said Scrooge . `` If quite convenient , sir . '' `` It 's not convenient , '' said Scrooge , `` and it 's not fair . If I was to stop half-a-crown for it , you 'd think yourself ill used , I 'll be bound ? '' The clerk smiled faintly . `` And yet , '' said Scrooge , `` you do n't think me ill used when I pay a day 's wages for no work . '' The clerk observed that it was only once a year . `` A poor excuse for picking a man 's pocket every twenty-fifth of December ! '' said Scrooge , buttoning his great-coat to the chin . `` But I suppose you must have the whole day . Be here all the earlier next morning . '' The clerk promised that he would ; and Scrooge walked out with a growl . The office was closed in a twinkling , and the clerk , with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist -LRB- for he boasted no great-coat -RRB- , went down a slide on Cornhill , at the end of a lane of boys , twenty times , in honour of its being Christmas-eve , and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as he could pelt , to play at blindman 's buff . Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern ; and having read all the newspapers , and beguiled the rest of the evening with his banker 's book , went home to bed . He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner . They were a gloomy suite of rooms , in a lowering pile of building up a yard , where it had so little business to be , that one could scarcely help fancying it must have run there when it was a young house , playing at hide-and-seek with other houses , and have forgotten the way out again . It was old enough now , and dreary enough ; for nobody lived in it but Scrooge , the other rooms being all let out as offices . The yard was so dark that even Scrooge , who knew its every stone , was fain to grope with his hands . The fog and frost so hung about the black old gateway of the house , that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather sat in mournful meditation on the threshold . Now , it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about the knocker on the door , except that it was very large .
It is also a fact that Scrooge had seen it , night and morning , during his whole residence in XXXXX place ; also that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London , even including -- which is a bold word -- the corporation , aldermen , and livery .
If about at down for in of that to with