness--"what
could Jekyll want with it?" he said.

    "You may say that!" said Poole.

    Next they turned to the business table.  On the desk, among
the neat array of papers, a large envelope was uppermost, and
bore, in the doctor's hand, the name of Mr. Utterson.  The lawyer
unsealed it, and several enclosures fell to the floor.  The first
was a will, drawn in the same eccentric terms as the one which he
had returned six months before, to serve as a testament in case of
death and as a deed of gift in case of disappearance; but in place
of the name of Edward Hyde, the lawyer, with indescribable
amazement read the name of Gabriel John Utterson.  He looked at
Poole, and then back at the paper, and last of all at the dead
malefactor stretched upon the carpet.

    "My head goes round," he said.  "He has been all these days in
possession; he had no cause to like me; he must have raged to see
himself displaced; and he has not destroyed this document."

    He caught up the next paper; it was a brief note in the
doctor's hand and dated at the top.  "O Poole!" the lawyer cried,
"he was alive and here this day.  He cannot have been disposed of
in so short a space; he must be still alive, he must have fled!
And then, why fled? and how? and in that case, can we venture to
declare this suicide?  O, we must be careful.  I foresee that we
may yet involve your master in some dire catastrophe."

    "Why don't you read it, sir?" asked Poole.

    "Because I fear," replied the lawyer solemnly.  "God grant I
have no cause for it!"  And with that he brought the paper to his
eyes and read as follows: 

    "My dear Utterson,--When this shall fall into your hands, I
shall have disappeared, under what circumstances I have not the
penetration to foresee, but my instinct and all the circumstances
of my nameless situation tell me that the end is sure and must be
early.  Go then, and first read the narrative which Lanyon warned
me he was to place in your hands; and if you care to hear more,
turn to the confession of

    "Your unworthy and unhappy friend,

                              "HENRY JEKYLL."

    "There was a third enclosure?" asked Utterson.

    "Here, sir," said Poole, and gave into his hands a
considerable packet sealed in several places.

    The lawyer put it in his pocket.  "I would say nothing of this
paper.  If your master has fled or is dead, we may at least save
his credit.  It is now ten; I must go home and read these
documents in quiet; but I shall be back before midnight, when we
shall send for the police."

    They went out, locking the door of the theatre behind them;
and Utterson, once more leaving the servants gathered about the
fire in the hall, trudged back to his office to read the two
narratives in which this mystery was now to be explained.





                      Dr. Lanyon's Narrative



On the ninth of January, now four days ago, I received by the
evening delivery a registered envelope, addressed in the hand of
my colleague and old school companion, Henry Jekyll.  I was a good
deal surprised by this; for we were by no means in the habit of
correspondence; I had seen the man, dined with him, indeed, the
night before; and I could imagine nothing in our intercourse
that should justify formality of registration.  The contents
increased my wonder; for this is how the letter ran: 

                                      "10th December, 18--.

    "Dear Lanyon,--You are one of my oldest friends; and
although we may have differed at times on scientific questions, I
cannot remember, at least on my side, any break in our affection.
There was never a day when, if you had said to me, `Jekyll, my
life, my honour, my reason, depend upon you,'  I would not have
sacrificed my left hand to help you.  Lanyon my life, my honour,
my reason, are all at your mercy; if you fail me to-night, I am
lost.  You might suppose, after this preface, that I am going to
ask you for something dishonourable to grant.  Judge for yourself.

    "I want you to postpone all other engagements for to-night--
ay, even if you were summoned to the bedside of an emperor; to
take a cab, unless your carriage should be actually at the door;
and with this letter in your hand for consultation, to drive
straight to my house.  Poole, my butler, has his orders; you will
find him waiting your arrival with a locksmith.  The door of my
cabinet is then to be forced:  and you are to go in alone; to open
the glazed press (letter E) on the left hand, breaking the lock if
it be shut; and to draw out, with all its contents as they stand,
the fourth drawer from the top or (which is the same thing) the
third from the bottom.  In my extreme distress of mind, I have a
morbid fear of misdirecting you; but even if I am in error, you
may know the right drawer by its contents:  some powders, a phial
and a paper book.  This drawer I beg of you to carry back with you
to Cavendish Square exactly as it stands.

    "That is the first part of the service:  now for the second.
You should be back, if you set out at once on the receipt of this,
long before midnight; but I will leave you that amount of margin,
not only in the fear of one of those obstacles that can neither be
prevented nor foreseen, but because an hour when your servants are
in bed is to be preferred for what will then remain to do.  At
midnight, then, I have to ask you to be alone in your consulting
room, to admit with your own hand into the house a man who will
present himself in my name, and to place in his hands the drawer
that you will have brought with you from my cabinet.  Then you
will have played your part and earned my gratitude completely.
Five minutes afterwards, if you insist upon an explanation, you
will have understood that these arrangements are of capital
importance; and that by the neglect of one of them, fantastic as
they must appear, you might have charged your conscience with my
death or the shipwreck of my reason.

    "Confident as I am that you will not trifle with this appeal,
my heart sinks and my hand trembles at the bare thought of such a
possibility.  Think of me at this hour, in a strange place,
labouring under a blackness of distress that no fancy can
exaggerate, and yet well aware that, if you will but punctually
serve me, my troubles will roll away like a story that is told.
Serve me, my dear Lanyon and save

                                 "Your friend,
                                              "H.J.

    "P.S.--I had already sealed this up when a fresh terror
struck upon my soul.  It is possible that the post-office may fail
me, and this letter not come into your hands until to-morrow
morning.  In that case, dear Lanyon, do my errand when it shall be
most convenient for you in the course of the day; and once more
expect my messenger at midnight.  It may then already be too late;
and if that night passes without event, you will know that you
have seen the last of Henry Jekyll."

    Upon the reading of this letter, I made sure my colleague was
insane; but till that was proved beyond the possibility of doubt,
I felt bound to do as he requested.  The less I understood of this
farrago, the less I was in a position to judge of its importance;
and an appeal so worded could not be set aside without a grave
responsibility.  I rose accordingly from table, got into a hansom,
and drove straight to Jekyll's house.  The butler was awaiting my
arrival; he had received by the same post as mine a registered
letter of instruction, and had sent at once for a locksmith and a
carpenter.  The tradesmen came while we were yet speaking; and we
moved in a body to old Dr. Denman's surgical theatre, from which
(as you are doubtless aware) Jekyll's private cabinet is most
conveniently entered.  The door was very strong, the lock
excellent; the carpenter avowed he would have great trouble and
have to do much damage, if force were to be used; and the
locksmith was near despair.  But this last was a handy fellow, and
after two hour's work, the door stood open.  The press marked E
was unlocked; and I took out the drawer, had it filled up with
straw and tied in a sheet, and returned with it to Cavendish
Square.

    Here I proceeded to examine its contents.  The powders were
neatly enough made up, but not with the nicety of the dispensing
chemist; so that it was plain they were of Jekyll's private
manufacture:  and when I opened one of the wrappers I found what
seemed to me a simple crystalline salt of a white colour.  The
phial, to which I next turned my attention, might have been about
half full of a blood-red liquor, which was highly pungent to the
sense of smell and seemed to me to contain phosphorus and some
volatile ether.  At the other ingredients I could make no guess.
The book was an ordinary version book and contained little but a
series of dates.  These covered a period of many years, but I
observed that the entries ceased nearly a year ago and quite
abruptly.  Here and there a brief remark was appended to a date,
usually no more than a single word:  "double" occurring perhaps six
times in a total of several hundred entries; and once very early
in the list and followed by several marks of exclamation, "total
failure!!!"  All this, though it whetted my curiosity, told me
little that was definite.  Here were a phial of some salt, and the
record of a series of experiments that had led (like too many of
Jekyll's investigations) to no end of practical usefulness.  How
could the presence of these articles in my house affect either the
honour, the sanity, or the life of my flighty colleague?  If his
messenger could go to one place, why could he not go to another?
And even granting some impediment, why was this gentleman to be
received by me in secret?  The more I reflected the more convinced
I grew that I was dealing with a case of cerebral disease; and
though I dismissed my servants to bed, I loaded an old revolver,
that I might be found in some posture of self-defence.

    Twelve o'clock had scarce rung out over London, ere the
knocker sounded very gently on the door.  I went myself at the
summons, and found a small man crouching against the pillars of
the portico.

    "Are you come from Dr. Jekyll?" I asked.

    He told me "yes" by a constrained gesture; and when I had
bidden him enter, he did not obey me without a searching backward
glance into the darkness of the square.  There was a policeman not
far off, advancing with his bull's eye open; and at the sight, I
thought my visitor started and made greater haste.

    These particulars struck me, I confess, disagreeably; and as I
followed him into the bright light of the consulting room, I kept
my hand ready on my weapon.  Here, at last, I had a chance of
clearly seeing him.  I had never set eyes on him before, so much
was certain.  He was small, as I have said; I was struck besides
with the shocking expression of his face, with his remarkable
combination of great muscular activity and great apparent debility
of constitution, and--last but not least--with the odd,
subjective disturbance caused by his neighbourhood.  This bore
some resemblance to incipient rigour, and was accompanied by a
marked sinking of the pulse.  At the time, I set it down to some
idiosyncratic, personal distaste, and merely wondered at the
acuteness of the symptoms; but I have since had reason to believe
the cause to lie much deeper in the nature of man, and to turn on
some nobler hinge than the principle of hatred.

    This person (who had thus, from the first moment of his
entrance, struck in me what I can only, describe as a disgustful
curiosity) was dressed in a fashion that would have made an
ordinary person laughable; his clothes, that is to say, although
they were of rich and sober fabric, were enormously too large for
him in every measurement--the trousers hanging on his legs and
rolled up to keep them from the ground, the waist of the coat
below his haunches, and the collar sprawling wide upon his
shoulders.  Strange to relate, this ludicrous accoutrement was far
from moving me to laughter.  Rather, as there was something
abnormal and misbegotten in the very essence of the creature that
now faced me--something seizing, surprising and revolting--
this fresh disparity seemed but to fit in with and to reinforce
it; so that to my interest in the man's nature and character,
there was added a curiosity as to his origin, his life, his
fortune and status in the world.

    These observations, though they have taken so great a space to
be set down in, were yet the work of a few seconds.  My visitor
was, indeed, on fire with sombre excitement.

    "Have you got it?" he cried.  "Have you got it?"  And so
lively was his impatience that he even laid his hand upon my arm
and sought to shake me.

    I put him back, conscious at his touch of a certain icy pang
along my blood.  "Come, sir," said I.  "You forget that I have not
yet the pleasure of your acquaintance.  Be seated, if you please."
And I showed him an example, and sat down myself in my customary
seat and with as fair an imitation of my ordinary manner to a
patient, as the lateness of the hour, the nature of my
preoccupations, and the horror I had of my visitor, would suffer
me to muster.

    "I beg your pardon, Dr. Lanyon," he replied civilly enough.
"What you say is very well founded; and my impatience has shown
its heels to my politeness.  I come here at the instance of your
colleague, Dr. Henry Jekyll, on a piece of business of some
moment; and I understood ..."  He paused and put his hand to his
throat, and I could see, in spite of his collected manner, that he
was wrestling against the approaches of the hysteria--"I
understood, a drawer ..."

    But here I took pity on my visitor's suspense, and some
perhaps on my own growing curiosity.

    "There it is, sir," said I, pointing to the drawer, where it
lay on the floor behind a table and still covered with the sheet.

    He sprang to it, and then paused, and laid his hand upon his
heart:  I could hear his teeth grate with the convulsive action of
his jaws; and his face was so ghastly to see that I grew alarmed
both for his life and reason.

    "Compose yourself," said I.

    He turned a dreadful smile to me, and as if with the decision
of despair, plucked away the sheet.  At sight of the contents, he
uttered one loud sob of such immense relief that I sat petrified.
And the next moment, in a voice that was already fairly well under
control, "Have you a graduated glass?" he asked.

    I rose from my place with something of an effort and gave him
what he asked.

    He thanked me with a smiling nod, measured out a few minims of
the red tincture and added one of the powders.  The mixture, which
was at first of a reddish hue, began, in proportion as the
crystals melted, to brighten in colour, to effervesce audibly, and
to throw off small fumes of vapour.  Suddenly and at the same
moment, the ebullition ceased and the compound changed to a dark
purple, which faded again more slowly to a watery green.  My
visitor, who had watched these metamorphoses with a keen eye,
smiled, set down the glass upon the table, and then turned and
looked upon me with an air of scrutiny.

    "And now," said he, "to settle what remains.  Will you be
wise? will you be guided? will you suffer me to take this glass in
my hand and to go forth from your house without further parley? or
has the greed of curiosity too much command of you?  Think before
you answer, for it shall be done as you decide.  As you decide,
you shall be left as you were before, and neither richer nor
wiser, unless the sense of service rendered to a man in mortal
distress may be counted as a kind of riches of the soul.  Or, if
you shall so prefer to choose, a new province of knowledge and new
avenues to fame and power shall be laid open to you, here, in this
room, upon the instant; and your sight shall be blasted by a
prodigy to stagger the unbelief of Satan."

    "Sir," said I, affecting a coolness that I was far from truly
possessing, "you speak enigmas, and you will perhaps not wonder
that I hear you with no very strong impression of belief.  But I
have gone too far in the way of inexplicable services to pause
before I see the end."

    "It is well," replied my visitor.  "Lanyon, you remember your
vows:  what follows is under the seal of our profession.  And now,
you who have so long been bound to the most narrow and material
views, you who have denied the virtue of transcendental medicine,
you who have derided your superiors--behold!"

    He put the glass to his lips and drank at one gulp.  A cry
followed; he reeled, staggered, clutched at the table and held on,
staring with injected eyes, gasping with open mouth; and as I
looked there came, I thought, a change--he seemed to swell--
his face became suddenly black and the features seemed to melt and
alter--and the next moment, I had sprung to my feet and leaped
back against the wall, my arms raised to shield me from that
prodigy, my mind submerged in terror.

    "O God!"  I screamed, and "O God!" again and again; for there
before my eyes--pale and shaken, and half fainting, and groping
before him with his hands, like a man restored from death--there
stood Henry Jekyll!

    What he told me in the next hour, I cannot bring my mind to
set on paper.  I saw what I saw, I heard what I heard, and my soul
sickened at it; and yet now when that sight has faded from my
eyes, I ask myself if I believe it, and I cannot answer.  My life
is shaken to its roots; sleep has left me; the deadliest terror
sits by me at all hours of the day and night; and I feel that my
days are numbered, and that I must die; and yet I shall die
incredulous.  As for the moral turpitude that man unveiled to me,
even with tears of penitence, I can not, even in memory, dwell on
it without a start of horror.  I will say but one thing, Utterson,
and that (if you can bring your mind to credit it) will be more
than enough.  The creature who crept into my house that night was,
on Jekyll's own confession, known by the name of Hyde and hunted
for in every corner of the land as the murderer of Carew.

                                 HASTIE LANYON






             Henry Jekyll's Full Statement of the Case



I was born in the year 18-- to a large fortune, endowed besides
with excellent parts, inclined by nature to industry, fond of the
respect of the wise and good among my fellowmen, and thus, as
might have been supposed, with every guarantee of an honorurable
and distinguished future.  And indeed the worst of my faults was a
certain impatient gaiety of disposition, such as has made the
happiness of many, but such as I found it hard to reconcile with
my imperious desire to carry my head high, and wear a more than
commonly grave countenance before the public.  Hence it came about
that I concealed my pleasures; and that when I reached years of
reflection, and began to look round me and take stock of my
progress and position in the world, I stood already committed to a
profound duplicity of me.  Many a man would have even blazoned
such irregularities as I was guilty of; but from the high views
that I had set before me, I regarded and hid them with an almost
morbid sense of shame.  It was thus rather the exacting nature of
my aspirations than any particular degradation in my faults, that
made me what I was, and, with even a deeper trench than in the
majority of men, severed in me those provinces of good and ill
which divide and compound man's dual nature.  In this case, I was
driven to reflect deeply and inveterately on that hard law of
life, which lies at the root of religion and is one of the most
plentiful springs of distress.  Though so profound a
double-dealer, I was in no sense a hypocrite; both sides of me
were in dead earnest; I was no more myself when I laid aside
restraint and plunged in shame, than when I laboured, in the eye
of day, at the futherance of knowledge or the relief of sorrow and
suffering.  And it chanced that the direction of my scientific
studies, which led wholly towards the mystic and the
transcendental, reacted and shed a strong light on this
consciousness of the perennial war among my members.  With every
day, and from both sides of my intelligence, the moral and the
intellectual, I thus drew steadily nearer to that truth, by whose
partial discovery I have been doomed to such a dreadful shipwreck: 
that man is not truly one, but truly two.  I say two, because the
state of my own knowledge does not pass beyond that point.  Others
will follow, others will outstrip me on the same lines; and I
hazard the guess that man will be ultimately known for a mere
polity of multifarious, incongruous and independent denizens.  I,
for my part, from the nature of my life, advanced infallibly in
one direction and in one direction only.  It was on the moral
side, and in my own person, that I learned to recognise the
thorough and primitive duality of man; I saw that, of the two
natures that contended in the field of my consciousness, even if I
could rightly be said to be either, it was only because I was
radically both; and from an early date, even before the course of
my scientific discoveries had begun to suggest the most naked
possibility of such a miracle, I had learned to dwell with
pleasure, as a beloved daydream, on the thought of the separation
of these elements.  If each, I told myself, could be housed in
separate identities, life would be relieved of all that was
unbearable; the unjust might go his way, delivered from the
aspirations and remorse of his more upright twin; and the just
could walk steadfastly and securely on his upward path, doing the
good things in which he found his pleasure, and no longer exposed
to disgrace and penitence by the hands of this extraneous evil.
It was the curse of mankind that these incongruous faggots were
thus bound together--that in the agonised womb of consciousness,
these polar twins should be continuously struggling.  How, then
were they dissociated?

    I was so far in my reflections when, as I have said, a side
light began to shine upon the subject from the laboratory table.
I began to perceive more deeply than it has ever yet been stated,
the trembling immateriality, the mistlike transience, of this
seemingly so solid body in which we walk attired.  Certain agents
I found to have the power to shake and pluck back that fleshly
vestment, even as a wind might toss the curtains of a pavilion.
For two good reasons, I will not enter deeply into this scientific
branch of my confession.  First, because I have been made to learn
that the doom and burthen of our life is bound for ever on man's
shoulders, and when the attempt is made to cast it off, it but
returns upon us with more unfamiliar and more awful pressure.
Second, because, as my narrative will make, alas! too evident, my
discoveries were incomplete.  Enough then, that I not only
recognised my natural body from the mere aura and effulgence of
certain of the powers that made up my spirit, but managed to
compound a drug by which these powers should be dethroned from
their supremacy, and a second form and countenance substituted,
none the less natural to me because they were the expression, and
bore the stamp of lower elements in my soul.

    I hesitated long before I put this theory to the test of
practice.  I knew well that I risked death; for any drug that so
potently controlled and shook the very fortress of identity,
might, by the least scruple of an overdose or at the least
inopportunity in the moment of exhibition, utterly blot out that
immaterial tabernacle which I looked to it to change.  But the
temptation of a discovery so singular and profound at last
overcame the suggestions of alarm.  I had long since prepared my
tincture; I purchased at once, from a firm of wholesale chemists,
a large quantity of a particular salt which I knew, from my
experiments, to be the last ingredient required; and late one
accursed night, I compounded the elements, watched them boil and
smoke together in the glass, and when the ebullition had subsided,
with a strong glow of courage, drank off the potion.

    The most racking pangs succeeded:  a grinding in the bones,
deadly nausea, and a horror of the spirit that cannot be exceeded
at the hour of birth or death.  Then these agonies began swiftly
to subside, and I came to myself as if out of a great sickness.
There was something strange in my sensations, something
indescribably new and, from its very novelty, incredibly sweet.  I
felt younger, lighter, happier in body; within I was conscious of
a heady recklessness, a current of disordered sensual images
running like a millrace in my fancy, a solution of the bonds of
obligation, an unknown but not an innocent freedom of the soul.  I
knew myself, at the first breath of this new life, to be more
wicked, tenfold more wicked, sold a slave to my original evil; and
the thought, in that moment, braced and delighted me like wine.  I
stretched out my hands, exulting in the freshness of these
sensations; and in the act, I was suddenly aware that I had lost
in stature.

    There was no mirror, at that date, in my room; that which
stands beside me as I write, was brought there later on and for
the very purpose of these transformations.  The night however, was
far gone into the morning--the morning, black as it was, was
nearly ripe for the conception of the day--the inmates of my
house were locked in the most rigorous hours of slumber; and I
determined, flushed as I was with hope and triumph, to venture in
my new shape as far as to my bedroom.  I crossed the yard, wherein
the constellations looked down upon me, I could have thought, with
wonder, the first creature of that sort that their unsleeping
vigilance had yet disclosed to them; I stole through the
corridors, a stranger in my own house; and coming to my room, I
saw for the first time the appearance of Edward Hyde.

    I must here speak by theory alone, saying not that which I
know, but that which I suppose to be most probable.  The evil side
of my nature, to which I had now transferred the stamping
efficacy, was less robust and less developed than the good which I
had just deposed.  Again, in the course of my life, which had
been, after all, nine tenths a life of effort, virtue and control,
it had been much less exercised and much less exhausted.  And
hence, as I think, it came about that Edward Hyde was so much
smaller, slighter and younger than Henry Jekyll.  Even as good
shone upon the countenance of the one, evil was written broadly
and plainly on the face of the other.  Evil besides (which I must
still believe to be the lethal side of man) had left on that body
an imprint of deformity and decay.  And yet when I looked upon
that ugly idol in the glass, I was conscious of no repugnance,
rather of a leap of welcome.  This, too, was myself.  It seemed
natural and human.  In my eyes it bore a livelier image of the
spirit, it seemed more express and single, than the imperfect and
divided countenance I had been hitherto accustomed to call mine.
And in so far I was doubtless right.  I have observed that when I
wore the semblance of Edward Hyde, none could come near to me at
first without a visible misgiving of the flesh.  This, as I take
it, was because all human beings, as we meet them, are commingled
out of good and evil:  and Edward Hyde, alone in the ranks of
mankind, was pure evil.

    I lingered but a moment at the mirror:  the second and
conclusive experiment had yet to be attempted; it yet remained to
be seen if I had lost my identity beyond redemption and must flee
before daylight from a house that was no longer mine; and hurrying
back to my cabinet, I once more prepared and drank the cup, once
more suffered the pangs of dissolution, and came to myself once
more with the character, the stature and the face of Henry Jekyll.

    That night I had come to the fatal cross-roads.  Had I
approached my discovery in a more noble spirit, had I risked the
experiment while under the empire of generous or pious
aspirations, all must have been otherwise, and from these agonies
of death and birth, I had come forth an angel instead of a fiend.
The drug had no discriminating action; it was neither diabolical
nor divine; it but shook the doors of the prisonhouse of my
disposition; and like the captives of Philippi, that which stood
within ran forth.  At that time my virtue slumbered; my evil, kept
awake by ambition, was alert and swift to seize the occasion; and
the thing that was projected was Edward Hyde.  Hence, although I
had now two characters as well as two appearances, one was wholly
evil, and the other was still the old Henry Jekyll, that
incongruous compound of whose reformation and improvement I had
already learned to despair.  The movement was thus wholly toward
the worse.

    Even at that time, I had not conquered my aversions to the
dryness of a life of study.  I would still be merrily disposed at
times; and as my pleasures were (to say the least) undignified,
and I was not only well known and highly considered, but growing
towards the elderly man, this incoherency of my life was daily
growing more unwelcome.  It was on this side that my new power
tempted me until I fell in slavery.  I had but to drink the cup,
to doff at once the body of the noted professor, and to assume,
like a thick cloak, that of Edward Hyde.  I smiled at the notion;
it seemed to me at the time to be humourous; and I made my
preparations with the most studious care.  I took and furnished
that house in Soho, to which Hyde was tracked by the police; and
engaged as a housekeeper a creature whom I knew well to be silent
and unscrupulous.  On the other side, I announced to my servants
that a Mr. Hyde (whom I described) was to have full liberty and
power about my house in the square; and to parry mishaps, I even
called and made myself a familiar object, in my second character.
I next drew up that will to which you so much objected; so that if
anything befell me in the person of Dr. Jekyll, I could enter on
that of Edward Hyde without pecuniary loss.  And thus fortified,
as I supposed, on every side, I began to profit by the strange
immunities of my position.

    Men have before hired bravos to transact their crimes, while
their own person and reputation sat under shelter.  I was the
first that ever did so for his pleasures.  I was the first that
could plod in the public eye with a load of genial respectability,
and in a moment, like a schoolboy, strip off these lendings and
spring headlong into the sea of liberty.  But for me, in my
impenetrable mantle, the safely was complete.  Think of it--I
did not even exist!  Let me but escape into my laboratory door,
give me but a second or two to mix and swallow the draught that I
had always standing ready; and whatever he had done, Edward Hyde
would pass away like the stain of breath upon a mirror; and there
in his stead, quietly at home, trimming the midnight lamp in his
study, a man who could afford to laugh at suspicion, would be
Henry Jekyll.

    The pleasures which I made haste to seek in my disguise were,
as I have said, undignified; I would scarce use a harder term.
But in the hands of Edward Hyde, they soon began to turn toward
the monstrous.  When I would come back from these excursions, I
was often plunged into a kind of wonder at my vicarious depravity.
This familiar that I called out of my own soul, and sent forth
alone to do his good pleasure, was a being inherently malign and
villainous; his every act and thought centered on self; drinking
pleasure with bestial avidity from any degree of torture to
another; relentless like a man of stone.  Henry Jekyll stood at
times aghast before the acts of Edward Hyde; but the situation was
apart from ordinary laws, and insidiously relaxed the grasp of
conscience.  It was Hyde, after all, and Hyde alone, that was
guilty.  Jekyll was no worse; he woke again to his good qualities
seemingly unimpaired; he would even make haste, where it was
possible, to undo the evil done by Hyde.  And thus his conscience
slumbered.

    Into the details of the infamy at which I thus connived (for
even now I can scarce grant that I committed it) I have no design
of entering; I mean but to point out the warnings and the
successive steps with which my chastisement approached.  I met
with one accident which, as it brought on no consequence, I shall
no more than mention.  An act of cruelty to a child aroused
against me the anger of a passer-by, whom I recognised the other
day in the person of your kinsman; the doctor and the child's
family joined him; there were moments when I feared for my life;
and at last, in order to pacify their too just resentment, Edward
Hyde had to bring them to the door, and pay them in a cheque drawn
in the name of Henry Jekyll.  But this danger was easily
eliminated from the future, by opening an account at another bank
in the name of Edward Hyde himself; and when, by sloping my own
hand backward, I had supplied my double with a signature, I
thought I sat beyond the reach of fate.

    Some two months before the, murder of Sir Danvers, I had been
out for one of my adventures, had returned at a late hour, and
woke the next day in bed with somewhat odd sensations.  It was in
vain I looked about me; in vain I saw the decent furniture and
tall proportions of my room in the square; in vain that I
recognised the pattern of the bed curtains and the design of the
mahogany frame; something still kept insisting that I was not
where I was, that I had not wakened where I seemed to be, but in
the little room in Soho where I was accustomed to sleep in the
body of Edward Hyde.  I smiled to myself, and in my psychological
way, began lazily to inquire into the elements of this illusion,
occasionally, even as I did so, dropping back into a comfortable
morning doze.  I was still so engaged when, in one of my more
wakeful moments, my eyes fell upon my hand.  Now the hand of Henry
Jekyll (as you have often remarked) was professional in shape and
size:  it was large, firm, white and comely.  But the hand which I
now saw, clearly enough, in the yellow light of a mid-London
morning, lying half shut on the bedclothes, was lean, corder,
knuckly, of a dusky pallor and thickly shaded with a swart growth
of hair.  It was the hand of Edward Hyde.

    I must have stared upon it for near half a minute, sunk as I
was in the mere stupidity of wonder, before terror woke up in my
breast as sudden and startling as the crash of cymbals; and
bounding from my bed I rushed to the mirror.  At the sight that
met my eyes, my blood was changed into something exquisitely thin
and icy.  Yes, I had gone to bed Henry Jekyll, I had awakened
Edward Hyde.  How was this to be explained?  I asked myself; and
then, with another bound of terror--how was it to be remedied?
It was well on in the morning; the servants were up; all my drugs
were in the cabinet--a long journey down two pairs of stairs,
through the back passage, across the open court and through the
anatomical theatre, from where I was then standing horror-struck.
It might indeed be possible to cover my face; but of what use was
that, when I was unable to conceal the alteration in my stature?
And then with an overpowering sweetness of relief, it came back
upon my mind that the servants were already used to the coming and
going of my second self.  I had soon dressed, as well as I was
able, in clothes of my own size:  had soon passed through the
house, where Bradshaw stared and drew back at seeing Mr. Hyde at
such an hour and in such a strange array; and ten minutes later,
Dr. Jekyll had returned to his own shape and was sitting down,
with a darkened brow, to make a feint of breakfasting.

    Small indeed was my appetite.  This inexplicable incident,
this reversal of my previous experience, seemed, like the
Babylonian finger on the wall, to be spelling out the letters of
my judgment; and I began to reflect more seriously than ever
before on the issues and possibilities of my double existence.
That part of me which I had the power of projecting, had lately
been much exercised and nourished; it had seemed to me of late as
though the body of Edward Hyde had grown in stature, as though
(when I wore that form) I were conscious of a more generous tide
of blood; and I began to spy a danger that, if this were much
prolonged, the balance of my nature might be permanently
overthrown, the power of voluntary change be forfeited, and the
character of Edward Hyde become irrevocably mine.  The power of
the drug had not been always equally displayed.  Once, very early
in my career, it had totally failed me; since then I had been
obliged on more than one occasion to double, and once, with
infinite risk of death, to treble the amount; and these rare
uncertainties had cast hitherto the sole shadow on my contentment.
Now, however, and in the light of that morning's accident, I was
led to remark that whereas, in the beginning, the difficulty had
been to throw off the body of Jekyll, it had of late gradually but
decidedly transferred itself to the other side.  All things
therefore seemed to point to this; that I was slowly losing hold
of my original and better self, and becoming slowly incorporated
with my second and worse.

    Between these two, I now felt I had to choose.  My two natures
had memory in common, but all other faculties were most unequally
shared between them.  Jekyll (who was composite) now with the most
sensitive apprehensions, now with a greedy gusto, projected and
shared in the pleasures and adventures of Hyde; but Hyde was
indifferent to Jekyll, or but remembered him as the mountain
bandit remembers the cavern in which he conceals himself from
pursuit.  Jekyll had more than a father's interest; Hyde had more
than a son's indifference.  To cast in my lot with Jekyll, was to
die to those appetites which I had long secretly indulged and had
of late begun to pamper.  To cast it in with Hyde, was to die to a
thousand interests and aspirations, and to become, at a blow and
forever, despised and friendless.  The bargain might appear
unequal; but there was still another consideration in the scales;
for while Jekyll would suffer smartingly in the fires of
abstinence, Hyde would be not even conscious of all that he had
lost.  Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate
are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and
alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it
fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my
fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the
strength to keep to it.

    Yes, I preferred the elderly and discontented doctor,
surrounded by friends and cherishing honest hopes; and bade a
resolute farewell to the liberty, the comparative youth, the light
step, leaping impulses and secret pleasures, that I had enjoyed in
the disguise of Hyde.  I made this choice perhaps with some
unconscious reservation, for I neither gave up the house in Soho,
nor destroyed the clothes of Edward Hyde, which still lay ready in
my cabinet.  For two months, however, I was true to my
determination; for two months, I led a life of such severity as I
had never before attained to, and enjoyed the compensations of an
approving conscience.  But time began at last to obliterate the
freshness of my alarm; the praises of conscience began to grow
into a thing of course; I began to be tortured with throes and
longings, as of Hyde struggling after freedom; and at last, in an
hour of moral weakness, I once again compounded and swallowed the
transforming draught.

    I do not suppose that, when a drunkard reasons with himself
upon his vice, he is once out of five hundred times affected by
the dangers that he runs through his brutish, physical
insensibility; neither had I, long as I had considered my
position, made enough allowance for the complete moral
insensibility and insensate readiness to evil, which were the
leading characters of Edward Hyde.  Yet it was by these that I was
punished.  My devil had been long caged, he came out roaring.  I
was conscious, even when I took the draught, of a more unbridled,
a more furious propensity to ill.  It must have been this, I
suppose, that stirred in my soul that tempest of impatience with
which I listened to the civilities of my unhappy victim; I
declare, at least, before God, no man morally sane could have been
guilty of that crime upon so pitiful a provocation; and that I
struck in no more reasonable spirit than that in which a sick
child may break a plaything.  But I had voluntarily stripped
myself of all those balancing instincts by which even the worst of
us continues to walk with some degree of steadiness among
temptations; and in my case, to be tempted, however slightly, was
to fall.

    Instantly the spirit of hell awoke in me and raged.  With a
 transport of glee, I mauled the unresisting body, tasting delight
 from every blow; and it was not till weariness had begun to
 succeed, that I was suddenly, in the top fit of my delirium,
 struck through the heart by a cold thrill of terror.  A mist
 dispersed; I saw my life to be forfeit; and fled from the scene
 of these excesses, at once glorying and trembling, my lust of
 evil gratified and stimulated, my love of life screwed to the
 topmost peg.  I ran to the house in Soho, and (to make assurance
 doubly sure) destroyed my papers; thence I set out through the
 lamplit streets, in the same divided ecstasy of mind, gloating on
 my crime, light-headedly devising others in the future, and yet
 still hastening and still hearkening in my wake for the steps of
 the avenger.  Hyde had a song upon his lips as he compounded the
 draught, and as he drank it, pledged the dead man.  The pangs of
 transformation had not done tearing him, before Henry Jekyll,
 with streaming tears of gratitude and remorse, had fallen upon
 his knees and lifted his clasped hands to God.  The veil of
 self-indulgence was rent from head to foot.  I saw my life as a
 whole:  I followed it up from the days of childhood, when I had
 walked with my father's hand, and through the self-denying toils
 of my professional life, to arrive again and again, with the same
 sense of unreality, at the damned horrors of the evening.  I
 could have screamed aloud; I sought with tears and prayers to
 smother down the crowd of hideous images and sounds with which my
 memory swarmed against me; and still, between the petitions, the
 ugly face of my iniquity stared into my soul.  As the acuteness
 of this remorse began to die away, it was succeeded by a sense of
 joy.  The problem of my conduct was solved.  Hyde was thenceforth
 impossible; whether I would or not, I was now confined to the
 better part of my existence; and O, how I rejoiced to think of
 it! with what willing humility I embraced anew the restrictions
 of natural life! with what sincere renunciation I locked the door
 by which I had so often gone and come, and ground the key under
 my heel!

    The next day, came the news that the murder had been
overlooked, that the guilt of Hyde was patent to the world, and
that the victim was a man high in public estimation.  It was not
only a crime, it had been a tragic folly.  I think I was glad to
know it; I think I was glad to have my better impulses thus
buttressed and guarded by the terrors of the scaffold.  Jekyll was
now my city of refuge; let but Hyde peep out an instant, and the
hands of all men would be raised to take and slay him.

    I resolved in my future conduct to redeem the past; and I can
say with honesty that my resolve was fruitful of some good.  You
know yourself how earnestly, in the last months of the last year,
I laboured to relieve suffering; you know that much was done for
others, and that the days passed quietly, almost happily for
myself.  Nor can I truly say that I wearied of this beneficent and
innocent life; I think instead that I daily enjoyed it more
completely; but I was still cursed with my duality of purpose; and
as the first edge of my penitence wore off, the lower side of me,
so long indulged, so recently chained down, began to growl for
licence.  Not that I dreamed of resuscitating Hyde; the bare idea
of that would startle me to frenzy:  no, it was in my own person
that I was once more tempted to trifle with my conscience; and it
was as an ordinary secret sinner that I at last fell before the
assaults of temptation.

    There comes an end to all things; the most capacious measure
is filled at last; and this brief condescension to my evil finally
destroyed the balance of my soul.  And yet I was not alarmed; the
fall seemed natural, like a return to the old days before I had
made my discovery.  It was a fine, clear, January day, wet under
foot where the frost had melted, but cloudless overhead; and the
Regent's Park was full of winter chirrupings and sweet with spring
odours.  I sat in the sun on a bench; the animal within me licking
the chops of memory; the spiritual side a little drowsed,
promising subsequent penitence, but not yet moved to begin.  After
all, I reflected, I was like my neighbours; and then I smiled,
comparing myself with other men, comparing my active good-will
with the lazy cruelty of their neglect.  And at the very moment
of that vainglorious thought, a qualm came over me, a horrid
nausea and the most deadly shuddering.  These passed away, and
left me faint; and then as in its turn faintness subsided, I began
to be aware of a change in the temper of my thoughts, a greater
boldness, a contempt of danger, a solution of the bonds of
obligation.  I looked down; my clothes hung formlessly on my
shrunken limbs; the hand that lay on my knee was corded and hairy.
I was once more Edward Hyde.  A moment before I had been safe of
all men's respect, wealthy, beloved--the cloth laying for me in
the dining-room at home; and now I was the common quarry of
mankind, hunted, houseless, a known murderer, thrall to the
gallows.

    My reason wavered, but it did not fail me utterly.  I have
more than once observed that in my second character, my faculties
seemed sharpened to a point and my spirits more tensely elastic;
thus it came about that, where Jekyll perhaps might have
succumbed, Hyde rose to the importance of the moment.  My drugs
were in one of the presses of my cabinet; how was I to reach them?
That was the problem that (crushing my temples in my hands) I set
myself to solve.  The laboratory door I had closed.  If I sought
to enter by the house, my own servants would consign me to the
gallows.  I saw I must employ another hand, and thought of Lanyon.
How was he to be reached? how persuaded?  Supposing that I escaped
capture in the streets, how was I to make my way into his
presence? and how should I, an unknown and displeasing visitor,
prevail on the famous physician to rifle the study of his
colleague, Dr. Jekyll?  Then I remembered that of my original
character, one part remained to me:  I could write my own hand; and
once I had conceived that kindling spark, the way that I must
follow became lighted up from end to end.

    Thereupon, I arranged my clothes as best I could, and
summoning a passing hansom, drove to an hotel in Portland Street,
the name of which I chanced to remember.  At my appearance (which
was indeed comical enough, however tragic a fate these garments
covered) the driver could not conceal his mirth.  I gnashed my
teeth upon him with a gust of devilish fury; and the smile
withered from his face--happily for him--yet more happily for
myself, for in another instant I had certainly dragged him from
his perch.  At the inn, as I entered, I looked about me with so
black a countenance as made the attendants tremble; not a look did
they exchange in my presence; but obsequiously took my orders, led
me to a private room, and brought me wherewithal to write.  Hyde
in danger of his life was a creature new to me; shaken with
inordinate anger, strung to the pitch of murder, lusting to
inflict pain.  Yet the creature was astute; mastered his fury with
a great effort of the will; composed his two important letters,
one to Lanyon and one to Poole; and that he might receive actual
evidence of their being posted, sent them out with directions that
they should be registered.  Thenceforward, he sat all day over the
fire in the private room, gnawing his nails; there he dined,
sitting alone with his fears, the waiter visibly quailing before
his eye; and thence, when the night was fully come, he set forth
in the corner of a closed cab, and was driven to and fro about the
streets of the city.  He, I say--I cannot say, I.  That child of
Hell had nothing human; nothing lived in him but fear and hatred.
And when at last, thinking the driver had begun to grow
suspicious, he discharged the cab and ventured on foot, attired in
his misfitting clothes, an object marked out for observation, into
the midst of the nocturnal passengers, these two base passions
raged within him like a tempest.  He walked fast, hunted by his
fears, chattering to himself, skulking through the less frequented
thoroughfares, counting the minutes that still divided him from
midnight.  Once a woman spoke to him, offering, I think, a box of
lights.  He smote her in the face, and she fled.

    When I came to myself at Lanyon's, the horror of my old friend
perhaps affected me somewhat:  I do not know; it was at least but a
drop in the sea to the abhorrence with which I looked back upon
these hours.  A change had come over me.  It was no longer the
fear of the gallows, it was the horror of being Hyde that racked
me.  I received Lanyon's condemnation partly in a dream; it was
partly in a dream that I came home to my own house and got into
bed.  I slept after the prostration of the day, with a stringent
and profound slumber which not even the nightmares that wrung me
could avail to break.  I awoke in the morning shaken, weakened,
but refreshed.  I still hated and feared the thought of the brute
that slept within me, and I had not of course forgotten the
appalling dangers of the day before; but I was once more at home,
in my own house and close to my drugs; and gratitude for my escape
shone so strong in my soul that it almost rivalled the brightness
of hope.

    I was stepping leisurely across the court after breakfast,
drinking the chill of the air with pleasure, when I was seized
again with those indescribable sensations that heralded the
change; and I had but the time to gain the shelter of my cabinet,
before I was once again raging and freezing with the passions of
Hyde.  It took on this occasion a double dose to recall me to
myself; and alas! six hours after, as I sat looking sadly in the
fire, the pangs returned, and the drug had to be re-administered.
In short, from that day forth it seemed only by a great effort as
of gymnastics, and only under the immediate stimulation of the
drug, that I was able to wear the countenance of Jekyll.  At all
hours of the day and night, I would be taken with the premonitory
shudder; above all, if I slept, or even dozed for a moment in my
chair, it was always as Hyde that I awakened.  Under the strain of
this continually impending doom and by the sleeplessness to which
I now condemned myself, ay, even beyond what I had thought
possible to man, I became, in my own person, a creature eaten up
and emptied by fever, languidly weak both in body and mind, and
solely occupied by one thought:  the horror of my other self.  But
when I slept, or when the virtue of the medicine wore off, I would
leap almost without transition (for the pangs of transformation
grew daily less marked) into the possession of a fancy brimming
with images of terror, a soul boiling with causeless hatreds, and
a body that seemed not strong enough to contain the raging
energies of life.  The powers of Hyde seemed to have grown with
the sickliness of Jekyll.  And certainly the hate that now divided
them was equal on each side.  With Jekyll, it was a thing of vital
instinct.  He had now seen the full deformity of that creature
that shared with him some of the phenomena of consciousness, and
was co-heir with him to death:  and beyond these links of
community, which in themselves made the most poignant part of his
distress, he thought of Hyde, for all his energy of life, as of
something not only hellish but inorganic.  This was the shocking
thing; that the slime of the pit seemed to utter cries and voices;
that the amorphous dust gesticulated and sinned; that what was
dead, and had no shape, should usurp the offices of life.  And
this again, that that insurgent horror was knit to him closer than
a wife, closer than an eye; lay caged in his flesh, where he heard
it mutter and felt it struggle to be born; and at every hour of
weakness, and in the confidence of slumber, prevailed against him,
and deposed him out of life.  The hatred of Hyde for Jekyll was of
a different order.  His terror of the gallows drove him
continually to commit temporary suicide, and return to his
subordinate station of a part instead of a person; but he loathed
the necessity, he loathed the despondency into which Jekyll was
now fallen, and he resented the dislike with which he was himself
regarded.  Hence the ape-like tricks that he would play me,
scrawling in my own hand blasphemies on the pages of my books,
burning the letters and destroying the portrait of my father; and
indeed, had it not been for his fear of death, he would long ago
have ruined himself in order to involve me in the ruin.  But his
love of me is wonderful; I go further:  I, who sicken and freeze at
the mere thought of him, when I recall the abjection and passion
of this attachment, and when I know how he fears my power to cut
him off by suicide, I find it in my heart to pity him.

    It is useless, and the time awfully fails me, to prolong this
description; no one has ever suffered such torments, let that
suffice; and yet even to these, habit brought--no, not
alleviation--but a certain callousness of soul, a certain
acquiescence of despair; and my punishment might have gone on for
years, but for the last calamity which has now fallen, and which
has finally severed me from my own face and nature.  My provision
of the salt, which had never been renewed since the date of the
first experiment, began to run low.  I sent out for a fresh supply
and mixed the draught; the ebullition followed, and the first
change of colour, not the second; I drank it and it was without
efficiency.  You will learn from Poole how I have had London
ransacked; it was in vain; and I am now persuaded that my first
supply was impure, and that it was that unknown impurity which
lent efficacy to the draught.

    About a week has passed, and I am now finishing this statement
under the influence of the last of the old powders.  This, then,
is the last time, short of a miracle, that Henry Jekyll can think
his own thoughts or see his own face (now how sadly altered!) in
the glass.  Nor must I delay too long to bring my writing to an
end; for if my narrative has hitherto escaped destruction, it has
been by a combination of great prudence and great good luck.
Should the throes of change take me in the act of writing it, Hyde
will tear it in pieces; but if some time shall have elapsed after
I have laid it by, his wonderful selfishness and circumscription
to the moment will probably save it once again from the action of
his ape-like spite.  And indeed the doom that is closing on us
both has already changed and crushed him.  Half an hour from now,
when I shall again and forever reindue that hated personality, I
know how I shall sit shuddering and weeping in my chair, or
continue, with the most strained and fearstruck ecstasy of
listening, to pace up and down this room (my last earthly refuge)
and give ear to every sound of menace.  Will Hyde die upon the
scaffold? or will he find courage to release himself at the last
moment?  God knows; I am careless; this is my true hour of death,
and what is to follow concerns another than myself.  Here then, as
I lay down the pen and proceed to seal up my confession, I bring
the life of that unhappy Henry Jekyll to an end.
                        A CHRISTMAS CAROL

                       by Charles Dickens






     I have endeavoured in this Ghostly little book, 
to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my 
readers out of humour with themselves, with each other, 
with the season, or with me.  May it haunt their houses
pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.

     Their faithful Friend and Servant, 
                                        C. D. 
December, 1843.






Stave 1:  Marley's Ghost

     Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt
whatever about that. The register of his burial was
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,
and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And
Scrooge's name was good upon `Change, for anything he 
chose to put his hand to.

     Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

     Mind! I don't mean to say that I know, of my
own knowledge, what there is particularly dead about
a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself, to
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery 
in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors 
is in the simile; and my unhallowed hands
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You
will therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that
Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

     Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did.
How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and he were
partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and
sole mourner. And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully 
cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent 
man of business on the very day of the funeral,
and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain.
     The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to
the point I started from. There is no doubt that Marley 
was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or
nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going
to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that
Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there
would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a
stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, 
than there would be in any other middle-aged
gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy
spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- 
literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

     Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name.
There it stood, years afterwards, above the warehouse
door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was known as
Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the
business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, 
but he answered to both names. It was all the
same to him.

     Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind-
stone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping,
scraping, clutching, covetous, old sinner! Hard and
sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out
generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary
as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, 
nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek,
stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue;

and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty
rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his
wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always
about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and
didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.

     External heat and cold had little influence on
Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather
chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he,
no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no
pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't
know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and
snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage
over him in only one respect. They often `came down'
handsomely, and Scrooge never did.

     Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with
gladsome looks, `My dear Scrooge, how are you?
When will you come to see me?' No beggars implored 
him to bestow a trifle, no children asked him
what it was o'clock, no man or woman ever once in all
his life inquired the way to such and such a place, of
Scrooge. Even the blind men's dogs appeared to
know him; and when they saw him coming on, would
tug their owners into doorways and up courts; and
then would wag their tails as though they said, `No
eye at all is better than an evil eye, dark master!'

     But what did Scrooge care! It was the very thing
he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths
of life, warning all human sympathy to keep its distance, 
was what the knowing ones call `nuts' to Scrooge.

     Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year,
on Christmas Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his 
counting-house. It was cold, bleak, biting weather: foggy
withal: and he could hear the people in the court outside, 
go wheezing up and down, beating their hands
upon their breasts, and stamping their feet upon the
pavement stones to warm them. The city clocks had
only just gone three, but it was quite dark already --
it had not been light all day -- and candles were flaring 
in the windows of the neighbouring offices, like
ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The fog
came pouring in at every chink and keyhole, and was
so dense without, that although the court was of the
narrowest, the houses opposite were mere phantoms.
To see the dingy cloud come drooping down, obscuring
everything, one might have thought that Nature
lived hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.

     The door of Scrooge's counting-house was open
that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in a
dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was copying
letters. Scrooge had a very small fire, but the clerk's
fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one
coal. But he couldn't replenish it, for Scrooge kept
the coal-box in his own room; and so surely as the
clerk came in with the shovel, the master predicted
that it would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore 
the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to
warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not being 
a man of a strong imagination, he failed.

     `A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!' cried
a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge's
nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was
the first intimation he had of his approach.

     `Bah!' said Scrooge, `Humbug!'

     He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the
fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge's, that he was
all in a glow; his face was ruddy and handsome; his
eyes sparkled, and his breath smoked again.

     `Christmas a humbug, uncle!' said Scrooge's
nephew. `You don't mean that, I am sure?'

     `I do,' said Scrooge. `Merry Christmas! What
right have you to be merry? What reason have you
to be merry? You're poor enough.'

     `Come, then,' returned the nephew gaily. `What
right have you to be dismal? What reason have you
to be morose? You're rich enough.'

     Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur
of the moment, said `Bah!' again; and followed it up
with `Humbug.'

     `Don't be cross, uncle!' said the nephew.

     `What else can I be,' returned the uncle, `when I
live in such a world of fools as this? Merry Christmas! 
Out upon merry Christmas! What's Christmas 
time to you but a time for paying bills without
money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but
not an hour richer; a time for balancing your books
and having every item in `em through a round dozen
of months presented dead against you? If I could
work my will,' said Scrooge indignantly, `every idiot
who goes about with "Merry Christmas" on his lips,
should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried
with a stake of holly through his heart. He should!'

     `Uncle!' pleaded the nephew.

     `Nephew!' returned the uncle sternly, `keep Christmas 
in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.'

     `Keep it!' repeated Scrooge's nephew. `But you
don't keep it.'

     `Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. `Much
good may it do you! Much good it has ever done
you!'

     `There are many things from which I might have
derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare
say,' returned the nephew. `Christmas among the
rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas 
time, when it has come round -- apart from the
veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything
belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a
good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant
time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar
of the year, when men and women seem by one consent 
to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think
of people below them as if they really were 
fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race 
of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore,
uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or
silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me
good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!'

     The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.
Becoming immediately sensible of the impropriety,
he poked the fire, and extinguished the last frail spark
for ever.

     `Let me hear another sound from you,' said
Scrooge, `and you'll keep your Christmas by losing
your situation! You're quite a powerful speaker,
sir,' he added, turning to his nephew. `I wonder you
don't go into Parliament.'

     `Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.'

     Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he
did. He went the whole length of the expression,
and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

     `But why?' cried Scrooge's nephew. `Why?'

     `Why did you get married?' said Scrooge.

     `Because I fell in love.'

     `Because you fell in love!' growled Scrooge, as if
that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous 
than a merry Christmas. `Good afternoon!'

     `Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before
that happened. Why give it as a reason for not
coming now?'

     `Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.

     `I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you;
why cannot we be friends?'

     `Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.

     `I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you so 
resolute. We have never had any quarrel, to which I
have been a party. But I have made the trial in
homage to Christmas, and I'll keep my Christmas
humour to the last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!'

     `Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.

     `And A Happy New Year!'

     `Good afternoon,' said Scrooge.

     His nephew left the room without an angry word,
notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to
bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who
cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned 
them cordially.

     `There's another fellow,' muttered Scrooge; who
overheard him: `my clerk, with fifteen shillings a
week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry
Christmas. I'll retire to Bedlam.'

     This lunatic, in letting Scrooge's nephew out, had
let two other people in. They were portly gentlemen,
pleasant to behold, and now stood, with their hats off,
in Scrooge's office. They had books and papers in
their hands, and bowed to him.

     `Scrooge and Marley's, I believe,' said one of the
gentlemen, referring to his list. `Have I the pleasure
of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?'

     `Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,'
Scrooge replied. `He died seven years ago, this very
night.'

     `We have no doubt his liberality is well represented
by his surviving partner,' said the gentleman, presenting 
his credentials.

     It certainly was; for they had been two kindred
spirits. At the ominous word `liberality,' Scrooge
frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials 
back.

     `At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,'
said the gentleman, taking up a pen, `it is more than
usually desirable that we should make some slight
provision for the Poor and Destitute, who suffer
greatly at the present time. Many thousands are in
want of common necessaries; hundreds of thousands
are in want of common comforts, sir.'

     `Are there no prisons?' asked Scrooge.

     `Plenty of prisons,' said the gentleman, laying down
the pen again.
     `And the Union workhouses?' demanded Scrooge.
`Are they still in operation?'

     `They are. Still,' returned the gentleman, `I wish
I could say they were not.'

     `The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour,
then?' said Scrooge.

     `Both very busy, sir.'

     `Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first,
that something had occurred to stop them in their
useful course,' said Scrooge. `I'm very glad to
hear it.'

     `Under the impression that they scarcely furnish
Christian cheer of mind or body to the multitude,'
returned the gentleman, `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 returned 
his labours with an improved opinion of himself, 
and in a more facetious temper than was usual
with him.

     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 water-plug
being left in solitude, its overflowing 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 that
such dull principles as bargain and sale had anything
to do. The Lord Mayor, in the stronghold of the
mighty Mansion House, gave orders to his fifty cooks
and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor's
household should; and even the little tailor, whom he
had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for
being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up
to-morrow's pudding in his garret, while his lean
wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.

     Foggier yet, and colder! Piercing, searching, biting 
cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but nipped
the Evil Spirit's nose with a touch of such weather
as that, instead of using his familiar weapons, then
indeed he would have roared to lusty purpose. The
owner of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled
by the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,
stooped down at Scrooge's keyhole to regale him with
a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of

          `God bless you, merry gentleman!
           May nothing you dismay!'

Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy of action,
that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to
the fog and even more congenial frost.

     At length the hour of shutting up the counting-
house arrived. With an ill-will Scrooge dismounted
from his stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to the
expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly snuffed
his candle out, and put on his hat.

     `You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?' said
Scrooge.

     `If quite convenient, sir.'

     `It's not convenient,' said Scrooge, `and it's not
fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think
yourself ill-used, I'll be bound?'

     The clerk smiled faintly.

     `And yet,' said Scrooge, `you don't think me ill-used,
when I pay a day's wages for no work.'

     The clerk observed that it was only once a year.

     `A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every
twenty-fifth of December!' said Scrooge, buttoning
his great-coat to the chin. `But I suppose you must
have the whole day. Be here all the earlier next
morning.'

     The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge
walked out with a growl. The office was closed in a
twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of his
white comforter dangling below his waist (for he
boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on Cornhill, 
at the end of a lane of boys, twenty times, in
honour of its being Christmas Eve, and then ran home
to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt, to play
at blindman's-buff.

     Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual
melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and
beguiled the rest of the evening with his
banker's-book, went home to bed. He lived in
chambers which had once belonged to his deceased
partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms, in a
lowering pile of building up a yard, where it had so
little business to be, that one could scarcely help
fancying it must have run there when it was a young
house, playing at hide-and-seek with other houses,
and forgotten the way out again. It was old enough
now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it but
Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as offices.
The yard was so dark that even Scrooge, who knew
its every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.
The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway 
of the house, that it seemed as if the Genius of
the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the
threshold.

     Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at all 
particular about the knocker on the door, except that it
was very large. It is also a fact, that Scrooge had
seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence
in that place; also that Scrooge had as little of what
is called fancy about him as any man in the city of
London, even including -- which is a bold word -- the
corporation, aldermen, and livery. Let it also be
borne in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one
thought on Marley, since his last mention of his
seven years' dead partner that afternoon. And then
let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened
that Scrooge, having his key in the lock of the door,
saw in the knocker, without its undergoing any intermediate
process of change -- not a knocker, but Marley's face.

     Marley's face. It was not in impenetrable shadow
as the other objects in the yard were, but had a
dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark
cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked
at Scrooge as Marley used to look: with ghostly
spectacles turned up on its ghostly forehead. The
hair was curiously stirred, as if by breath or hot air;
and, though the eyes were wide open, they were perfectly
motionless. That, and its livid colour, made
it horrible; but its horror seemed to be in spite of the
face and beyond its control, rather than a part or
its own expression.

     As Scrooge looked fixedly at this phenomenon, it
was a knocker again.

     To say that he was not startled, or that his blood
was not conscious of a terrible sensation to which it
had been a stranger from infancy, would be untrue.
But he put his hand upon the key he had relinquished,
turned it sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.

     He did pause, with a moment's irresolution, before
he shut the door; and he did look cautiously behind
it first, as if he half-expected to be terrified with the
sight of Marley's pigtail sticking out into the hall.
But there was nothing on the back of the door, except
the screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he
said `Pooh, pooh!' and closed it with a bang.

     The sound resounded through the house like thunder. 
Every room above, and every cask in the wine-merchant's 
cellars below, appeared to have a separate peal 
of echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to
be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door, and
walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too:
trimming his candle as he went.

     You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six 
up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad
young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you
might have got a hearse up that staircase, and taken
it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards the wall
and the door towards the balustrades: and done it
easy. There was plenty of width for that, and room
to spare; which is perhaps the reason why Scrooge
thought he saw a locomotive hearse going on before
him in the gloom. Half a dozen gas-lamps out of
the street wouldn't have lighted the entry too well,
so you may suppose that it was pretty dark with
Scrooge's dip.

     Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for that.
Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked it. But before
he shut his heavy door, he walked through his rooms
to see that all was right. He had just enough recollection 
of the face to desire to do that.

     Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All as they
should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under
the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon and basin
ready; and the little saucepan of gruel (Scrooge had
a cold in his head) upon the hob. Nobody under the
bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, 
which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude
against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old fire-guards, 

old shoes, two fish-baskets, washing-stand on three 
legs, and a poker.

     Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and locked 
himself in; double-locked himself in, which was not his
custom. Thus secured against surprise, he took off
his cravat; put on his dressing-gown and slippers, and
his nightcap; and sat down before the fire to take
his gruel.

     It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on such a
bitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it, and
brood over it, before he could extract the least 
sensation of warmth from such a handful of fuel. 
The fireplace was an old one, built by some Dutch 
merchant long ago, and paved all round with quaint 
Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate the Scriptures.
There were Cains and Abels, Pharaohs' daughters;
Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending
through the air on clouds like feather-beds, Abrahams,
Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats,
hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts --
and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came
like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the
whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank at first,
with power to shape some picture on its surface from
the disjointed fragments of his thoughts, there would
have been a copy of old Marley's head on every one.

     `Humbug!' said Scrooge; and walked across the
room.

     After several turns, he sat down again. As he
threw his head back in the chair, his glance happened
to rest upon a bell, a disused bell, that hung in the
room, and communicated for some purpose now forgotten 
with a chamber in the highest story of the
building. It was with great astonishment, and with
a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he
saw this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in
the outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it
rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

     This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,
but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they had
begun, together. They were succeeded by a clanking 
noise, deep down below; as if some person were
dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine
merchant's cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have
heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described
as dragging chains.

     The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,
and then he heard the noise much louder, on the floors
below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight
towards his door.

     `It's humbug still!' said Scrooge. `I won't believe it.'

     His colour changed though, when, without a pause,
it came on through the heavy door, and passed into
the room before his eyes. Upon its coming in, the
dying flame leaped up, as though it cried `I know
him; Marley's Ghost!' and fell again.

     The same face: the very same. Marley in his pigtail, 
usual waistcoat, tights and boots; the tassels on
the latter bristling, like his pigtail, and his coat-skirts,
and the hair upon his head. The chain he drew was
clasped about his middle. It was long, and wound
about him like a tail; and it was made (for Scrooge
observed it closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks,
ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.
His body was transparent; so that Scrooge, observing him, 
and looking through his waistcoat, could see
the two buttons on his coat behind.

     Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no
bowels, but he had never believed it until now.

     No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he
looked the phantom through and through, and saw
it standing before him; though he felt the chilling
influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very
texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head
and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before;
he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses.

     `How now!' said Scrooge, caustic and cold as ever.
`What do you want with me?'

     `Much!' -- Marley's voice, no doubt about it.

     `Who are you?'

     `Ask me who I was.'

     `Who were you then?' said Scrooge, raising his
voice. `You're particular, for a shade.' He was going
to say `to a shade,' but substituted this, as more
appropriate.

     `In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley.'

     `Can you -- can you sit down?' asked Scrooge, looking
doubtfully at him.

     `I can.'

     `Do it, then.'

     Scrooge asked the question, because he didn't know
whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in
a condition to take a chair; and felt that in the event
of its being impossible, it might involve the necessity
of an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat
down on the opposite side of the fireplace, as if he
were quite used to it.

     `You don't believe in me,' observed the Ghost.

     `I don't.' said Scrooge.

     `What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of
your senses?'

     `I don't know,' said Scrooge.

     `Why do you doubt your senses?'

     `Because,' said Scrooge, `a little thing affects them.
A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may 
be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of
cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of 
gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are!'

     Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking
jokes, nor did he feel, in his heart, by any means
waggish then. The truth is, that he tried to be
smart, as a means of distracting his own attention,
and keeping down his terror; for the spectre's voice
disturbed the very marrow in his bones.

     To sit, staring at those fixed glazed eyes, in silence
for a moment, would play, Scrooge felt, the very
deuce with him. There was something very awful,
too, in the spectre's being provided with an infernal
atmosphere of its own. Scrooge could not feel it
himself, but this was clearly the case; for though the
Ghost sat perfectly motionless, its hair, and skirts,
and tassels, were still agitated as by the hot vapour
from an oven.

     `You see this toothpick?' said Scrooge, returning
quickly to the charge, for the reason just assigned;
and wishing, though it were only for a second, to
divert the vision's stony gaze from himself.

     `I do,' replied the Ghost.

     `You are not looking at it,' said Scrooge.

     `But I see it,' said the Ghost, `notwithstanding.'

     `Well!' returned Scrooge, `I have but to swallow
this, and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a
legion of goblins, all of my own creation. Humbug,
I tell you! humbug!'

     At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook
its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise, that
Scrooge held on tight to his chair, to save himself
from falling in a swoon. But how much greater was
his horror, when the phantom taking off the bandage
round its head, as if it were too warm to wear indoors,
its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast!

     Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands
before his face.

     `Mercy!' he said. `Dreadful apparition, why do
you trouble me?'

     `Man of the worldly mind!' replied the Ghost, `do
you believe in me or not?'

     `I do,' said Scrooge. `I must. But why do spirits
walk the earth, and why do they come to me?'

     `It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned,
`that the spirit within him should walk abroad among
his fellowmen, and travel far and wide; and if that
spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so
after death. It is doomed to wander through the
world -- oh, woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot
share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to
happiness!'

     Again the spectre raised a cry, and shook its chain
and wrung its shadowy hands.

     `You are fettered,' said Scrooge, trembling. `Tell
me why?'

     `I wear the chain I forged in life,' replied the Ghost.
`I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded
it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I
wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?'

     Scrooge trembled more and more.

     `Or would you know,' pursued the Ghost, `the
weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? 
It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven
Christmas Eves ago. You have laboured on it, since.
It is a ponderous chain!'

     Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the 
expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty
or sixty fathoms of iron cable: but he could see
nothing.

     `Jacob,' he said, imploringly. `Old Jacob Marley,
tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!'

     `I have none to give,' the Ghost replied. `It comes
from other regions, Ebenezer Scrooge, and is conveyed
by other ministers, to other kinds of men. Nor
can I tell you what I would. A very little more, is
all permitted to me. I cannot rest, I cannot stay, I
cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never walked
beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my
spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our
money-changing hole; and weary journeys lie before
me!'

     It was a habit with Scrooge, whenever he became
thoughtful, to put his hands in his breeches pockets.
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now,
but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his
knees.

     `You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,'
Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though
with humility and deference.

     `Slow!' the Ghost repeated.

     `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!'

     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.

     Scrooge closed the window, and examined the door
by which the Ghost had entered. It was double-locked, 
as he had locked it with his own hands, and
the bolts were undisturbed. He tried to say `Humbug!' 
but stopped at the first syllable. And being,
from the emotion he had undergone, or the fatigues
of the day, or his glimpse of the Invisible World, or
the dull conversation of the Ghost, or the lateness of
the hour, much in need of repose; went straight to
bed, without undressing, and fell asleep upon the
instant.


Stave 2:  The First of the Three Spirits

     When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed,
he could scarcely distinguish the transparent window from
the opaque walls of his chamber. He was endeavouring to
pierce the darkness with his ferret eyes, when the chimes of a
neighbouring church struck the four quarters. So he listened
for the hour.

     To his great astonishment the heavy bell went on from
six to seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to
twelve; then stopped. Twelve. It was past two when he
went to bed. The clock was wrong. An icicle must have
got into the works. Twelve.

     He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this most
preposterous clock. Its rapid little pulse beat twelve: and
stopped.

     `Why, it isn't possible,' said Scrooge, `that I can have
slept through a whole day and far into another night. It
isn't possible that anything has happened to the sun, and
this is twelve at noon.'

     The idea being an alarming one, he scrambled out of bed,
and groped his way to the window. He was obliged to rub
the frost off with the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he
could see anything; and could see very little then. All he
could make out was, that it was still very foggy and extremely
cold, and that there was no noise of people running to and
with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy One. Light flashed up
in the room upon the instant, and the curtains of his bed
were drawn.

     The curtains of his bed were drawn aside, I tell you, by a
hand. Not the curtains at his feet, nor the curtains at his
back, but those to which his face was addressed. The curtains
of his bed were drawn aside; and Scrooge, starting up into a
half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with the
unearthly visitor who drew them: as close to it as I am now 
to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

     It was a strange figure -- like a child: yet not so like a
child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural
medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded
from the view, and being diminished to a child's proportions.
Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was
white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in
it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were
very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold
were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately
formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic
of the purest white, and round its waist was bound
a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held
a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular
contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed
with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was,
that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear
jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was
doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a
great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

     Even this, though, when Scrooge looked at it with increasing
steadiness, was not its strangest quality. For as its belt
sparkled and glittered now in one part and now in another,
and what was light one instant, at another time was dark, so
the figure itself fluctuated in its distinctness: being now a
thing with one arm, now with one leg, now with twenty legs,
now a pair of legs without a head, now a head without a
body: of which dissolving parts, no outline would be visible
in the dense gloom wherein they melted away. And in the
very wonder of this, it would be itself again; distinct and
clear as ever.

     `Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to
me.' asked Scrooge.

     `I am.'

     The voice was soft and gentle. Singularly low, as if
instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

     `Who, and what are you.' Scrooge demanded.

     `I am the Ghost of Christmas Past.'

     `Long Past.' inquired Scrooge: observant of its dwarfish
stature.

     `No. Your past.'

     Perhaps, Scrooge could not have told anybody why, if
anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire
to see the Spirit in his cap; and begged him to be covered.

     `What.' exclaimed the Ghost,' would you so soon put
out, with worldly hands, the light I give. Is it not enough
that you are one of those whose passions made this cap, and
force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon
my brow.' 

     Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend 
or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted the Spirit at 
any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what
business brought him there.

     `Your welfare.' said the Ghost.


     Scrooge expressed himself much obliged, but could not
help thinking that a night of unbroken rest would have been
more conducive to that end. The Spirit must have heard
him thinking, for it said immediately:

     `Your reclamation, then. Take heed.'

     It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him
gently by the arm.

     `Rise. and walk with me.'

     It would have been in vain for Scrooge to plead that the
weather and the hour were not adapted to pedestrian purposes;
that bed was warm, and the thermometer a long way below
freezing; that he was clad but lightly in his slippers,
dressing-gown, and nightcap; and that he had a cold upon him at
that time. The grasp, though gentle as a woman's hand, 
was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the Spirit
made towards the window, clasped his robe in supplication.

     `I am mortal,' Scrooge remonstrated, `and liable to fall.'

     `Bear but a touch of my hand there,' said the Spirit,
laying it upon his heart,' and you shall be upheld in more
than this.'

     As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall,
and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either
hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it
was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished
with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon
the ground.

     `Good Heaven!' said Scrooge, clasping his hands together,
as he looked about him. `I was bred in this place. I was
a boy here.' 

     The Spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch,
though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still
present to the old man's sense of feeling. He was conscious
of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected
with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares
long, long, forgotten.

     `Your lip is trembling,' said the Ghost. `And what is
that upon your cheek.' 

     Scrooge muttered, with an unusual catching in his voice,
that it was a pimple; and begged the Ghost to lead him
where he would.

     `You recollect the way.' inquired the Spirit.

     `Remember it.' cried Scrooge with fervour; `I could
walk it blindfold.' 

     `Strange to have forgotten it for so many years.' observed
the Ghost. `Let us go on.' 

     They walked along the road, Scrooge recognising every
gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared
in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river.
Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them
with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in
country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys
were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the
broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air
laughed to hear it.

     `These are but shadows of the things that have been,' said
the Ghost. `They have no consciousness of us.' 

     The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Scrooge
knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond
all bounds to see them. Why did his cold eye glisten, and
his heart leap up as they went past. Why was he filled
with gladness when he heard them give each other Merry
Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and bye-ways, for
their several homes. What was merry Christmas to Scrooge.
Out upon merry Christmas. What good had it ever done
to him.

     `The school is not quite deserted,' said the Ghost. `A
solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.' 

     Scrooge said he knew it. And he sobbed.

     They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and
soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little
weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell
hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken
fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls
were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their
gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables;
and the coach-houses and sheds were over-run with grass.
Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for
entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open
doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished,
cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a
chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow
with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too
much to eat. 

     They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a
door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and
disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by
lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely
boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Scrooge sat down
upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as he
used to be.

     Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle
from the mice behind the panelling, not a drip from the
half-thawed
water-spout in the dull yard behind, not a sigh among
the leafless boughs of one despondent poplar, not the idle
swinging of an empty store-house door, no, not a clicking in
the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with a softening
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

     The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his
younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in
foreign garments: wonderfully real and distinct to look at:
stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and
leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

     `Why, it's Ali Baba.' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. `It's
dear old honest Ali Baba. Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas
time, when yonder solitary child was left here all alone,
he did come, for the first time, just like that. Poor boy. And
Valentine,' said Scrooge,' and his wild brother, Orson; there
they go. And what's his name, who was put down in his
drawers, asleep, at the Gate of Damascus; don't you see him.
And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii;
there he is upon his head. Serve him right. I'm glad of it.
What business had he to be married to the Princess.' 

     To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature
on such subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between
laughing and crying; and to see his heightened and excited
face; would have been a surprise to his business friends in
the city, indeed.

     `There's the Parrot.' cried Scrooge. `Green body and
yellow tail, with a thing like a lettuce growing out of the
top of his head; there he is. Poor Robin Crusoe, he called
him, when he came home again after sailing round the
island. `Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin
Crusoe.'  The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't.
It was the Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running
for his life to the little creek. Halloa. Hoop. Hallo.' 

     Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his
usual character, he said, in pity for his former self, `Poor
boy.' and cried again.

     `I wish,' Scrooge muttered, putting his hand in his
pocket, and looking about him, after drying his eyes with his
cuff: `but it's too late now.' 

     `What is the matter.' asked the Spirit.

     `Nothing,' said Scrooge. `Nothing. There was a boy
singing a Christmas Carol at my door last night. I should
like to have given him something: that's all.' 

     The Ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand:
saying as it did so, `Let us see another Christmas.' 

     Scrooge's former self grew larger at the words, and the 
room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk,
the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the
ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how
all this was brought about, Scrooge knew no more than you
do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything
had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all
the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

     He was not reading now, but walking up and down
despairingly.
Scrooge looked at the Ghost, and with a mournful 
shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.

     It opened; and a little girl, much younger than the boy,
came darting in, and putting her arms about his neck, and
often kissing him, addressed him as her `Dear, dear
brother.'

     `I have come to bring you home, dear brother.' said the
child, clapping her tiny hands, and bending down to laugh.
`To bring you home, home, home.' 

     `Home, little Fan.' returned the boy.

     `Yes.' said the child, brimful of glee. `Home, for good
and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder
than he used to be, that home's like Heaven. He spoke so
gently to me one dear night when I was going to bed, that
I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come
home; and he said Yes, you should; and sent me in a coach
to bring you. And you're to be a man.' said the child,
opening her eyes,' and are never to come back here; but
first, we're to be together all the Christmas long, and have
the merriest time in all the world.' 

     `You are quite a woman, little Fan.' exclaimed the boy.

     She clapped her hands and laughed, and tried to touch his
head; but being too little, laughed again, and stood on
tiptoe to embrace him. Then she began to drag him, in her
childish eagerness, towards the door; and he, nothing loth to
go, accompanied her.

     A terrible voice in the hall cried.' Bring down Master
Scrooge's box, there.' and in the hall appeared the schoolmaster
himself, who glared on Master Scrooge with a ferocious
condescension, and threw him into a dreadful state of mind
by shaking hands with him. He then conveyed him and his
sister into the veriest old well of a shivering best-parlour that
ever was seen, where the maps upon the wall, and the celestial
and terrestrial globes in the windows, were waxy with cold.
Here he produced a decanter of curiously light wine, and a
block of curiously heavy cake, and administered instalments
of those dainties to the young people: at the same time,
sending out a meagre servant to offer a glass of something
to the postboy, who answered that he thanked the gentleman,
but if it was the same tap as he had tasted before, he had
rather not. Master Scrooge's trunk being by this time tied
on to the top of the chaise, the children bade the schoolmaster
good-bye right willingly; and getting into it, drove
gaily down the garden-sweep: the quick wheels dashing the
hoar-frost and snow from off the dark leaves of the evergreens
like spray.

     `Always a delicate creature, whom a breath might have
withered,' said the Ghost. `But she had a large heart.' 

     `So she had,' cried Scrooge. `You're right. I will not
gainsay it, Spirit. God forbid.' 

     `She died a woman,' said the Ghost,' and had, as I think,
children.' 

     `One child,' Scrooge returned.

     `True,' said the Ghost. `Your nephew.' 

     Scrooge seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly,
`Yes.' 

     Although they had but that moment left the school behind
them, they were now in the busy thoroughfares of a city,
where shadowy passengers passed and repassed; where shadowy
carts and coaches battle for the way, and all the strife and
tumult of a real city were. It was made plain enough, by
the dressing of the shops, that here too it was Christmas
time again; but it was evening, and the streets were
lighted up.

     The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door, and asked
Scrooge if he knew it.

     `Know it.' said Scrooge. `Was I apprenticed here.' 

     They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a Welsh 
wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if he had been two
inches taller he must have knocked his head against the
ceiling, Scrooge cried in great excitement:

     `Why, it's old Fezziwig. Bless his heart; it's Fezziwig
alive again.' 

     Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at the
clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He rubbed his
hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat; laughed all over
himself, from his shows to his organ of benevolence; and
called out in a comfortable, oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:

     `Yo ho, there. Ebenezer. Dick.' 


     Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man, came briskly
in, accompanied by his fellow-prentice.

     `Dick Wilkins, to be sure.' said Scrooge to the Ghost.
`Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very much attached
to me, was Dick. Poor Dick. Dear, dear.' 

     `Yo ho, my boys.' said Fezziwig. `No more work to-night.
Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer. Let's
have the shutters up,' cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap
of his hands,' before a man can say Jack Robinson.' 

     You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went at it.
They charged into the street with the shutters -- one, two,
three -- had them up in their places -- four, five, six -- barred
them and pinned then -- seven, eight, nine -- and came back
before you could have got to twelve, panting like race-horses.

     `Hilli-ho!' cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from the
high desk, with wonderful agility. `Clear away, my lads,
and let's have lots of room here. Hilli-ho, Dick. Chirrup,
Ebenezer.' 

     Clear away. There was nothing they wouldn't have cleared
away, or couldn't have cleared away, with old Fezziwig looking
on. It was done in a minute. Every movable was packed off, as if
it were dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was
swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel was heaped upon
the fire; and the warehouse was as snug, and warm, and dry, and
bright a ball-room, as you would desire to see upon a winter's
night.

     In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up to the
lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and tuned like fifty
stomach-aches. In came Mrs Fezziwig, one vast substantial
smile. In came the three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and
lovable. In came the six young followers whose hearts they
broke. In came all the young men and women employed in
the business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin, the
baker. In came the cook, with her brother's particular friend,
the milkman. In came the boy from over the way, who was
suspected of not having board enough from his master; trying
to hide himself behind the girl from next door but one, who
was proved to have had her ears pulled by her mistress.
In they all came, one after another; some shyly, some boldly,
some gracefully, some awkwardly, some pushing, some pulling;
in they all came, anyhow and everyhow. Away they all went,
twenty couple at once; hands half round and back again
the other way; down the middle and up again; round
and round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old
top couple always turning up in the wrong place; new top
couple starting off again, as soon as they got there; all top
couples at last, and not a bottom one to help them. When
this result was brought about, old Fezziwig, clapping his
hands to stop the dance, cried out,' Well done.' and the
fiddler plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially
provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon his
reappearance, he instantly began again, though there were no
dancers yet, as if the other fiddler had been carried home, 
exhausted, on a shutter, and he were a bran-new man
resolved to beat him out of sight, or perish.

     There were more dances, and there were forfeits, and more
dances, and there was cake, and there was negus, and there
was a great piece of Cold Roast, and there was a great piece
of Cold Boiled, and there were mince-pies, and plenty of beer.
But the great effect of the evening came after the Roast
and Boiled, when the fiddler (an artful dog, mind. The sort
of man who knew his business better than you or I could
have told it him.) struck up Sir Roger de Coverley.'  Then
old Fezziwig stood out to dance with Mrs Fezziwig. Top
couple, too; with a good stiff piece of work cut out for them;
three or four and twenty pair of partners; people who were
not to be trifled with; people who would dance, and had no
notion of walking.

     But if they had been twice as many -- ah, four times --
old Fezziwig would have been a match for them, and so would
Mrs Fezziwig. As to her, she was worthy to be his partner
in every sense of the term. If that's not high praise, tell me
higher, and I'll use it. A positive light appeared to issue
from Fezziwig's calves. They shone in every part of the
dance like moons. You couldn't have predicted, at any given
time, what would have become of them next. And when old
Fezziwig and Mrs Fezziwig had gone all through the dance;
advance and retire, both hands to your partner, bow and
curtsey, corkscrew, thread-the-needle, and back again to
your place; Fezziwig cut -- cut so deftly, that he appeared
to wink with his legs, and came upon his feet again without
a stagger.

     When the clock struck eleven, this domestic ball broke up.
Mr and Mrs Fezziwig took their stations, one on either side
of the door, and shaking hands with every person individually
as he or she went out, wished him or her a Merry Christmas.
When everybody had retired but the two prentices, they did
the same to them; and thus the cheerful voices died away,
and the lads were left to their beds; which were under a
counter in the back-shop.

     During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a
man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene,
and with his former self. He corroborated everything,
remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent
the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the
bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from
them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious
that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its
head burnt very clear.

     `A small matter,' said the Ghost,' to make these silly
folks so full of gratitude.' 

     `Small.' echoed Scrooge.

     The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices,
who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig:
and when he had done so, said,

     `Why. Is it not. He has spent but a few pounds of
your mortal money: three or four perhaps. Is that so
much that he deserves this praise.' 

     `It isn't that,' said Scrooge, heated by the remark, and
speaking unconsciously like his former, not his latter, self.
`It isn't that, Spirit. He has the power to render us happy
or unhappy; to make our service light or burdensome; a
pleasure or a toil. Say that his power lies in words and
looks; in things so slight and insignificant that it is
impossible
to add and count them up: what then. The happiness
he gives, is quite as great as if it cost a fortune.' 

     He felt the Spirit's glance, and stopped.

     `What is the matter.' asked the Ghost.

     `Nothing in particular,' said Scrooge. 

     `Something, I think.' the Ghost insisted.

     `No,' said Scrooge,' No. I should like to be able to say
a word or two to my clerk just now. That's all.' 

     His former self turned down the lamps as he gave utterance
to the wish; and Scrooge and the Ghost again stood side by
side in the open air.

     `My time grows short,' observed the Spirit. `Quick.' 

     This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he
could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again
Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime
of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later
years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice.
There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which
showed the passion that had taken root, and where the
shadow of the growing tree would fall.

     He was not alone, but sat by the side of a fair young
girl in a mourning-dress: in whose eyes there were tears,
which sparkled in the light that shone out of the Ghost of
Christmas Past.

     `It matters little,' she said, softly. `To you, very little.
Another idol has displaced me; and if it can cheer and comfort
you in time to come, as I would have tried to do, I have
no just cause to grieve.' 

     `What Idol has displaced you.' he rejoined.

     `A golden one.' 

     `This is the even-handed dealing of the world.' he said.
`There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and
there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity
as the pursuit of wealth.' 

     `You fear the world too much,' she answered, gently.
`All your other hopes have merged into the hope of being
beyond the chance of its sordid reproach. I have seen your
nobler aspirations fall off one by one, until the master-passion,
Gain, engrosses you. Have I not.' 

     `What then.' he retorted. `Even if I have grown so
much wiser, what then. I am not changed towards you.' 

     She shook her head.

     `Am I.' 

     `Our contract is an old one. It was made when we were
both poor and content to be so, until, in good season, we could
improve our worldly fortune by our patient industry. You
are changed. When it was made, you were another man.' 

     `I was a boy,' he said impatiently.

     `Your own feeling tells you that you were not what you
are,' she returned. `I am. That which promised happiness
when we were one in heart, is fraught with misery now that
we are two. How often and how keenly I have thought of
this, I will not say. It is enough that I have thought of it,
and can release you.' 

     `Have I ever sought release.' 

     `In words. No. Never.' 

     `In what, then.' 

     `In a changed nature; in an altered spirit; in another
atmosphere of life; another Hope as its great end. In
everything that made my love of any worth or value in your
sight. If this had never been between us,' said the girl,
looking mildly, but with steadiness, upon him;' tell me,
would you seek me out and try to win me now. Ah, no.' 

     He seemed to yield to the justice of this supposition, in
spite of himself. But he said with a struggle,' You think
not.' 

     `I would gladly think otherwise if I could,' she answered,
`Heaven knows. When I have learned a Truth like this,
I know how strong and irresistible it must be. But if you
were free to-day, to-morrow, yesterday, can even I believe
that you would choose a dowerless girl -- you who, in your
very confidence with her, weigh everything by Gain: or,
choosing her, if for a moment you were false enough to your
one guiding principle to do so, do I not know that your
repentance and regret would surely follow. I do; and I
release you. With a full heart, for the love of him you
once were.' 

     He was about to speak; but with her head turned from
him, she resumed.

     `You may -- the memory of what is past half makes me
hope you will -- have pain in this. A very, very brief time,
and you will dismiss the recollection of it, gladly, as an
unprofitable dream, from which it happened well that you
awoke. May you be happy in the life you have chosen.' 

     She left him, and they parted.

     `Spirit.' said Scrooge,' show me no more. Conduct
me home. Why do you delight to torture me.' 

     `One shadow more.' exclaimed the Ghost.

     `No more.' cried Scrooge. `No more, I don't wish to
see it. Show me no more.' 

     But the relentless Ghost pinioned him in both his arms,
and forced him to observe what happened next.

     They were in another scene and place; a room, not very
large or handsome, but full of comfort. Near to the winter
fire sat a beautiful young girl, so like that last that Scrooge
believed it was the same, until he saw her, now a comely
matron, sitting opposite her daughter. The noise in this
room was perfectly tumultuous, for there were more children
there, than Scrooge in his agitated state of mind could count;
and, unlike the celebrated herd in the poem, they were not
forty children conducting themselves like one, but every
child was conducting itself like forty. The consequences
were uproarious beyond belief; but no one seemed to care;
on the contrary, the mother and daughter laughed heartily,
and enjoyed it very much; and the latter, soon beginning to
mingle in the sports, got pillaged by the young brigands
most ruthlessly. What would I not have given to one of
them. Though I never could have been so rude, no, no. I
wouldn't for the wealth of all the world have crushed that
braided hair, and torn it down; and for the precious little
shoe, I wouldn't have plucked it off, God bless my soul. to
save my life. As to measuring her waist in sport, as they
did, bold young brood, I couldn't have done it; I should
have expected my arm to have grown round it for a punishment,
and never come straight again. And yet I should
have dearly liked, I own, to have touched her lips; to have
questioned her, that she might have opened them; to have
looked upon the lashes of her downcast eyes, and never
raised a blush; to have let loose waves of hair, an inch of
which would be a keepsake beyond price: in short, I should
have liked, I do confess, to have had the lightest licence
of a child, and yet to have been man enough to know its
value.

     But now a knocking at the door was heard, and such a
rush immediately ensued that she with laughing face and
plundered dress was borne towards it the centre of a flushed
and boisterous group, just in time to greet the father, who
came home attended by a man laden with Christmas toys
and presents. Then the shouting and the struggling, and
the onslaught that was made on the defenceless porter.
The scaling him with chairs for ladders to dive into his
pockets, despoil him of brown-paper parcels, hold on tight
by his cravat, hug him round his neck, pommel his back,
and kick his legs in irrepressible affection. The shouts of
wonder and delight with which the development of every
package was received. The terrible announcement that the
baby had been taken in the act of putting a doll's frying-pan
into his mouth, and was more than suspected of having
swallowed a fictitious turkey, glued on a wooden platter.
The immense relief of finding this a false alarm. The joy, 
and gratitude, and ecstasy. They are all indescribable alike.
It is enough that by degrees the children and their emotions
got out of the parlour, and by one stair at a time, up to the
top of the house; where they went to bed, and so subsided.

     And now Scrooge looked on more attentively than ever,
when the master of the house, having his daughter leaning
fondly on him, sat down with her and her mother at his
own fireside; and when he thought that such another
creature, quite as graceful and as full of promise, might
have called him father, and been a spring-time in the
haggard winter of his life, his sight grew very dim indeed.

     `Belle,' said the husband, turning to his wife with a
smile,' I saw an old friend of yours this afternoon.' 

     `Who was it.' 

     `Guess.' 

     `How can I. Tut, don't I know.' she added in the
same breath, laughing as he laughed. `Mr Scrooge.' 

     `Mr Scrooge it was. I passed his office window; and as
it was not shut up, and he had a candle inside, I could
scarcely help seeing him. His partner lies upon the point
of death, I hear; and there he sat alone. Quite alone in
the world, I do believe.' 

     `Spirit.' said Scrooge in a broken voice,' remove me
from this place.' 

     `I told you these were shadows of the things that have
been,' said the Ghost. `That they are what they are, do
not blame me.' 

     `Remove me.' Scrooge exclaimed,' I cannot bear it.' 

     He turned upon the Ghost, and seeing that it looked upon
him with a face, in which in some strange way there were
fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

     `Leave me. Take me back. Haunt me no longer.' 

     In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which
the Ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was
undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Scrooge observed
that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly
connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the
extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down
upon its head.

     The Spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher
covered its whole form; but though Scrooge pressed it down
with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed
from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

     He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an
irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own
bedroom.  He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand
relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank
into a heavy sleep.


Stave 3:  The Second of the Three Spirits

     Awaking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and
sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Scrooge had
no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the
stroke of One. He felt that he was restored to consciousness
in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding
a conference with the second messenger despatched to him
through Jacob Marley's intervention. But, finding that he
turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder which
of his curtains this new spectre would draw back, he put
them every one aside with his own hands, and lying down
again, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For,
he wished to challenge the Spirit on the moment of its
appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise, and
made nervous.

     Gentlemen of the free-and-easy sort, who plume themselves
on being acquainted with a move or two, and being usually
equal to the time-of-day, express the wide range of their 
capacity for adventure by observing that they are good for
anything from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter; between which
opposite extremes, no doubt, there lies a tolerably wide and
comprehensive range of subjects. Without venturing for
Scrooge quite as hardily as this, I don't mind calling on you
to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of
strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and
rhinoceros would have astonished him very much.

     Now, being prepared for almost anything, he was not by
any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the
Bell struck One, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a
violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter
of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay
upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy
light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the
hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than
a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it
meant, or would be at; and was sometimes apprehensive
that he might be at that very moment an interesting case of
spontaneous combustion, without having the consolation of
knowing it. At last, however, he began to think -- as you or
I would have thought at first; for it is always the person not
in the predicament who knows what ought to have been done
in it, and would unquestionably have done it too -- at last, I
say, he began to think that the source and secret of this
ghostly light might be in the adjoining room, from whence,
on further tracing it, it seemed to shine. This idea taking
full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in
his slippers to the door.

     The moment Scrooge's hand was on the lock, a strange
voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He
obeyed.

     It was his own room. There was no doubt about that.
But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls
and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a
perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming
berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and
ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had
been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring
up the chimney, as that dull petrification of a hearth had
never known in Scrooge's time, or Marley's, or for many and
many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form
a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn,
great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages,
mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts,
cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears,
immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that
made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy
state upon this couch, there sat a jolly Giant, glorious to
see:, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty's
horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Scrooge,
as he came peeping round the door.

     `Come in.' exclaimed the Ghost. `Come in. and know
me better, man.'

     Scrooge entered timidly, and hung his head before this
Spirit. He was not the dogged Scrooge he had been; and
though the Spirit's eyes were clear and kind, he did not like
to meet them.

     `I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,' said the Spirit.
`Look upon me.'

     Scrooge reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple
green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment
hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was
bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any
artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the 
garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other
covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining
icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its
genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice,
its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded
round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword
was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

     `You have never seen the like of me before.' exclaimed
the Spirit.

     `Never,' Scrooge made answer to it.

     `Have never walked forth with the younger members of
my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers
born in these later years.' pursued the Phantom.

     `I don't think I have,' said Scrooge. `I am afraid I have
not. Have you had many brothers, Spirit.' 

     `More than eighteen hundred,' said the Ghost.

     `A tremendous family to provide for.' muttered Scrooge.

     The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

     `Spirit,' said Scrooge submissively,' conduct me where
you will. I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learnt
a lesson which is working now. To-night, if you have aught
to teach me, let me profit by it.' 

     `Touch my robe.' 

     Scrooge did as he was told, and held it fast.

     Holly, mistletoe, red berries, ivy, turkeys, geese, game,
poultry, brawn, meat, pigs, sausages, oysters, pies, puddings,
fruit, and punch, all vanished instantly. So did the room,
the fire, the ruddy glow, the hour of night, and they stood
in the city streets on Christmas morning, where (for the
weather was severe) the people made a rough, but brisk and
not unpleasant kind of music, in scraping the snow from the
pavement in front of their dwellings, and from the tops of
their houses, whence it was mad delight to the boys to see
it come plumping down into the road below, and splitting
into artificial little snow-storms.

     The house fronts looked black enough, and the windows
blacker, contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow
upon the roofs, and with the dirtier snow upon the ground;
which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by
the heavy wheels of carts and waggons; furrows that crossed
and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great
streets branched off; and made intricate channels, hard to trace
in the thick yellow mud and icy water. The sky was gloomy,
and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist,
half thawed, half frozen, whose heavier particles descended
in shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great
Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away
to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful
in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of
cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest
summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain.

     For, the people who were shovelling away on the housetops
were jovial and full of glee; calling out to one another
from the parapets, and now and then exchanging a facetious
snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest --
laughing heartily if it went right and not less heartily if it
went wrong. The poulterers' shops were still half open, and
the fruiterers' were radiant in their glory. There were great,
round, pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts, shaped like the
waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen, lolling at the doors, and tumbling
out into the street in their apoplectic opulence. There were
ruddy, brown-faced, broad-girthed Spanish Friars, and winking
from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went 
by, and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe. There were
pears and apples, clustered high in blooming pyramids; there
were bunches of grapes, made, in the shopkeepers' benevolence
to dangle from conspicuous hooks, that people's mouths might
water gratis as they passed; there were piles of filberts, mossy
and brown, recalling, in their fragrance, ancient walks among
the woods, and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered
leaves; there were Norfolk Biffins, squab and swarthy, setting
off the yellow of the oranges and lemons, and, in the great
compactness of their juicy persons, urgently entreating and
beseeching to be carried home in paper bags and eaten after
dinner. The very gold and silver fish, set forth among
these choice fruits in a bowl, though members of a dull and
stagnant-blooded race, appeared to know that there was
something going on; and, to a fish, went gasping round and
round their little world in slow and passionless excitement.

     The Grocers'. oh the Grocers'. nearly closed, with perhaps
two shutters down, or one; but through those gaps such
glimpses. It was not alone that the scales descending on the
counter made a merry sound, or that the twine and roller
parted company so briskly, or that the canisters were rattled
up and down like juggling tricks, or even that the blended
scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose, or even
that the raisins were so plentiful and rare, the almonds so
extremely white, the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight,
the other spices so delicious, the candied fruits so caked and
spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on
feel faint and subsequently bilious. Nor was it that the figs
were moist and pulpy, or that the French plums blushed in
modest tartness from their highly-decorated boxes, or that
everything was good to eat and in its Christmas dress; but
the customers were all so hurried and so eager in the hopeful
promise of the day, that they tumbled up against each other
at the door, crashing their wicker baskets wildly, and left
their purchases upon the counter, and came running back to
fetch them, and committed hundreds of the like mistakes, in
the best humour possible; while the Grocer and his people
were so frank and fresh that the polished hearts with which
they fastened their aprons behind might have been their own,
worn outside for general inspection, and for Christmas daws
to peck at if they chose.

     But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and
chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in
their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the
same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and
nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners
to the baker' shops. The sight of these poor revellers
appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with
Scrooge beside him in a baker's doorway, and taking off the
covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their
dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind
of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words
between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he
shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good
humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame
to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love
it, so it was.

     In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and
yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners
and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of
wet above each baker's oven; where the pavement smoked as
if its stones were cooking too. 

     `Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from
your torch.' asked Scrooge.

     `There is. My own.' 

     `Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day.' 
asked Scrooge.

     `To any kindly given. To a poor one most.' 

     `Why to a poor one most.' asked Scrooge.

     `Because it needs it most.' 

     `Spirit,' said Scrooge, after a moment's thought,' I wonder
you, of all the beings in the many worlds about us, should
desire to cramp these people's opportunities of innocent
enjoyment.' 

     `I.' cried the Spirit.

     `You would deprive them of their means of dining every
seventh day, often the only day on which they can be said
to dine at all,' said Scrooge. `Wouldn't you.' 

     `I.' cried the Spirit.

     `You seek to close these places on the Seventh Day.' said
Scrooge. `And it comes to the same thing.' 

     `I seek.' exclaimed the Spirit.

     `Forgive me if I am wrong. It has been done in your
name, or at least in that of your family,' said Scrooge.

     `There are some upon this earth of yours,' returned the
Spirit,' who lay claim to know us, and who do their deeds
of passion, pride, ill-will, hatred, envy, bigotry, and
selfishness
in our name, who are as strange to us and all out kith and
kin, as if they had never lived. Remember that, and charge
their doings on themselves, not us.' 

     Scrooge promised that he would; and they went on,
invisible, as they had been before, into the suburbs of the
town. It was a remarkable quality of the Ghost (which
Scrooge had observed at the baker's), that notwithstanding
his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place
with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as
gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible
he could have done in any lofty hall.

     And perhaps it was the pleasure the good Spirit had in
showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind,
generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all poor
men, that led him straight to Scrooge's clerk's; for there he
went, and took Scrooge with him, holding to his robe; and
on the threshold of the door the Spirit smiled, and stopped
to bless Bob Cratchit's dwelling with the sprinkling of his
torch. Think of that. Bob had but fifteen bob a-week
himself; he pocketed on Saturdays but fifteen copies of his
Christian name; and yet the Ghost of Christmas Present
blessed his four-roomed house.

     Then up rose Mrs Cratchit, Cratchit's wife, dressed out
but poorly in a twice-turned gown, but brave in ribbons,
which are cheap and make a goodly show for sixpence; and
she laid the cloth, assisted by Belinda Cratchit, second of
her daughters, also brave in ribbons; while Master Peter
Cratchit plunged a fork into the saucepan of potatoes, and
getting the corners of his monstrous shirt collar (Bob's private
property, conferred upon his son and heir in honour of the
day) into his mouth, rejoiced to find himself so gallantly
attired, and yearned to show his linen in the fashionable Parks.
And now two smaller Cratchits, boy and girl, came tearing
in, screaming that outside the baker's they had smelt the
e the baker's they had smelt the
goose, and known it for their own; and basking in luxurious
thoughts of sage and onion, these young Cratchits danced
about the table, and exalted Master Peter Cratchit to the
skies, while he (not proud, although his collars nearly choked
him) blew the fire, until the slow potatoes bubbling up,
knocked loudly at the saucepan-lid to be let out and
peeled.

     `What has ever got your precious father then.' said Mrs 
Cratchit. `And your brother, Tiny Tim. And Martha
warn't as late last Christmas Day by half-an-hour.' 


     `Here's Martha, mother.' said a girl, appearing as she
spoke.

     `Here's Martha, mother.' cried the two young Cratchits.
`Hurrah. There's such a goose, Martha.' 

     `Why, bless your heart alive, my dear, how late you are.' 
said Mrs Cratchit, kissing her a dozen times, and taking off
her shawl and bonnet for her with officious zeal.

     `We'd a deal of work to finish up last night,' replied the
girl,' and had to clear away this morning, mother.' 

     `Well. Never mind so long as you are come,' said Mrs
Cratchit. `Sit ye down before the fire, my dear, and have
a warm, Lord bless ye.' 

     `No, no. There's father coming,' cried the two young
Cratchits, who were everywhere at once. `Hide, Martha,
hide.' 

     So Martha hid herself, and in came little Bob, the father,
with at least three feet of comforter exclusive of the fringe,
hanging down before him; and his threadbare clothes darned
up and brushed, to look seasonable; and Tiny Tim upon his
shoulder. Alas for Tiny Tim, he bore a little crutch, and
had his limbs supported by an iron frame.

     `Why, where's our Martha.' cried Bob Cratchit, looking
round.

     `Not coming,' said Mrs Cratchit.

     `Not coming.' said Bob, with a sudden declension in his
high spirits; for he had been Tim's blood horse all the way
from church, and had come home rampant. `Not coming
upon Christmas Day.' 

     Martha didn't like to see him disappointed, if it were only
in joke; so she came out prematurely from behind the closet
door, and ran into his arms, while the two young Cratchits
hustled Tiny Tim, and bore him off into the wash-house,
that he might hear the pudding singing in the copper.

     `And how did little Tim behave. asked Mrs Cratchit,
when she had rallied Bob on his credulity, and Bob had
hugged his daughter to his heart's content.

     `As good as gold,' said Bob,' and better. Somehow he
gets thoughtful, sitting by himself so much, and thinks the
strangest things you ever heard. He told me, coming home,
that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he
was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember
upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind
men see.' 

     Bob's voice was tremulous when he told them this, and
trembled more when he said that Tiny Tim was growing
strong and hearty.

     His active little crutch was heard upon the floor, and back
came Tiny Tim before another word was spoken, escorted by
his brother and sister to his stool before the fire; and while
Bob, turning up his cuffs -- as if, poor fellow, they were
capable of being made more shabby -- compounded some hot
mixture in a jug with gin and lemons, and stirred it round
and round and put it on the hob to simmer; Master Peter,
and the two ubiquitous young Cratchits went to fetch the
goose, with which they soon returned in high procession.

     Such a bustle ensued that you might have thought a goose
the rarest of all birds; a feathered phenomenon, to which a
black swan was a matter of course -- and in truth it was
something very like it in that house. Mrs Cratchit made
the gravy (ready beforehand in a little saucepan) hissing hot;
Master Peter mashed the potatoes with incredible vigour;
Miss Belinda sweetened up the apple-sauce; Martha dusted
the hot plates; Bob took Tiny Tim beside him in a tiny
corner at the table; the two young Cratchits set chairs for
everybody, not forgetting themselves, and mounting guard 
upon their posts, crammed spoons into their mouths, lest
they should shriek for goose before their turn came to be
helped. At last the dishes were set on, and grace was
said. It was succeeded by a breathless pause, as Mrs
Cratchit, looking slowly all along the carving-knife, prepared
to plunge it in the breast; but when she did, and when the
long expected gush of stuffing issued forth, one murmur of
delight arose all round the board, and even Tiny Tim,
excited by the two young Cratchits, beat on the table with
the handle of his knife, and feebly cried Hurrah.

     There never was such a goose. Bob said he didn't believe
there ever was such a goose cooked. Its tenderness and
flavour, size and cheapness, were the themes of universal
admiration. Eked out by apple-sauce and mashed potatoes,
it was a sufficient dinner for the whole family; indeed, as
Mrs Cratchit said with great delight (surveying one small
atom of a bone upon the dish), they hadn't ate it all at
last. Yet every one had had enough, and the youngest
Cratchits in particular, were steeped in sage and onion to
the eyebrows. But now, the plates being changed by Miss
Belinda, Mrs Cratchit left the room alone -- too nervous to
bear witnesses -- to take the pudding up and bring it in.

     Suppose it should not be done enough. Suppose it should
break in turning out. Suppose somebody should have got
over the wall of the back-yard, and stolen it, while they
were merry with the goose -- a supposition at which the two
young Cratchits became livid. All sorts of horrors were
supposed.

     Hallo. A great deal of steam. The pudding was out of
the copper. A smell like a washing-day. That was the
cloth. A smell like an eating-house and a pastrycook's next
door to each other, with a laundress's next door to that.
That was the pudding. In half a minute Mrs Cratchit
entered -- flushed, but smiling proudly -- with the pudding,
like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half
of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, and bedight with
Christmas holly stuck into the top.

     Oh, a wonderful pudding. Bob Cratchit said, and calmly
too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by
Mrs Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs Cratchit said that
now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had
had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had
something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it
was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have
been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed
to hint at such a thing.

     At last the dinner was all done, the cloth was cleared, the
hearth swept, and the fire made up. The compound in the
jug being tasted, and considered perfect, apples and oranges
were put upon the table, and a shovel-full of chestnuts on the
fire. Then all the Cratchit family drew round the hearth, in
what Bob Cratchit called a circle, meaning half a one; and
at Bob Cratchit's elbow stood the family display of glass.
Two tumblers, and a custard-cup without a handle.

     These held the hot stuff from the jug, however, as well as
golden goblets would have done; and Bob served it out with
beaming looks, while the chestnuts on the fire sputtered and
cracked noisily. Then Bob proposed:

     `A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears. God bless us.' 

     Which all the family re-echoed.

     `God bless us every one.' said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

     He sat very close to his father's side upon his little
stool.
Bob held his withered little hand in his, as if he loved the 
child, and wished to keep him by his side, and dreaded that
he might be taken from him.

     `Spirit,' said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt
before, `tell me if Tiny Tim will live.' 

     `I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, `in the poor
chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully
preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future,
the child will die.' 

     `No, no,' said Scrooge. `Oh, no, kind Spirit. say he
will be spared.' 

     `If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, none
other of my race,' returned the Ghost, `will find him here.
What then. If he be like to die, he had better do it, and
decrease the surplus population.' 

     Scrooge hung his head to hear his own words quoted by
the Spirit, and was overcome with penitence and grief.
     `Man,' said the Ghost, `if man you be in heart, not
adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered
What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what
men shall live, what men shall die. It may be, that in the
sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live
than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God. to hear
the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life
among his hungry brothers in the dust.' 

     Scrooge bent before the Ghost's rebuke, and trembling cast
his eyes upon the ground. But he raised them speedily, on
hearing his own name.

     `Mr Scrooge.' said Bob; `I'll give you Mr Scrooge, the
Founder of the Feast.' 

     `The Founder of the Feast indeed.' cried Mrs Cratchit,
reddening. `I wish I had him here. I'd give him a piece
of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he'd have a good
appetite for it.' 

     `My dear,' said Bob, `the children. Christmas Day.' 

     `It should be Christmas Day, I am sure,' said she, `on
which one drinks the health of such an odious, stingy, hard,
unfeeling man as Mr Scrooge. You know he is, Robert.
Nobody knows it better than you do, poor fellow.' 

     `My dear,' was Bob's mild answer, `Christmas Day.' 

     `I'll drink his health for your sake and the Day's,' said
Mrs Cratchit, `not for his. Long life to him. A merry
Christmas and a happy new year. He'll be very merry and
very happy, I have no doubt.' 

     The children drank the toast after her. It was the first of
their proceedings which had no heartiness. Tiny Tim drank
it last of all, but he didn't care twopence for it. Scrooge
was the Ogre of the family. The mention of his name cast
a dark shadow on the party, which was not dispelled for full
five minutes.

     After it had passed away, they were ten times merrier than
before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done
with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his
eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full
five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed
tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business;
and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from
between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular
investments he should favour when he came into the receipt
of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor
apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work
she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch,
and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a
good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at
home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some
days before, and how the lord was much about as tall as
Peter;' at which Peter pulled up his collars so high that you 
couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this
time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and
by-and-bye they had a song, about a lost child travelling in
the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice,
and sang it very well indeed.

     There was nothing of high mark in this. They were not
a handsome family; they were not well dressed; their shoes
were far from being water-proof; their clothes were scanty;
and Peter might have known, and very likely did, the inside
of a pawnbroker's. But, they were happy, grateful, pleased
with one another, and contented with the time; and when
they faded, and looked happier yet in the bright sprinklings
of the Spirit's torch at parting, Scrooge had his eye upon
them, and especially on Tiny Tim, until the last.

     By this time it was getting dark, and snowing pretty
heavily; and as Scrooge and the Spirit went along the streets,
the brightness of the roaring fires in kitchens, parlours, and
all sorts of rooms, was wonderful. Here, the flickering of
the blaze showed preparations for a cosy dinner, with hot
plates baking through and through before the fire, and deep
red curtains, ready to be drawn to shut out cold and darkness.
There all the children of the house were running out
into the snow to meet their married sisters, brothers, cousins,
uncles, aunts, and be the first to greet them. Here, again,
were shadows on the window-blind of guests assembling; and
there a group of handsome girls, all hooded and fur-booted,
and all chattering at once, tripped lightly off to some near
neighbour's house; where, woe upon the single man who saw
them enter -- artful witches, well they knew it -- in a glow.

     But, if you had judged from the numbers of people on
their way to friendly gatherings, you might have thought
that no one was at home to give them welcome when they
got there, instead of every house expecting company, and
piling up its fires half-chimney high. Blessings on it, how
the Ghost exulted. How it bared its breadth of breast, and
opened its capacious palm, and floated on, outpouring, with
a generous hand, its bright and harmless mirth on everything
within its reach. The very lamplighter, who ran on before,
dotting the dusky street with specks of light, and who was
dressed to spend the evening somewhere, laughed out loudly
as the Spirit passed, though little kenned the lamplighter
that he had any company but Christmas.

     And now, without a word of warning from the Ghost, they
stood upon a bleak and desert moor, where monstrous masses
of rude stone were cast about, as though it were the burial-place
of giants; and water spread itself wheresoever it listed,
or would have done so, but for the frost that held it prisoner;
and nothing grew but moss and furze, and coarse rank grass.
Down in the west the setting sun had left a streak of fiery
red, which glared upon the desolation for an instant, like a
sullen eye, and frowning lower, lower, lower yet, was lost in
the thick gloom of darkest night.

     `What place is this.' asked Scrooge.

     `A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of
the earth,' returned the Spirit. `But they know me. See.' 

     Alight shone from the window of a hut, and swiftly they
advanced towards it. Passing through the wall of mud and
stone, they found a cheerful company assembled round a
glowing fire. An old, old man and woman, with their
children and their children's children, and another generation
beyond that, all decked out gaily in their holiday attire.
The old man, in a voice that seldom rose above the howling
of the wind upon the barren waste, was singing them a 
Christmas song -- it had been a very old song when he was a
boy -- and from time to time they all joined in the chorus.
So surely as they raised their voices, the old man got quite
blithe and loud; and so surely as they stopped, his vigour
sank again.

     The Spirit did not tarry here, but bade Scrooge hold his
robe, and passing on above the moor, sped -- whither. Not
to sea. To sea. To Scrooge's horror, looking back, he saw
the last of the land, a frightful range of rocks, behind them;
and his ears were deafened by the thundering of water, as it
rolled and roared, and raged among the dreadful caverns it
had worn, and fiercely tried to undermine the earth.

     Built upon a dismal reef of sunken rocks, some league
or so from shore, on which the waters chafed and dashed,
the wild year through, there stood a solitary lighthouse.
Great heaps of sea-weed clung to its base, and storm-birds
-- born of the wind one might suppose, as sea-weed of the
water -- rose and fell about it, like the waves they skimmed.

     But even here, two men who watched the light had made
a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed
out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their
horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they
wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and
one of them: the elder, too, with his face all damaged and
scarred with hard weather, as the figure-head of an old ship
might be: struck up a sturdy song that was like a Gale in
itself.

     Again the Ghost sped on, above the black and heaving sea
-- on, on -- until, being far away, as he told Scrooge, from any
shore, they lighted on a ship. They stood beside the helmsman
at the wheel, the look-out in the bow, the officers who
had the watch; dark, ghostly figures in their several stations;
but every man among them hummed a Christmas tune, or
had a Christmas thought, or spoke below his breath to his
companion of some bygone Christmas Day, with homeward
hopes belonging to it. And every man on board, waking or
sleeping, good or bad, had had a kinder word for another
on that day than on any day in the year; and had shared
to some extent in its festivities; and had remembered those
he cared for at a distance, and had known that they delighted
to remember him.

     It was a great surprise to Scrooge, while listening to the
moaning of the wind, and thinking what a solemn thing it
was to move on through the lonely darkness over an unknown
abyss, whose depths were secrets as profound as Death: it
was a great surprise to Scrooge, while thus engaged, to hear
a hearty laugh. It was a much greater surprise to Scrooge
to recognise it as his own nephew's and to find himself in a
bright, dry, gleaming room, with the Spirit standing smiling
by his side, and looking at that same nephew with approving
affability.

     `Ha, ha.' laughed Scrooge's nephew. `Ha, ha, ha.' 

     If you should happen, by any unlikely chance, to know a
man more blest in a laugh than Scrooge's nephew, all I can
say is, I should like to know him too. Introduce him to me,
and I'll cultivate his acquaintance.

     It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that
while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing
in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and
good-humour. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way: holding
his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the
most extravagant contortions: Scrooge's niece, by marriage,
laughed as heartily as he. And their assembled friends being
not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily.

     `Ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha, ha.' 

     `He said that Christmas was a humbug, as I live.' cried
Scrooge's nephew. `He believed it too.' 

     `More shame for him, Fred.' said Scrooge's niece, 
indignantly. Bless those women; they never do anything by
halves. They are always in earnest.

     She was very pretty: exceedingly pretty. With a dimpled,
surprised-looking, capital face; a ripe little mouth, that
seemed made to be kissed -- as no doubt it was; all kinds of
good little dots about her chin, that melted into one another
when she laughed; and the sunniest pair of eyes you ever
saw in any little creature's head. Altogether she was what
you would have called provoking, you know; but satisfactory,

     `He's a comical old fellow,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that's
the truth: and not so pleasant as he might be. However,
his offences carry their own punishment, and I have nothing
to say against him.' 

     `I'm sure he is very rich, Fred,' hinted Scrooge's niece.
`At least you always tell me so.' 

     `What of that, my dear.' said Scrooge's nephew. `His
wealth is of no use to him. He don't do any good with it.
He don't make himself comfortable with it. He hasn't the
satisfaction of thinking -- ha, ha, ha. -- that he is ever going
to benefit us with it.' 

     `I have no patience with him,' observed Scrooge's niece.
Scrooge's niece's sisters, and all the other ladies, expressed
the same opinion.

     `Oh, I have.' said Scrooge's nephew. `I am sorry for
him; I couldn't be angry with him if I tried. Who suffers
by his ill whims. Himself, always. Here, he takes it into
his head to dislike us, and he won't come and dine with us.
What's the consequence. He don't lose much of a dinner.' 

     `Indeed, I think he loses a very good dinner,' interrupted
Scrooge's niece. Everybody else said the same, and they
must be allowed to have been competent judges, because
they had just had dinner; and, with the dessert upon the
table, were clustered round the fire, by lamplight.

     `Well. I'm very glad to hear it,' said Scrooge's nephew,
`because I haven't great faith in these young housekeepers.
What do you say, Topper.' 

     Topper had clearly got his eye upon one of Scrooge's niece's
sisters, for he answered that a bachelor was a wretched outcast,
who had no right to express an opinion on the subject.
Whereat Scrooge's niece's sister -- the plump one with the lace
tucker: not the one with the roses -- blushed.

     `Do go on, Fred,' said Scrooge's niece, clapping her hands.
`He never finishes what he begins to say. He is such a
ridiculous fellow.' 

     Scrooge's nephew revelled in another laugh, and as it was
impossible to keep the infection off; though the plump sister
tried hard to do it with aromatic vinegar; his example was
unanimously followed.

     `I was only going to say,' said Scrooge's nephew,' that
the consequence of his taking a dislike to us, and not making
merry with us, is, as I think, that he loses some pleasant
moments, which could do him no harm. I am sure he loses
pleasanter companions than he can find in his own thoughts,
either in his mouldy old office, or his dusty chambers. I
mean to give him the same chance every year, whether he
likes it or not, for I pity him. He may rail at Christmas
till he dies, but he can't help thinking better of it -- I defy
him -- if he finds me going there, in good temper, year after
year, and saying Uncle Scrooge, how are you. If it only
puts him in the vein to leave his poor clerk fifty pounds,
that's something; and I think I shook him yesterday.' 

     It was their turn to laugh now at the notion of his shaking
Scrooge. But being thoroughly good-natured, and not much
caring what they laughed at, so that they laughed at any
rate, he encouraged them in their merriment, and passed the
bottle joyously.

     After tea. they had some music. For they were a musical
family, and knew what they were about, when they sung a
Glee or Catch, I can assure you: especially Topper, who
could growl away in the bass like a good one, and never
swell the large veins in his forehead, or get red in the face
over it. Scrooge's niece played well upon the harp; and
played among other tunes a simple little air (a mere nothing:
you might learn to whistle it in two minutes), which had
been familiar to the child who fetched Scrooge from the
boarding-school, as he had been reminded by the Ghost of
Christmas Past. When this strain of music sounded, all the
things that Ghost had shown him, came upon his mind; he
softened more and more; and thought that if he could have
listened to it often, years ago, he might have cultivated the
kindnesses of life for his own happiness with his own hands,
without resorting to the sexton's spade that buried Jacob
Marley.

     But they didn't devote the whole evening to music. After
a while they played at forfeits; for it is good to be children
sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its
mighty Founder was a child himself. Stop. There was first
a game at blind-man's buff. Of course there was. And I
no more believe Topper was really blind than I believe he
had eyes in his boots. My opinion is, that it was a done
thing between him and Scrooge's nephew; and that the
Ghost of Christmas Present knew it. The way he went after
that plump sister in the lace tucker, was an outrage on the
credulity of human nature. Knocking down the fire-irons,
tumbling over the chairs, bumping against the piano,
smothering himself among the curtains, wherever she went,
there went he. He always knew where the plump sister was.
He wouldn't catch anybody else. If you had fallen up
against him (as some of them did), on purpose, he would
have made a feint of endeavouring to seize you, which would
have been an affront to your understanding, and would instantly
have sidled off in the direction of the plump sister.
She often cried out that it wasn't fair; and it really was not.
But when at last, he caught her; when, in spite of all her
silken rustlings, and her rapid flutterings past him, he got
her into a corner whence there was no escape; then his
conduct was the most execrable. For his pretending not to
know her; his pretending that it was necessary to touch her
head-dress, and further to assure himself of her identity by
pressing a certain ring upon her finger, and a certain chain
about her neck; was vile, monstrous. No doubt she told
him her opinion of it, when, another blind-man being in
office, they were so very confidential together, behind the
curtains.

     Scrooge's niece was not one of the blind-man's buff party,
but was made comfortable with a large chair and a footstool,
in a snug corner, where the Ghost and Scrooge were close
behind her. But she joined in the forfeits, and loved her
love to admiration with all the letters of the alphabet.
Likewise at the game of How, When, and Where, she was
very great, and to the secret joy of Scrooge's nephew, beat
her sisters hollow: though they were sharp girls too, as
could have told you. There might have been twenty people there,
young and old, but they all played, and so did Scrooge, for,
wholly forgetting the interest he had in what was going on, that
his voice made no sound in their ears, he sometimes came out with
his guess quite loud, and very often guessed quite right, too;
for the sharpest needle, best Whitechapel, warranted not to cut
in the eye, was not sharper than Scrooge; blunt as he took it in
his head to be.

     The Ghost was greatly pleased to find him in this mood,
and looked upon him with such favour, that he begged like
a boy to be allowed to stay until the guests departed. But
this the Spirit said could not be done.

     `Here is a new game,' said Scrooge. `One half hour,
Spirit, only one.' 

     It was a Game called Yes and No, where Scrooge's nephew
had to think of something, and the rest must find out what;
he only answering to their questions yes or no, as the case
was. The brisk fire of questioning to which he was exposed,
elicited from him that he was thinking of an animal, a live
animal, rather a disagreeable animal, a savage animal, an
animal that growled and grunted sometimes, and talked sometimes,
and lived in London, and walked about the streets,
and wasn't made a show of, and wasn't led by anybody, and
didn't live in a menagerie, and was never killed in a market,
and was not a horse, or an ass, or a cow, or a bull, or a
tiger, or a dog, or a pig, or a cat, or a bear. At every fresh
question that was put to him, this nephew burst into a
fresh roar of laughter; and was so inexpressibly tickled, that
he was obliged to get up off the sofa and stamp. At last
the plump sister, falling into a similar state, cried out:

     `I have found it out. I know what it is, Fred. I know
what it is.' 

     `What is it.' cried Fred.

     `It's your Uncle Scrooge.' 

     Which it certainly was. Admiration was the universal
sentiment, though some objected that the reply to `Is it a
bear.' ought to have been `Yes;' inasmuch as an answer
in the negative was sufficient to have diverted their thoughts
from Mr Scrooge, supposing they had ever had any tendency
that way.

     `He has given us plenty of merriment, I am sure,' said
Fred,' and it would be ungrateful not to drink his health.
Here is a glass of mulled wine ready to our hand at the
moment; and I say, "Uncle Scrooge."'

     `Well. Uncle Scrooge.' they cried.

     `A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to the old
man, whatever he is.' said Scrooge's nephew. `He wouldn't
take it from me, but may he have it, nevertheless. Uncle
Scrooge.' 

     Uncle Scrooge had imperceptibly become so gay and light
of heart, that he would have pledged the unconscious
company in return, and thanked them in an inaudible speech,
if the Ghost had given him time. But the whole scene
passed off in the breath of the last word spoken by his
nephew; and he and the Spirit were again upon their travels.

     Much they saw, and far they went, and many homes they
visited, but always with a happy end. The Spirit stood
beside sick beds, and they were cheerful; on foreign lands,
and they were close at home; by struggling men, and they
were patient in their greater hope; by poverty, and it was
rich. In almshouse, hospital, and jail, in misery's every
refuge, where vain man in his little brief authority had not
made fast the door and barred the Spirit out, he left his
blessing, and taught Scrooge his precepts.

     It was a long night, if it were only a night; but Scrooge
had his doubts of this, because the Christmas Holidays appeared
to be condensed into the space of time they passed
together. It was strange, too, that while Scrooge remained
unaltered in his outward form, the Ghost grew older, clearly
older. Scrooge had observed this change, but never spoke of 
it, until they left a children's Twelfth Night party, when,
looking at the Spirit as they stood together in an open place,
he noticed that its hair was grey.

     `Are spirits' lives so short.' asked Scrooge.

     `My life upon this globe, is very brief,' replied the Ghost.
`It ends to-night.' 

     `To-night.' cried Scrooge.

     `To-night at midnight. Hark. The time is drawing
near.' 

     The chimes were ringing the three quarters past eleven at
that moment.

     `Forgive me if I am not justified in what I ask,' said
Scrooge, looking intently at the Spirit's robe,' but I see
something strange, and not belonging to yourself, protruding
from your skirts. Is it a foot or a claw.' 

     `It might be a claw, for the flesh there is upon it,' was
the Spirit's sorrowful reply. `Look here.' 

     From the foldings of its robe, it brought two children;
wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt
down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment.

     `Oh, Man. look here. Look, look, down here.' exclaimed
the Ghost.

     They were a boy and a girl. Yellow, meagre, ragged,
scowling, wolfish; but prostrate, too, in their humility. Where
graceful youth should have filled their features out, and
touched them with its freshest tints, a stale and shrivelled
hand, like that of age, had pinched, and twisted them, and
pulled them into shreds. Where angels might have sat
enthroned, devils lurked, and glared out menacing. No
change, no degradation, no perversion of humanity, in any
grade, through all the mysteries of wonderful creation, has
monsters half so horrible and dread.

     Scrooge started back, appalled. Having them shown to
him in this way, he tried to say they were fine children, but
the words choked themselves, rather than be parties to a lie
of such enormous magnitude.

     `Spirit. are they yours.' Scrooge could say no more.

     `They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon
them. `And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers.
This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both,
and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for
on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the
writing be erased. Deny it.' cried the Spirit, stretching out
its hand towards the city. `Slander those who tell it ye.
Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse.
And abide the end.' 

     `Have they no refuge or resource.' cried Scrooge.

     `Are there no prisons.' said the Spirit, turning on him
for the last time with his own words. `Are there no workhouses.' 
The bell struck twelve.

     Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it 
not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the
prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting
up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and
hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards
him.


Stave 4:  The Last of the Spirits

     The Phantom slowly, gravely, silently approached. When
it came, Scrooge bent down upon his knee; for in
the very air through which this Spirit moved it seemed to
scatter gloom and mystery.

     It was shrouded in a deep black garment, which concealed
its head, its face, its form, and left nothing of it visible 
save one outstretched hand. But for this it would have been
difficult to detach its figure from the night, and separate it
from the darkness by which it was surrounded.

     He felt that it was tall and stately when it came beside
him, and that its mysterious presence filled him with a 
solemn dread. He knew no more, for the Spirit neither
spoke nor moved.

     `I am in the presence of the Ghost of Christmas Yet To
Come.' said Scrooge.

     The Spirit answered not, but pointed onward with its
hand.

     `You are about to show me shadows of the things that
have not happened, but will happen in the time before us,' 
Scrooge pursued. `Is that so, Spirit.' 

     The upper portion of the garment was contracted for an
instant in its folds, as if the Spirit had inclined its head.
That was the only answer he received.

     Although well used to ghostly company by this time,
Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled
beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when
he prepared to follow it. The Spirit pauses a moment, as
observing his condition, and giving him time to recover.

     But Scrooge was all the worse for this. It thrilled him
with a vague uncertain horror, to know that behind the
dusky shroud, there were ghostly eyes intently fixed upon
him, while he, though he stretched his own to the utmost,
could see nothing but a spectral hand and one great heap
of black.

     `Ghost of the Future.' he exclaimed,' I fear you more
than any spectre I have seen. But as I know your purpose
is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another
man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company,
and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak
to me.' 

     It gave him no reply. The hand was pointed straight
before them.

     `Lead on.' said Scrooge. `Lead on. The night is
waning fast, and it is precious time to me, I know. Lead
on, Spirit.' 

     The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him.
Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him
up, he thought, and carried him along.

     They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather
seemed to spring up about them, and encompass them of its
own act. But there they were, in the heart of it; on
Change, amongst the merchants; who hurried up and down,
and chinked the money in their pockets, and conversed in
groups, and looked at their watches, and trifled thoughtfully
with their great gold seals; and so forth, as Scrooge had
seen them often.

     The Spirit stopped beside one little knot of business men.
Observing that the hand was pointed to them, Scrooge
advanced to listen to their talk.

     `No,' said a great fat man with a monstrous chin,' I
don't know much about it, either way. I only know he's
dead.' 

     `When did he die.' inquired another.

     `Last night, I believe.' 

     `Why, what was the matter with him.' asked a third,
taking a vast quantity of snuff out of a very large snuff-box.
`I thought he'd never die.' 

     `God knows,' said the first, with a yawn.

     `What has he done with his money.' asked a red-faced
gentleman with a pendulous excrescence on the end of his
nose, that shook like the gills of a turkey-cock.

     `I haven't heard,' said the man with the large chin, 
yawning again. `Left it to his company, perhaps. He hasn't
left it to me. That's all I know.' 

     This pleasantry was received with a general laugh.

     `It's likely to be a very cheap funeral,' said the same
speaker;' for upon my life I don't know of anybody to go
to it. Suppose we make up a party and volunteer.' 

     `I don't mind going if a lunch is provided,' observed the
gentleman with the excrescence on his nose. `But I must
be fed, if I make one.' 

     Another laugh.

     `Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all,' 
said the first speaker,' for I never wear black gloves, and I
never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will.
When I come to think of it, I <m not at all sure that I wasn't
his most particular friend; for we used to stop and speak
whenever we met. Bye, bye.' 

     Speakers and listeners strolled away, and mixed with 
other groups. Scrooge knew the men, and looked towards the
Spirit for an explanation.

     The Phantom glided on into a street. Its finger pointed
to two persons meeting. Scrooge listened again, thinking
that the explanation might lie here.

     He knew these men, also, perfectly. They were men of aye
business:  very wealthy, and of great importance. He had made
a point always of standing well in their esteem: in a business
point of view, that is; strictly in a business point of view.

     `How are you.' said one.

     `How are you.' returned the other.

     `Well.' said the first. `Old Scratch has got his own at
last, hey.' 

     `So I am told,' returned the second. `Cold, isn't it.' 

     `Seasonable for Christmas time. You're not a skater, I
suppose.' 

     `No. No. Something else to think of. Good morning.' 

     Not another word. That was their meeting, their
conversation, and their parting.

     Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the
Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so
trivial; but feeling assured that they must have some hidden
purpose, he set himself to consider what it was likely to be.
They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the
death of Jacob, his old partner, for that was Past, and this
Ghost's province was the Future. Nor could he think of any
one immediately connected with himself, to whom he could
apply them. But nothing doubting that to whomsoever
they applied they had some latent moral for his own improvement,
he resolved to treasure up every word he heard,
and everything he saw; and especially to observe the
shadow of himself when it appeared. For he had an expectation
that the conduct of his future self would give him
the clue he missed, and would render the solution of these
riddles easy.

     He looked about in that very place for his own image; but
another man stood in his accustomed corner, and though the
clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there, he
saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured
in through the Porch. It gave him little surprise, however;
for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life, and
thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried
out in this.

     Quiet and dark, beside him stood the Phantom, with its
outstretched hand. When he roused himself from his
thoughtful quest, he fancied from the turn of the hand, and
its situation in reference to himself, that the Unseen Eyes
were looking at him keenly. It made him shudder, and feel
very cold.

     They left the busy scene, and went into an obscure part
of the town, where Scrooge had never penetrated before,
although he recognised its situation, and its bad repute. The
ways were foul and narrow; the shops and houses wretched;
the people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys and
archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged their offences of
smell, and dirt, and life, upon the straggling streets; and the
whole quarter reeked with crime, with filth, and misery.

     Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a low-browed,
beetling shop, below a pent-house roof, where iron, old rags,
bottles, bones, and greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor 
within, were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges,
files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all kinds. Secrets
that few would like to scrutinise were bred and hidden in
mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat, and
sepulchres of bones. Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a
charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a grey-haired rascal,
nearly seventy years of age; who had screened himself from the
cold air without, by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous
tatters, hung upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury
of calm retirement.

     Scrooge and the Phantom came into the presence of this
man, just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the
shop. But she had scarcely entered, when another woman,
similarly laden, came in too; and she was closely followed by
a man in faded black, who was no less startled by the sight
of them, than they had been upon the recognition of each
other. After a short period of blank astonishment, in which
the old man with the pipe had joined them, they all three
burst into a laugh.

     `Let the charwoman alone to be the first.' cried she who
had entered first. `Let the laundress alone to be the second;
and let the undertaker's man alone to be the third. Look
here, old Joe, here's a chance. If we haven't all three met
here without meaning it.' 

     `You couldn't have met in a better place,' said old Joe,
removing his pipe from his mouth. `Come into the parlour.
You were made free of it long ago, you know; and the other
two an't strangers. Stop till I shut the door of the shop.
Ah. How it skreeks. There an't such a rusty bit of metal
in the place as its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's
no such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha. We're all suitable
to our calling, we're well matched. Come into the
parlour. Come into the parlour.' 

     The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. The
old man raked the fire together with an old stair-rod, and
having trimmed his smoky lamp (for it was night), with the
stem of his pipe, put it in his mouth again.

     While he did this, the woman who had already spoken
threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down in a flaunting
manner on a stool; crossing her elbows on her knees, and
looking with a bold defiance at the other two.

     `What odds then. What odds, Mrs Dilber.' said the
woman. `Every person has a right to take care of themselves.
He always did.' 

     `That's true, indeed.' said the laundress. `No man
more so.' 

     `Why then, don't stand staring as if you was afraid,
woman; who's the wiser. We're not going to pick holes in
each other's coats, I suppose.' 

     `No, indeed.' said Mrs Dilber and the man together.
`We should hope not.' 

     `Very well, then.' cried the woman. `That's enough.
Who's the worse for the loss of a few things like these.
Not a dead man, I suppose.' 

     `No, indeed,' said Mrs Dilber, laughing.

     `If he wanted to keep them after he was dead, a wicked old
screw,' pursued the woman,' why wasn't he natural in his
lifetime. If he had been, he'd have had somebody to look
after him when he was struck with Death, instead of lying
gasping out his last there, alone by himself.' 

     `It's the truest word that ever was spoke,' said Mrs
Dilber. `It's a judgment on him.' 

     `I wish it was a little heavier judgment,' replied the
woman;' and it should have been, you may depend upon it,
if I could have laid my hands on anything else. Open that
bundle, old Joe, and let me know the value of it. Speak out 
plain. I'm not afraid to be the first, nor afraid for them to
see it. We know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,
before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the bundle,
Joe.' 

     But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of this;
and the man in faded black, mounting the breach first,
produced his plunder. It was not extensive. A seal or two,
a pencil-case, a pair of sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no
great value, were all. They were severally examined and
appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was disposed
to give for each, upon the wall, and added them up into a
total when he found there was nothing more to come.

     `That's your account,' said Joe,' and I wouldn't give
another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not doing it.
Who's next.' 

     Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little wearing
apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons, a pair of
sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account was stated on the wall
in the same manner.

     `I always give too much to ladies. It's a weakness of mine,
and that's the way I ruin myself,' said old Joe. `That's
your account. If you asked me for another penny, and made
it an open question, I'd repent of being so liberal and knock
off half-a-crown.' 

     `And now undo my bundle, Joe,' said the first woman.

     Joe went down on his knees for the greater convenience
of opening it, and having unfastened a great many knots,
dragged out a large and heavy roll of some dark stuff.

     `What do you call this.' said Joe. `Bed-curtains.' 

     `Ah.' returned the woman, laughing and leaning forward
on her crossed arms. `Bed-curtains.' 

     `You don't mean to say you took them down, rings and
all, with him lying there.' said Joe.

     `Yes I do,' replied the woman. `Why not.' 

     `You were born to make your fortune,' said Joe,' and
you'll certainly do it.' 

     `I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get anything
in it by reaching it out, for the sake of such a man as he
was, I promise you, Joe,' returned the woman coolly. `Don't
drop that oil upon the blankets, now.' 

     `His blankets.' asked Joe.

     `Whose else's do you think.' replied the woman. `He
isn't likely to take cold without them, I dare say.' 

     `I hope he didn't die of any thing catching. Eh.' said
old Joe, stopping in his work, and looking up.

     `Don't you be afraid of that,' returned the woman. `I
an't so fond of his company that I'd loiter about him for
such things, if he did. Ah. you may look through that
shirt till your eyes ache; but you won't find a hole in it, nor
a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine one too.
They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.' 

     `What do you call wasting of it.' asked old Joe.

     `Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,' replied
the woman with a laugh. `Somebody was fool enough to
do it, but I took it off again. If calico an't good enough for
such a purpose, it isn't good enough for anything. It's quite
as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than he did
in that one.' 

     Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat
grouped about their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by
the old man's lamp, he viewed them with a detestation and
disgust, which could hardly have been greater, though they
demons, marketing the corpse itself.

     `Ha, ha.' laughed the same woman, when old Joe,
producing a flannel bag with money in it, told out their
several gains upon the ground. `This is the end of it, you
see. He frightened every one away from him when he was 
alive, to profit us when he was dead. Ha, ha, ha.' 

     `Spirit.' said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. `I
see, I see. The case of this unhappy man might be my own.
My life tends that way, now. Merciful Heaven, what is
this.' 

     He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now
he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which,
beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up,
which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful
language.

     The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with
any accuracy, though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience
to a secret impulse, anxious to know what kind of room it
was. A pale light, rising in the outer air, fell straight upon
the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft, unwatched, unwept,
uncared for, was the body of this man.

     Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand
was pointed to the head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted
that the slightest raising of it, the motion of a finger upon
Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the face. He thought
of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to do it;
but had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss
the spectre at his side.

     Oh cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar
here, and dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy
command: for this is thy dominion. But of the loved,
revered, and honoured head, thou canst not turn one hair
to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is
not that the hand is heavy and will fall down when released;
it is not that the heart and pulse are still; but that the
hand was open, generous, and true; the heart brave, warm,
and tender; and the pulse a man's. Strike, Shadow, strike.
And see his good deeds springing from the wound, to sow
the world with life immortal.

     No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and
yet he heard them when he looked upon the bed. He
thought, if this man could be raised up now, what would be
his foremost thoughts. Avarice, hard-dealing, griping cares.
They have brought him to a rich end, truly.

     He lay, in the dark empty house, with not a man, a
woman, or a child, to say that he was kind to me in this
or that, and for the memory of one kind word I will be
kind to him. A cat was tearing at the door, and there was
a sound of gnawing rats beneath the hearth-stone. What
they wanted in the room of death, and why they were so
restless and disturbed, Scrooge did not dare to think.

     `Spirit.' he said,' this is a fearful place. In leaving it,
I shall not leave its lesson, trust me. Let us go.' 

     Still the Ghost pointed with an unmoved finger to the
head.

     `I understand you,' Scrooge returned,' and I would do
it, if I could. But I have not the power, Spirit. I have
not the power.' 

     Again it seemed to look upon him.

     `If there is any person in the town, who feels emotion
caused by this man's death,' said Scrooge quite agonised,
`show that person to me, Spirit, I beseech you.' 

     The Phantom spread its dark robe before him for a
moment, like a wing; and withdrawing it, revealed a room
by daylight, where a mother and her children were.

     She was expecting some one, and with anxious eagerness;
for she walked up and down the room; started at every
sound; looked out from the window; glanced at the clock;
tried, but in vain, to work with her needle; and could hardly
bear the voices of the children in their play.

     At length the long-expected knock was heard. She hurried
to the door, and met her husband; a man whose face was 
careworn and depressed, though he was young. There was
a remarkable expression in it now; a kind of serious delight
of which he felt ashamed, and which he struggled to repress.

     He sat down to the dinner that had been boarding for
him by the fire; and when she asked him faintly what news
(which was not until after a long silence), he appeared
embarrassed how to answer.

     `Is it good.' she said, `or bad?' -- to help him.

     `Bad,' he answered.

     `We are quite ruined.' 

     `No. There is hope yet, Caroline.' 

     `If he relents,' she said, amazed, `there is. Nothing is
past hope, if such a miracle has happened.' 

     `He is past relenting,' said her husband. `He is dead.' 

     She was a mild and patient creature if her face spoke
truth; but she was thankful in her soul to hear it, and she
said so, with clasped hands. She prayed forgiveness the next
moment, and was sorry; but the first was the emotion of
her heart.

     `What the half-drunken woman whom I told you of last
night, said to me, when I tried to see him and obtain a
week's delay; and what I thought was a mere excuse to avoid
me; turns out to have been quite true. He was not only
very ill, but dying, then.' 

     `To whom will our debt be transferred.' 

     `I don't know. But before that time we shall be ready
with the money; and even though we were not, it would be
a bad fortune indeed to find so merciless a creditor in his
successor. We may sleep to-night with light hearts, Caroline.' 

     Yes. Soften it as they would, their hearts were lighter.
The children's faces, hushed and clustered round to hear what
they so little understood, were brighter; and it was a happier
house for this man's death. The only emotion that the
Ghost could show him, caused by the event, was one of
pleasure.

     `Let me see some tenderness connected with a death,' said
Scrooge;' or that dark chamber, Spirit, which we left just
now, will be for ever present to me.' 

     The Ghost conducted him through several streets familiar
to his feet; and as they went along, Scrooge looked here and
there to find himself, but nowhere was he to be seen. They
entered poor Bob Cratchit's house; the dwelling he had
visited before; and found the mother and the children seated
round the fire.

     Quiet. Very quiet. The noisy little Cratchits were as
still as statues in one corner, and sat looking up at Peter,
who had a book before him. The mother and her daughters
were engaged in sewing. But surely they were very quiet.

     `And he took a child, and set him in the midst of
them.'

     Where had Scrooge heard those words. He had not
dreamed them. The boy must have read them out, as he
and the Spirit crossed the threshold. Why did he not
go on.

     The mother laid her work upon the table, and put her
hand up to her face.

     `The colour hurts my eyes,' she said.

     The colour. Ah, poor Tiny Tim.

     `They're better now again,' said Cratchit's wife. `It
makes them weak by candle-light; and I wouldn't show weak
eyes to your father when he comes home, for the world. It
must be near his time.' 

     `Past it rather,' Peter answered, shutting up his book.
`But I think he has walked a little slower than he used,
these few last evenings, mother.' 

     They were very quiet again. At last she said, and in a
steady, cheerful voice, that only faltered once:

     `I have known him walk with -- I have known him walk
with Tiny Tim upon his shoulder, very fast indeed.' 

     `And so have I,' cried Peter. `Often.' 

     `And so have I,' exclaimed another. So had all.

     `But he was very light to carry,' she resumed, intent upon
her work,' and his father loved him so, that it was no
trouble: no trouble. And there is your father at the door.' 

     She hurried out to meet him; and little Bob in his comforter
-- he had need of it, poor fellow -- came in. His tea
was ready for him on the hob, and they all tried who should
help him to it most. Then the two young Cratchits got
upon his knees and laid, each child a little cheek, against
his face, as if they said,' Don't mind it, father. Don't be
grieved.' 

     Bob was very cheerful with them, and spoke pleasantly to
all the family. He looked at the work upon the table, and
praised the industry and speed of Mrs Cratchit and the girls.
They would be done long before Sunday, he said.

     `Sunday. You went to-day, then, Robert.' said his
wife.

     `Yes, my dear,' returned Bob. `I wish you could have
gone. It would have done you good to see how green a
place it is. But you'll see it often. I promised him that I
would walk there on a Sunday. My little, little child.' 
cried Bob. `My little child.' 

     He broke down all at once. He couldn't help it. If he
could have helped it, he and his child would have been farther
apart perhaps than they were.

     He left the room, and went up-stairs into the room above,
which was lighted cheerfully, and hung with Christmas.
There was a chair set close beside the child, and there were
signs of some one having been there, lately. Poor Bob sat
down in it, and when he had thought a little and composed
himself, he kissed the little face. He was reconciled to what
had happened, and went down again quite happy.

     They drew about the fire, and talked; the girls and mother
working still. Bob told them of the extraordinary kindness
of Mr Scrooge's nephew, whom he had scarcely seen but
once, and who, meeting him in the street that day, and seeing
that he looked a little -' just a little down you know,' said
Bob, inquired what had happened to distress him. `On
which,' said Bob,' for he is the pleasantest-spoken gentleman
you ever heard, I told him. `I am heartily sorry for it, Mr
Cratchit,' he said,' and heartily sorry for your good wife.' 
By the bye, how he ever knew that, I don't know.' 

     `Knew what, my dear.' 

     `Why, that you were a good wife,' replied Bob.

     `Everybody knows that.' said Peter.

     `Very well observed, my boy.' cried Bob. `I hope they
do. `Heartily sorry,' he said,' for your good wife. If I
can be of service to you in any way,' he said, giving me
his card,' that's where I live. Pray come to me.'  Now, it
wasn't,' cried Bob,' for the sake of anything he might be
able to do for us, so much as for his kind way, that this was
quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our
Tiny Tim, and felt with us.' 

     `I'm sure he's a good soul.' said Mrs Cratchit.

     `You would be surer of it, my dear,' returned Bob,' if
you saw and spoke to him. I shouldn't be at all surprised
- mark what I say. -- if he got Peter a better situation.' 

     `Only hear that, Peter,' said Mrs Cratchit.

     `And then,' cried one of the girls,' Peter will be keeping
company with some one, and setting up for himself.' 

     `Get along with you.' retorted Peter, grinning.

     `It's just as likely as not,' said Bob,' one of these days;
though there's plenty of time for that, my dear. But however
and when ever we part from one another, I am sure we
shall none of us forget poor Tiny Tim -- shall we -- or this
first parting that there was among us.' 

     `Never, father.' cried they all.

     `And I know,' said Bob,' I know, my dears, that when
we recollect how patient and how mild he was; although he
was a little, little child; we shall not quarrel easily among
ourselves, and forget poor Tiny Tim in doing it.' 

     `No, never, father.' they all cried again.

     `I am very happy,' said little Bob,' I am very happy.' 

     Mrs Cratchit kissed him, his daughters kissed him, the
two young Cratchits kissed him, and Peter and himself shook
hands. Spirit of Tiny Tim, thy childish essence was from
God.

     `Spectre,' said Scrooge,' something informs me that our
parting moment is at hand. I know it, but I know not
how. Tell me what man that was whom we saw lying dead.' 

     The Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come conveyed him, as
before -- though at a different time, he thought: indeed, there
seemed no order in these latter visions, save that they were
in the Future -- into the resorts of business men, but showed
him not himself. Indeed, the Spirit did not stay for anything,
but went straight on, as to the end just now desired,
until besought by Scrooge to tarry for a moment.

     `This courts,' said Scrooge,' through which we hurry now,
is where my place of occupation is, and has been for a length
of time. I see the house. Let me behold what I shall be,
in days to come.' 

     The Spirit stopped; the hand was pointed elsewhere.

     `The house is yonder,' Scrooge exclaimed. `Why do you
point away.' 

     The inexorable finger underwent no change.

     Scrooge hastened to the window of his office, and looked
in. It was an office still, but not his. The furniture was
not the same, and the figure in the chair was not himself.
The Phantom pointed as before.

     He joined it once again, and wondering why and whither
he had gone, accompanied it until they reached an iron gate.
He paused to look round before entering.

     A churchyard. Here, then, the wretched man whose name
he had now to learn, lay underneath the ground. It was a
worthy place. Walled in by houses; overrun by grass and
weeds, the growth of vegetation's death, not life; choked up
with too much burying; fat with repleted appetite. A
worthy place.

     The Spirit stood among the graves, and pointed down to
One. He advanced towards it trembling. The Phantom was
exactly as it had been, but he dreaded that he saw new
meaning in its solemn shape.

     `Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point,' 
said Scrooge, `answer me one question. Are these the
shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of
things that May be, only.' 

     Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which
it stood.

     `Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if
persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. `But if the
courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is
thus with what you show me.' 

     The Spirit was immovable as ever.

     Scrooge crept towards it, trembling as he went; and
following the finger, read upon the stone of the neglected
grave his own name, Ebenezer Scrooge.

     `Am I that man who lay upon the bed.' he cried, upon
his knees.

     The finger pointed from the grave to him, and back again.

     `No, Spirit. Oh no, no.' 

     The finger still was there.

     `Spirit.' he cried, tight clutching at its robe,' hear me.
I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must
have been but for this intercourse. Why show me this, if I
am past all hope.' 

     For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 

     `Good Spirit,' he pursued, as down upon the ground he
fell before it:' Your nature intercedes for me, and pities
me. Assure me that I yet may change these shadows you
have shown me, by an altered life.' 

     The kind hand trembled.

     `I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it
all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the
Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I
will not shut out the lessons that they teach. Oh, tell me I
may sponge away the writing on this stone.' 

     In his agony, he caught the spectral hand. It sought to
free itself, but he was strong in his entreaty, and detained it.
The Spirit, stronger yet, repulsed him.

     Holding up his hands in a last prayer to have his fate aye
reversed, he saw an alteration in the Phantom's hood and dress.
It shrunk, collapsed, and dwindled down into a bedpost.


Stave 5:  The End of It

     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. Oh 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 would 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.

     `I don't know what to do.' cried Scrooge, laughing and
crying in the same breath; and making a perfect Laocoon of
himself with his stockings. `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. A merry Christmas to
everybody. A happy New Year to all the world. Hallo
here. Whoop. Hallo.' 

     He had frisked into the sitting-room, and was now standing
there: perfectly winded.

     `There's the saucepan that the gruel was in.' cried
Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace.
`There's the door, by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley
entered. There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas
Present, sat. There's the window where I saw the wandering
Spirits. It's all right, it's all true, it all happened.
Ha ha ha.' 

     Really, for a man who had been out of practice for so
many years, it was a splendid laugh, a most illustrious laugh.
The 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.' 

     He was checked in his transports by the churches ringing
out the lustiest peals he had ever heard. Clash, clang,
hammer; ding, dong, bell. Bell, dong, ding; hammer, clang,
clash. Oh, glorious, glorious.

     Running to the window, he opened it, and put out his
head. No fog, no mist; clear, bright, jovial, stirring, cold;
cold, piping for the blood to dance to; Golden sunlight;
Heavenly sky; sweet fresh air; merry bells. Oh, glorious.
Glorious.

     `What's to-day.' cried Scrooge, calling downward to a
boy in Sunday clothes, who perhaps had loitered in to look
about him.

     `Eh.' returned the boy, with all his might of wonder.

     `What's to-day, my fine fellow.' said Scrooge.

     `To-day.' replied the boy. `Why, Christmas Day.' 

     `It's Christmas Day.' said Scrooge to himself. `I
haven't missed it. The Spirits have done it all in one night.
They can do anything they like. Of course they can. Of
course they can. Hallo, my fine fellow.' 

     `Hallo.' returned the boy.

     `Do you know the Poulterer's, in the next street but one,
at the corner.' Scrooge inquired.

     `I should hope I did,' replied the lad.

     `An intelligent boy.' said Scrooge. `A remarkable boy.
Do you know whether they've sold the prize Turkey that
was hanging up there -- Not the little prize Turkey: the
big one.' 

     `What, the one as big as me.' returned the boy.

     `What a delightful boy.' said Scrooge. `It's a pleasure
to talk to him. Yes, my buck.' 

     `It's hanging there now,' replied the boy.

     `Is it.' said Scrooge. `Go and buy it.' 

     `Walk-er.' exclaimed the boy.

     `No, no,' said Scrooge, `I am in earnest. Go and buy
it, and tell them to bring it here, that I may give them the
direction where to take it. Come back with the man, and
I'll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than
five minutes and I'll give you half-a-crown.' 

     The boy was off like a shot. He must have had a steady
hand at a trigger who could have got a shot off half so fast.

     `I'll send it to Bon Cratchit's.' whispered Scrooge,
rubbing his hands, and splitting with a laugh. `He shan't
know who sends it. It's twice the size of Tiny Tim. Joe
Miller never made such a joke as sending it to Bob's
will be.' 

     The hand in which he wrote the address was not a steady
one, but write it he did, somehow, and went down-stairs to
open the street door, ready for the coming of the poulterer's
man. As he stood there, waiting his arrival, the knocker
caught his eye.

     `I shall love it, as long as I live.' cried Scrooge, patting
it with his hand. `I scarcely ever looked at it before.
What an honest expression it has in its face. It's a
wonderful knocker. -- Here's the Turkey. Hallo. Whoop.
How are you. Merry Christmas.' 

     It was a Turkey. He never could have stood upon his
legs, that bird. He would have snapped them short off in a
minute, like sticks of sealing-wax.

     `Why, it's impossible to carry that to Camden Town,' 
said Scrooge. `You must have a cab.' 

     The chuckle with which he said this, and the chuckle with
which he paid for the Turkey, and the chuckle with which
he paid for the cab, and the chuckle with which he recompensed
the boy, were only to be exceeded by the chuckle
with which he sat down breathless in his chair again, and
chuckled till he cried.

     Shaving was not an easy task, for his hand continued to
shake very much; and shaving requires attention, even when
you don't dance while you are at it. But if he had cut the
end of his nose off, he would have put a piece of
sticking-plaister
over it, and been quite satisfied.

     He dressed himself all in his best, and at last got out
into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, 
as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present;
and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded
every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly
pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows
said,' Good morning, sir. A merry Christmas to you.' 
And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe
sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.

     He had not gone far, when coming on towards him he
beheld the portly gentleman, who had walked into his
counting-house the day before, and said,' Scrooge and Marley's, I
believe.'  It sent a pang across his heart to think how this
old gentleman would look upon him when they met; but he
knew what path lay straight before him, and he took it.

     `My dear sir,' said Scrooge, quickening his pace, and
taking the old gentleman by both his hands. `How do you
do. I hope you succeeded yesterday. It was very kind of
you. A merry Christmas to you, sir.' 

     `Mr Scrooge.' 

     `Yes,' said Scrooge. `That is my name, and I fear it
may not be pleasant to you. Allow me to ask your pardon.
And will you have the goodness' -- here Scrooge whispered in
his ear.

     `Lord bless me.' cried the gentleman, as if his breath
were taken away. `My dear Mr Scrooge, are you serious.' 

     `If you please,' said Scrooge. `Not a farthing less. A
great many back-payments are included in it, I assure you.
Will you do me that favour.' 

     `My dear sir,' said the other, shaking hands with him.
`I don't know what to say to such munificence.'

     `Don't say anything please,' retorted Scrooge. `Come
and see me. Will you come and see me.' 

     `I will.' cried the old gentleman. And it was clear he
meant to do it.

     `Thank you,' said Scrooge. `I am much obliged to you.
I thank you fifty times. Bless you.' 

     He went to church, and walked about the streets, and
watched the people hurrying to and fro, and patted children
on the head, and questioned beggars, and looked down into
the kitchens of houses, and up to the windows, and found
that everything could yield him pleasure. He had never
dreamed that any walk -- that anything -- could give him so
much happiness. In the afternoon he turned his steps
towards his nephew's house.

     He passed the door a dozen times, before he had the
courage to go up and knock. But he made a dash, and
did it:

     `Is your master at home, my dear.' said Scrooge to the
girl. Nice girl. Very.

     `Yes, sir.' 

     `Where is he, my love.' said Scrooge.

     `He's in the dining-room, sir, along with mistress. I'll
show you up-stairs, if you please.' 

     `Thank you. He knows me,' said Scrooge, with his hand
already on the dining-room lock. `I'll go in here, my dear.' 

     He turned it gently, and sidled his face in, round the door.
They were looking at the table (which was spread out in
great array); for these young housekeepers are always nervous
on such points, and like to see that everything is right.

     `Fred.' said Scrooge.

     Dear heart alive, how his niece by marriage started.
Scrooge had forgotten, for the moment, about her sitting
in the corner with the footstool, or he wouldn't have done
it, on any account.

     `Why bless my soul.' cried Fred,' who's that.' 

     `It's I. Your uncle Scrooge. I have come to dinner.
Will you let me in, Fred.' 

     Let him in. It is a mercy he didn't shake his arm off.
He was at home in five minutes. Nothing could be heartier.
His niece looked just the same. So did Topper when he 
came. So did the plump sister when she came. So did
every one when they came. Wonderful party, wonderful
games, wonderful unanimity, wonderful happiness.

     But he was early at the office next morning. Oh, he was
early there. If he could only be there first, and catch Bob
Cratchit coming late. That was the thing he had set his
heart upon.

     And he did it; yes, he did. The clock struck nine. No
Bob. A quarter past. No Bob. He was full eighteen
minutes and a half behind his time. Scrooge sat with his
door wide open, that he might see him come into the Tank.

     His hat was off, before he opened the door; his comforter
too. He was on his stool in a jiffy; driving away with his
pen, as if he were trying to overtake nine o'clock.

     `Hallo.' growled Scrooge, in his accustomed voice, as
near as he could feign it. `What do you mean by coming
here at this time of day.' 

     `I am very sorry, sir,' said Bob. `I am behind my time.' 

     `You are.' repeated Scrooge. `Yes. I think you are.
Step this way, sir, if you please.' 

     `It's only once a year, sir,' pleaded Bob, appearing from
the Tank. `It shall not be repeated. I was making rather
merry yesterday, sir.' 

     `Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,' said Scrooge,' I
am not going to stand this sort of thing any longer. And
therefore,' he continued, leaping from his stool, and giving
Bob such a dig in the waistcoat that he staggered back into
the Tank again;' and therefore I am about to raise your
salary.' 

     Bob trembled, and got a little nearer to the ruler. He
had a momentary idea of knocking Scrooge down with it,
holding him, and calling to the people in the court for help
and a strait-waistcoat.

     `A merry Christmas, Bob,' said Scrooge, with an earnestness
that could not be mistaken, as he clapped him on the
back. `A merrier Christmas, Bob, my good fellow, than I
have given you for many a year. I'll raise your salary, and
endeavour to assist your struggling family, and we will discuss
your affairs this very afternoon, over a Christmas bowl of
smoking bishop, Bob. Make up the fires, and buy another
coal-scuttle before you dot another i, Bob Cratchit.' 

     Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and
infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did not die, he was
a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or
any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old
world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him,
but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was
wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this
globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill
of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these
would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they
should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in
less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was
quite enough for him.

     He had no further intercourse with Spirits, but lived upon
the Total Abstinence Principle, ever afterwards; and it was
always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas
well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that
be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim
observed, God bless Us, Every One!