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 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.

[Illustration: "SO I AM TOLD," RETURNED THE SECOND]

He looked about in that very place for his own image; but another man
stood in his accustomed corner, and thoug