d A Happy New Year!"

"Good afternoon!"

His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. The
clerk, 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. He died seven years ago,
this very night."

"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?"

"Plenty of prisons. But under the impression that they scarcely furnish
Christian cheer of mind or body to the unoffending multitude, a few of
us are endeavoring 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!"

"You wish to be anonymous?"

"I wish to be left alone. 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 prisons and the
workhouses,--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, they had better do it, and decrease the
surplus population."

At length the hour of shutting up the counting-house arrived. With an
ill-will Scrooge, dismounting from his stool, 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?"

"If quite convenient, sir."

"It's not convenient, and it's not fair. If I was to stop half a crown
for it, you'd think yourself mightily ill-used, I'll be bound?"

"Yes, sir."

"And yet you don't think _me_ ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no
work."

"It's only once a year, sir."

"A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of
Dec