o 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! Lead on! The night is waning fast, and it is precious time to
me, I know. Lead on, Spirit!"

They scarcely seemed to enter the city; for the city rather seemed to
spring up about them. But there they were in the heart of it; on
'Change, amongst the merchants.

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 he's dead."

"When did he die?" inquired another.

"Last night, I believe."

"Why, what was the matter with him? 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.

"I haven't heard," said the man with the large chin. "Company, perhaps.
He hasn't left it to me. That's all I know. By, by!"

Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should
attach importance to conversation apparently so trivial; but feeling
assured that it must have some hidden purpose, he set himself to
consider what it was likely to be. It 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.

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 he thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried
out in this.

They left this busy scene, and went into an obscure part of the town, to
a low shop where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and greasy offal were
bought. A gray-haired rascal, of great age, sat smoking his pipe.

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. After a short period of blank
astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe had joined them, they
all three burst