Christmas Carol 12 recto

12

transparent might feel himself [??] find himself in a condition to take a chair; and felt
that in the event of its being impossible it might involve the necessity of
an embarrassing explanation. But the ghost sat down, on the other side
of the on the opposite to him, side of the fireplace, as if he were quite used to it.

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the Ghost.

“I don’t,” said Scrooge.

“Why not What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your senses?”

“I don’t know,” said Scrooge.

“Why do you doubt them? your senses?”

“Because,” said Scrooge, “a little thing affects them. The least A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undi-
gested bit of beef, a spot blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of
an underdone potatoe. , [all] at [ease] in [thin m??]. I [???????] you are [?????] There’s more of gravy than
of grave [ The?] about you, I have no doubt I have no doubt of that whatever you are whatever you are!”

Scrooge was not much given to [the] in the habit of cracking of jokes, nor did
he feel, in his heart, at all by any means waggish at that moment then. He [essayed] The truth is that he tried to be
smart, as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping down
his fear fright fear terror; for there was something [?????] when a moments’ silence or a [f???] we [?? ??] exalted in a [??] the spectre’s voice disturbed the very marrow
in his bones. moments ?? serious thought was calculated to [play] the very deuce with him.

To look sit staring at [those] those fixed glazed glazed eyes of his in silence, for a moment, would play,
(Scrooge felt,) [p] the very deuce with him. There was something ???? [appalling?] solemn and very awful too
in his having the spectre’s being provided with an [awfu] infernal atmosphere of [h?? ] its own. [When the ] thing [to]
Scrooge could not feel it himself, but this was clearly the case, for though he though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless, his its hair, and skirts, and
tassels were [still] still agitated as by the hot vapour of from an oven.

“You see this toothpick—,” said Scrooge: returning quickly to the charge,
for the reason just assigned: and wishing, though it were only for a second, to divert the [creature's?] vision’s stony gaze from himself.

“ I do,” replied the Ghost.

“You’re not looking at it,” said Scrooge.

“But I see it,” said the Ghost, “notwithstanding.”

“Well!” said returned Scrooge. “I have but to swallow this, and and be for the rest of
my days, [I may ??] persecuted by a legion of [hobl?] hobgoblins, all of my
own creation. Humbug, I tell you— [humbug] humbug!”

At this, the Spirit raised a frightful cry, and shook shaking shook its chain
with a sound made with such a dismal noise and appalling noise, that Scrooge
[ke??] held on tight to his chair, to keep save himself from falling in a swoon.
But how much greater was his horror, when the Phantom, untied the
handkerchief [???] taking off the bandage round its head as if it were too