at.

They went, the Ghost and Scrooge, across the hall, to a door at the back
of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare,
melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and
desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and
Scrooge sat down upon a form, and wept to see his poor forgotten self as
he had used to be.

Not a latent echo in the house, not a squeak and scuffle from the mice
behind the panelling, not a drip from the half-thawed waterspout in the
dull yard behind, not a sigh among the leafless boughs of one despondent
poplar, not the idle swinging of an empty storehouse door, no, not a
clicking in the fire, but fell upon the heart of Scrooge with softening
influence, and gave a freer passage to his tears.

The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self,
intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man in foreign garments, wonderfully
real and distinct to look at, stood outside the window, with an axe
stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood.

'Why, it's Ali Baba!' Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. 'It's dear old
honest Ali Baba! Yes, yes, I know. One Christmas-time, when yonder
solitary child was left here all alone, he _did_ come, for the first
time, just like that. Poor boy! And Valentine,' said Scrooge, 'and his
wild brother, Orson; there they go! And what's his name, who was put
down in his drawers, asleep, at the gate of Damascus; don't you see him?
And the Sultan's Groom turned upside down by the Genii; there he is upon
his head! Serve him right! I'm glad of it. What business had he to be
married to the Princess?'

To hear Scrooge expending all the earnestness of his nature on such
subjects, in a most extraordinary voice between laughing and crying; and
to see his heightened and excited face; would have been a surprise to
his business friends in the City, indeed.

'There's the Parrot!' cried Scrooge. 'Green body and yellow tail, with a
thing like a lettuce growing out of the top of his head; there he is!
Poor Robin Crusoe he called him, when he came home again after sailing
round the island. "Poor Robin Crusoe, where have you been, Robin
Crusoe?" The man thought he was dreaming, but he wasn't. It was the
Parrot, you know. There goes Friday, running for his life to the little
creek! Halloa! Hoop! Halloo!'

Then, with a rapidity of transition very foreign to his usual character,
he said, in pity for his forme