Although they had but that moment left the
school behind them, they were now in the busy
thoroughfares of a city, where shadowy passengers
passed and repassed; where shadowy carts and
coaches battle for the way, and all the strife and
tumult of a real city were. It was made plain
enough, by the dressing of the shops, that here too
it was Christmas time again; but it was evening, and
the streets were lighted up.
The Ghost stopped at a certain warehouse door,
and asked Scrooge if he knew it.
"Know it!" said Scrooge. "Was I apprenticed
here!"
They went in. At sight of an old gentleman in a
Welch wig, sitting behind such a high desk, that if
he had been two inches taller he must have knocked
his head against the ceiling, Scrooge cried in great
excitement:
"Why, it's old Fezziwig! Bless his heart; it's
Fezziwig alive again!"
Old Fezziwig laid down his pen, and looked up at
the clock, which pointed to the hour of seven. He
rubbed his hands; adjusted his capacious waistcoat;
laughed all over himself, from his shows to his organ
of benevolence; and called out in a comfortable,
oily, rich, fat, jovial voice:
"Yo ho, there! Ebenezer! Dick!"
Scrooge's former self, now grown a young man,
came briskly in, accompanied by his fellow-'prentice.
"Dick Wilkins, to be sure!" said Scrooge to the
Ghost. "Bless me, yes. There he is. He was very
much attached to me, was Dick. Poor Dick! Dear,
dear!"
"Yo ho, my boys!" said Fezziwig. "No more work
to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer!
Let's have the shutters up," cried old Fezziwig, with
a sharp clap of his hands, "before a man can say,
Jack Robinson!"
You wouldn't believe how those two fellows went
at it! They charged into the street with the shutters
-- one, two, three -- had 'em up in their places --
four, five, six -- barred 'em and pinned 'em -- seven,
eight, nine -- and came back before you could have
got to twelve, panting like race-horses.
"Hilli-ho!" cried old Fezziwig, skipping down from
the high desk, with wonderful agility. "Clear away,
my lads, and let's have lots of room here! Hilli-ho,
Dick! Chirrup, Ebenezer!"
Clear away! There was nothing they wouldn't
have cleared away, or couldn't have cleared away,
with old Fezziwig looking on. It was done in a
minute. Every movable was packed off, as if it were
dismissed from public life for evermore; the floor was
swept and watered, the lamps were trimmed, fuel
was heaped upon the fire; and the warehouse was
as snug, and warm, and dry, and bright a ball-room,
as you would desire to see upon a winter's night.
In came a fiddler with a music-book, and went up
to the lofty desk, and made an orchestra of it, and
tuned like fifty stomach-aches. In came Mrs.
Fezziwig, one vast substantial smile. In came the
three Miss Fezziwigs, beaming and lovable. In came
the six young followers whose hearts they broke. In
came all the young men and women employed in the
business. In came the housemaid, with her cousin,
the baker. In came the cook, with her brother's
particular friend, the milkman. In came the boy from
over the way, who was suspected of not having
board enough from his master; trying to hide himself
behind the girl from next door but one, who was
proved to have had her ears pulled by her Mistress.
In they all came, one after nother; some shyly,
some boldly, some gracefully, some awkwardly, some
pushing, some pulling; in they all came, anyhow and
everyhow. Away they all went, twenty couple at
once; hands half round and back again the other
way; down the middle and up again; round and
round in various stages of affectionate grouping; old
top couple always turning up in the wrong place;
new top couple starting off again, as soon as they
got there; all top couples at last, and not a bottom
one to help them. When this result was brought
about, old Fezziwig, clapping his hands to stop the
dance, cried out, "Well done!" and the fiddler
plunged his hot face into a pot of porter, especially
provided for that purpose. But scorning rest, upon
his reappearance, he instantly began again, though
there were no dancers yet, as if the other fiddler
had been carried home, exhausted, on a shutter,
and he were a bran-new man resolved to beat him
out of sight, or perish.