returned the other . `` Well ! '' said the first . `` Old Scratch has got his own at last , hey ? '' `` So I am told , '' returned the second . `` Cold , is n't it ? '' `` Seasonable for Christmas-time . You are not a skater , I suppose ? '' `` No . No . Something else to think of . Good morning ! '' Not another word . That was their meeting , their conversation , and their parting . Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial ; but , feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose , he set himself to consider what it was likely to be . They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob , his old partner , for that was Past , and this Ghost 's province was the Future . Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself , to whom he could apply them . But nothing doubting that , to whomsoever they applied , they had some latent moral for his own improvement , he resolved to treasure up every word he heard , and everything he saw ; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared . For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed , and would render the solution of these riddles easy . He looked about in that very place for his own image , but another man stood in his accustomed corner , and , though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there , he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch .
It gave him little surprise , however ; XXXXX he had been revolving in his mind a change of life , and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this .
So at for in of on that though to with