[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 60.]

STAVE V.

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 Laocooen 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 school-boy. 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 frisking round the fire-place. "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!"

[Illustration: Original manuscript of Page 61.]

He was checked in his transport