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.

[Illustration: "A MERRY CHRISTMAS, BOB!"]

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!

FOOTNOTES:

[247-1] The fogs of London are famous. A genuine London fog seems not
like the heavy gray mist which we know as a fog, but, as Dickens says,
like "palpable brown air." So dense is this brown air at times that all
traffic is obliged to cease, for not even those best acquainted with the
geography of the city can find their way about.

[251-2] _Bedlam_ is the name of a famous asylum for lunatics, in London.
In former times the treatment of the inmates was far from humane, but at
the present time the management is excellent, and a large proportion of
the inmates are cured.

[252-3] Workhouses are establishments where paupers are cared for, a
certain amount of labor being expected from those who are able.

[252-4] In England formerly there existed a device for the punishment of
prisoners which was known as the _treadmill_. A huge wheel, usually in
the form of a long hollow cylinder, was provided with steps about its
circumference, and made to revolve by the weight of the prisoner as he
moved from step to step.

[253-5] Links are torches made of tow and pitch. In the days before the
invention of street lights, they were in common use in England, and they
are still seen during the dense London fog