Christmas Carol 17 recto

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17

STAVE II.

The First of The Three Spirits.

When Scrooge awoke, it was so dark, that looking out of bed he could scarcely dis-
tinguish, [????] the transparent window from the opaque walls of his
chamber. This was strange, for he [had with] his ferret eyes, He was endeavouring to pierce the dark his [ferret] eyes to pierce
the gloom [?? profound] darkness with his ferret eyes, when the [???? ???????] chimes of a neighbouring
church [a ????? [bell?]] chimed struck the four quarters. [And then the heavy bell] So he listened for the hour.

To his great astonishment, the heavy bell went on from six to
seven, and from seven to eight, and regularly up to twelve; then stopped. Twelve! It
was past Two when he went to bed. The clock was wrong. [?? the ??? foggy] An icicle must
have got into the works. Twelve! Humbug! Preposterous [??] was impossible [It couldn't ??? The thing]

He touched the spring of his repeater, to correct this [most] most preposterous
clock. Its rapid little pulse beat Twelve; and stopped.

Scrooge “Why, it isn’t possible,” said Scrooge, “that I can have slept through
the rest of the [at] night, and all a whole day yes a day intoand far into another night. It
isn’t possible that the sun has forgotten anything has happened to the
sun, [?????] and this is twelve at [???] noon!”

The idea being an alarming one he scrambled out of bed, and groped
his way to the window. He was obliged to rub the frost away off with
the sleeve of his dressing-gown before he could see anything; and could
see very little then. All that he could make out, was, that it was still
very foggy and very extremely cold, and that there [were no] was no noise of people running to and
fro, and making a great stir, as there unquestionably would have been,
if the sun had night had beaten off the bright Day, and taken possession of
the world. Scrooge went to bed again, more perplexed than before. [The preceding sentence was presumably deleted before the next one was added] [This was a] This was a great relief, because ‘‘sixty days in a state of [??????] after sight pay
to me or my order,” and so forth, would have become a question [a???] quite an American a mere United States’ security
if there were no days to count by.

Scrooge went to bed again, and thought it over and thought; and
thought it over and over and over again, and could make nothing of it.
The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; and the more he tried
not to
endeavoured not to think, the more he thought. Marley’s Ghost
bothered him exceedingly. ??? ?????????? Every time he resolved within himself, after mature [deliberation] enquiry, that it was all
a dream, heis fell ???? mind flew back again, like a strong spring released like a strong spring released, to its first position,
like a strong spring released, and again presented the same problem, "Was question problem to
be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?”

Scrooge ? lay in this uneasy state, until the chimes had
gone three ?? quarters more; when he recollected he recollected he remembered on a sudden, that the Ghost had [said]

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