The Ghost of Christmas Present rose . `` Spirit , '' said Scrooge submissively , `` conduct me where you will . I went forth last night on compulsion , and I learnt a lesson which is working now . To-night , if you have aught to teach me , let me profit by it . '' `` Touch my robe ! '' Scrooge did as he was told , and held it fast . Holly , mistletoe , red berries , ivy , turkeys , geese , game , poultry , brawn , meat , pigs , sausages , oysters , pies , puddings , fruit , and punch , all vanished instantly . So did the room , the fire , the ruddy glow , the hour of night , and they stood in the city streets on Christmas morning , where -LRB- for the weather was severe -RRB- the people made a rough , but brisk and not unpleasant kind of music , in scraping the snow from the pavement in front of their dwellings , and from the tops of their houses , whence it was mad delight to the boys to see it come plumping down into the road below , and splitting into artificial little snow-storms . The house-fronts looked black enough , and the windows blacker , contrasting with the smooth white sheet of snow upon the roofs , and with the dirtier snow upon the ground ; which last deposit had been ploughed up in deep furrows by the heavy wheels of carts and waggons ; furrows that crossed and recrossed each other hundreds of times where the great streets branched off ; and made intricate channels , hard to trace , in the thick yellow mud and icy water . The sky was gloomy , and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist , half thawed , half frozen , whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms , as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had , by one consent , caught fire , and were blazing away to their dear hearts ' content . There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town , and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain . For , the people who were shovelling away on the housetops were jovial and full of glee ; calling out to one another from the parapets , and now and then exchanging a facetious snowball -- better-natured missile far than many a wordy jest -- laughing heartily if it went right , and not less heartily if it went wrong . The poulterers ' shops were still half open , and the fruiterers ' were radiant in their glory . There were great , round , pot-bellied baskets of chestnuts , shaped like the waistcoats of jolly old gentlemen , lolling at the doors , and tumbling out into the street in their apoplectic opulence . There were ruddy , brown-faced , broad-girthed Spanish onions , shining in the fatness of their growth like Spanish Friars , and winking from their shelves in wanton slyness at the girls as they went by , and glanced demurely at the hung-up mistletoe . There were pears and apples clustered high in blooming pyramids ; there were bunches of grapes , made , in the shopkeepers ' benevolence , to dangle from conspicuous hooks that people 's mouths might water gratis as they passed ; there were piles of filberts , mossy and brown , recalling , in their fragrance , ancient walks among the woods , and pleasant shufflings ankle deep through withered leaves ; there were Norfolk Biffins , squab and swarthy , setting off the yellow of the oranges and lemons , and , in the great compactness of their juicy persons , urgently entreating and beseeching to be carried home in paper bags , and eaten after dinner . The very gold and silver fish , set forth among these choice fruits in a bowl , though members of a dull and stagnant-blooded race , appeared to know that there was something going on ; and , to a fish , went gasping round and round their little world in slow and passionless excitement . The Grocers ' ! oh , the Grocers ' ! nearly closed , with perhaps two shutters down , or one ; but through those gaps such glimpses !
It was not alone that the scales descending on the counter made a merry sound , or that the twine and roller parted company so briskly , or that the canisters were rattled up and down like juggling tricks , or even XXXXX the blended scents of tea and coffee were so grateful to the nose , or even that the raisins were so plentiful and rare , the almonds so extremely white , the sticks of cinnamon so long and straight , the other spices so delicious , the candied fruits so caked and spotted with molten sugar as to make the coldest lookers-on feel faint , and subsequently bilious .
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