A Baker Street Christmas Carol
by Jem's Bird

With apologies to not only Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but also to Charles Dickens, particularly for all the bits which have been lovingly (albeit somewhat irreverently) lifted from his well-loved and deeply respected classic of similar title. I don’t own any of these characters, or this plotline, or even most of these words, but as I’m going to get coal in my stocking anyway …

Cubitt was dead, to begin with, there is no doubt whatever about that. The cause of his death had been predicted by the consulting detective he had hired, and the detective had not been able to prevent that death. Sherlock Holmes had failed. And Sherlock Holmes could not have failed; his name was good upon Scotland Yard for anything he chose to put his hand to.

And yet Hilton Cubitt was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say, of my own knowledge, that Holmes blamed himself for it. Holmes knew he was dead? Of course he did. He was the sole investigator for his client’s case. Holmes was not dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but on the very day of the funeral, and for months afterward, he found himself arguing once more with his dear friend Watson, defending his choice to mope about nothing whatsoever.

Even upon Christmas Eve, they fell to arguing about it over their supper.

“Admit it, Holmes,” Watson persisted. “You are still blaming yourself for Cubitt’s death. I’ve told you before –”

Homes spun around to face him indignantly. “Watson, do you blame me for Cubitt’s death?”

“Certainly not, but –”

“And would you consider me mentally inferior to you?”

“Heavens, no! Quite the op–”

“So, then, why would you think that I should be unable to come to the same conclusion as you have, that is, that I did what I could given the facts to hand, and that Cubitt’s death was an unfortunate occurrence.”

“One that you failed to prevent.”

Holmes regarded his friend critically. “Honestly, Watson, I do not see where your persistent gainsaying is benefiting anyone. If I say that I am not blaming myself for the death of Mr. Hilton Cubitt, then you may rest assured –”

“Holmes, if you are not blaming yourself,” Watson said solemnly, “then why did you refuse to go to the funeral? You were invited as an honoured guest.”

“I did not take the case to be honoured. In any case, I have no need such emotional displays as funerals. The dead cannot be helped by it, and the living should accept their loss and move on.”

“My dear Holmes!”

“Pshaw, man, by now you should know me well enough to know that I abhor sentimentality. The softer emotions are a liability to the true student of logic.”

“Holmes, you honestly don’t –” Watson’s words were interrupted by the bell. Holmes swept over to the bow-window, gazing down at the street below.

“Well, it seems friend Lestrade is calling to give us the compliments of the season. Come in, Inspector! I can see that our criminal classes have been sadly inactive today, but your superiors have not. Paperwork is the scourge of all professions, is it not?”

Inspector Lestrade merely smiled in reply; he had, in fact, been buried in paperwork all morning, but was well used to Holmes’ deductions and was no longer surprised to hear the events of his day reported to him whenever he visited his friends at Baker Street. He shook off his overcoat and hung it upon the rack before taking his accustomed seat.

“I came to wish you –”

“—the compliments of the season, yes,” Holmes interrupted. “And we regret that we must decline your offer to accompany you to Scotland Yard to watch London’s finest grow steadily drunk upon eggnog and brandied pudding.”

 Lestrade frowned sharply at Holmes, and Watson rose from his seat, casting his friend a disgusted look.

“Holmes is speaking out of turn,” said he. “I should be honoured to attend your celebration. It will certainly be more convivial company than I have here,” he added acidly as he took his own coat from the back of the door. “We’d best go now,” he continued, ignoring Holmes’ scowl. “The great detective has no need for emotional displays, and if I stay here much longer, I might let loose with a very emotional display indeed, as well as some words my dear mother would have been shocked to hear me say.”

Sherlock Holmes watched his friends leave in mild puzzlement; although he could tell everywhere they had been and everything they had done in a single glance, he found himself unable to understand the importance they seemed to place upon their feelings. Certainly they could see that these inconvenient and irrational emotions were clouding their intellect; he had informed them both many times of the deleterious effect of the softer emotions. And yet, the two men for whom he had the most respect – his flatmate and the inspector – did not seem to care that they were ruining otherwise promising brains with absurd and outmoded feelings.

He sighed wearily and picked up his violin. He had been planning a quiet evening at home with Watson, but he could just as easily have a quiet evening alone. After all, if all emotional attachments were rubbish, then Watson should mean no more to him then the Stradivarius he held in his hands.

And yet – with an impatient ejaculation, he threw the violin aside and snatched up a newspaper. There was nothing here to hold him, either. He tossed the paper into the grate and watched it burn merrily before realizing that Watson had not read that section. He turned for the door; he could still go to the newsagent’s and purchase a copy.

No. He smiled to himself bitterly. He would not let himself fall prey to the tedious conventions of polite behaviour; if Watson wanted to read that section, then, by Jove, he could go to the newsagent himself and get a copy.

Holmes tapped irritably upon the mantel, scowling about the room. It infuriated him that he could not seem to keep himself rational when thinking about Watson. He had long ago forsworn such frivolities as affection; why, then, did this half-pay army surgeon mean so much to him?

He turned to bank the fire, and was shocked to see Hilton Cubitt’s face upon the gas-jet by the mantel. Now it is a fact that there was nothing at all particular about this gas-jet, except that it was very large. It is also a fact that Holmes had seen it, night and morning, during his whole residence at that place; also that Holmes had as little of what is called fancy about him as any man in the City of London. And then let any man explain to me, if he can, how it happened that Holmes, having his hand upon the mantel, saw in the gas-jet, without its undergoing any intermediate process of change – not a gas-jet, but Cubitt’s face.

Cubitt’s face. It was not burning, like the newspaper upon the grate, but had a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferocious, but looked at Holmes as Cubitt had last looked: with a mild expression of confusion upon his noble face.

As Holmes looked fixedly upon this phenomenon it was a gas-jet again. He shook himself, and chuckled a little, before deciding that it were high time he quit the sitting room for his bed. He calmly banked the fire and shut the door behind him, sealing himself in his still, cold, and lonely bedroom, laying himself down upon the small hard bed.

The silence did not last long; soon he heard a clanking noise, deep down below, as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the seventeen steps up to the sitting room, passing that door, and coming straight to his bedroom door.

“Humbug,” Holmes muttered. “I won’t believe it.” His colour changed though, when it came through the door and stood before him. Hilton Cubitt, in his Saville Row suit, a trilby perched upon his head, all completely transparent so that Holmes could see both front and back buttons and nothing in between.

“How now!” said Holmes, caustic and cold as ever. “What do you want with me?”

“Much!” – Cubitt’s voice, no doubt about it.

“Who are you?”

“Ask me who I was.”

“Who were you then?”

“In life, I was Hilton Cubitt, your client.”

“Can you sit down?

“Yes.”

“Do it, then.”

“You don’t believe in me,” observed the ghost.

“I don’t,” said Holmes.

“Why do you doubt your own senses?”

“Because,” said Holmes, “a little thing affects them. You may be an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There’s more of gravy than of grave about you, whatever you are.”

At this the spirit raised a frightful cry, and bellowed with such a dismal and appalling noise, that Holmes sat up in bed, his hands over his ears. “Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?” he cried.

“Man of the worldly mind!” replied the ghost, “do you believe in me or not?”

“For the purposes of this discussion,” said Holmes, “I suppose I must concede your existence; otherwise, I am talking to myself.  But why do you come to me?”

“I am here to-night to repay you for your kindness.”

“Kindness? What kindness did I show you?”

“You cleared my dear wife’s good name, and brought my murderer to justice.”

“You make too much of it, sir. ‘Twas not kindness that guided my actions, but deductive reasoning.”

“You might not have meant it as a kindness,” answered the ghost, “but as a kindness it was taken, and my return of that kindness shall be to show you the value of the love that resides in your own heart.”

“My heart? Humbug!”

Cubitt did not seem to notice Holmes’ attitude of disdain. “You will be haunted,” resumed the ghost, “by three spirits.”

Holmes’ countenance fell. “Exactly what is this exercise supposed to prove?” he demanded, in a faltering voice quite unlike his own.

 “Without these visits,” said the ghost, “you cannot hope to realize the love that resides in your heart.”

“As I said before, humbug! There is no love residing in my heart.”

“All the more reason for the visits. Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one.”

“Wouldn’t it be more practical to receive them all at once, and have it over?”  Holmes asked.

“Expect the second on the next night at the same hour,” the ghost replied.  “The third upon the next night when the last stroke of twelve has ceased to vibrate.  Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!”

With these parting words, the ghost of Hilton Cubitt faded from sight, and Sherlock Holmes lay back in his bed, exhausted and confused, thinking upon all he had seen and heard. The more he thought, the more perplexed he was; Cubitt’s ghost bothered him exceedingly. Every time he resolved within himself, after mature inquiry, that it was all a dream, his mind flew back again, like a strong spring released, to its first position, and presented the same problem to be worked all through, “Was it a dream or not?”

Holmes lay in this state until the chimes had gone three quarters more, when he remembered, on a sudden, that the ghost had warned him of a visitation when the bell tolled one. He resolved to lie awake until the hour was past; and, considering that he could no more go to sleep than go to Heaven, this was perhaps the wisest resolution in his power.

The quarter was so long, that he was more than once convinced he must have sunk into a doze unconsciously, and missed the clock. At length it broke upon his listening ear.

“Ding, dong!”

“A quarter past,” said Holmes, counting.

“Ding dong!”

“Half past!” said Holmes.

“Ding dong!”

“A quarter to it,” said Holmes.

“Ding dong!”

“The hour itself,” said Holmes, triumphantly, “and nothing else!”

He spoke before the hour bell sounded, which it now did with a deep, dull, hollow, melancholy one. Light flashed up in the room upon the instant, and Holmes, starting up into a half-recumbent attitude, found himself face to face with an unearthly visitor: as close to it as I am now to you, and I am standing in the spirit at your elbow.

It was a strange figure – like a child: yet not so like a child as like an old man, viewed through some supernatural medium, which gave him the appearance of having receded from the view, and being diminished to a child’s proportions. Its hair, which hung about its neck and down its back, was white as if with age; and yet the face had not a wrinkle in it, and the tenderest bloom was on the skin. The arms were very long and muscular; the hands the same, as if its hold were of uncommon strength. Its legs and feet, most delicately formed, were, like those upper members, bare. It wore a tunic of the purest white, and round its waist was bound a lustrous belt, the sheen of which was beautiful. It held a branch of fresh green holly in its hand; and, in singular contradiction of that wintry emblem, had its dress trimmed with summer flowers. But the strangest thing about it was, that from the crown of its head there sprung a bright clear jet of light, by which all this was visible; and which was doubtless the occasion of its using, in its duller moments, a great extinguisher for a cap, which it now held under its arm.

“Are you the spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?” asked Holmes.

“I am.” The voice was soft and gentle, and singularly low, as if instead of being so close beside him, it were at a distance.

“Who and what are you?” Holmes demanded.

“I am the ghost of Christmas Past.”

“Long past?” inquired Holmes, observant of its dwarfish stature.

“No. Your past.”

Holmes could not have told anybody why, if anybody could have asked him; but he had a special desire to see the spirit in his cap, and begged him to be covered.

“What!” exclaimed the ghost, “would you so soon put out, with worldly hands, the light I give? Is it not enough that you are one of those who through your lack of love made this cap, and force me through whole trains of years to wear it low upon my brow?”

Holmes reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully bonneted the spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there.

“Your welfare,” said the ghost.

Holmes could not help thinking that a night of unbroken rest, or failing that, a case to occupy him, would have been more conducive to that end. The spirit must have heard him thinking, for it said immediately:

“Your reclamation, then. Take heed.” It put out its strong hand as it spoke, and clasped him gently by the arm. “Rise, and walk with me.” The grasp, though gentle as a woman’s hand, was not to be resisted. He rose: but finding that the spirit made towards the window, hung back uneasily.

“I am mortal,” Holmes remonstrated, “and liable to fall.”

“Bear but a touch of my hand there,” said the spirit, laying it upon his heart, “and you shall be upheld in more than this.”

As the words were spoken, they passed through the wall, and stood upon an open country road, with fields on either hand. The city had entirely vanished. Not a vestige of it was to be seen. The darkness and the mist had vanished with it, for it was a clear, cold, winter day, with snow upon the ground.

“Good heavens!” said Holmes, clasping his hands together, as he looked about him. “This is Sussex. I was a boy here.”

The spirit gazed upon him mildly. Its gentle touch, though it had been light and instantaneous, appeared still present to the old man’s sense of feeling. He was conscious of a thousand odours floating in the air, each one connected with a thousand thoughts, and hopes, and joys, and cares long, long, forgotten.

“You recollect the way?” inquired the spirit.

“Remember it!” cried Holmes with fervour. “I could walk it blindfolded.”

“Strange to have forgotten it for so many years,” observed the host. They walked along the road, Holmes recognising every gate, and post, and tree; until a little market-town appeared in the distance, with its bridge, its church, and winding river. Some shaggy ponies now were seen trotting towards them with boys upon their backs, who called to other boys in country gigs and carts, driven by farmers. All these boys were in great spirits, and shouted to each other, until the broad fields were so full of merry music, that the crisp air laughed to hear it.

“These are but shadows of the things that have been,” said the ghost. “They have no consciousness of us.”

The jocund travellers came on; and as they came, Holmes knew and named them every one. Why was he rejoiced beyond all bounds to see them? Why did his cold eye glisten and his heart leap up as they went past? Why was he filled with gladness when he heard them give each other merry Christmas, as they parted at cross-roads and-bye ways, for their several homes? What was such love to Holmes? Out upon it! What good had it ever done to him?

“The school is not quite deserted,” said the ghost. “A solitary child, neglected by his friends, is left there still.”

Holmes said he knew it.

They left the high-road, by a well-remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat.

They went, the ghost and Holmes, across the hall, to a door at the back of the house. It opened before them, and disclosed a long, bare, melancholy room, made barer still by lines of plain deal forms and desks. At one of these a lonely boy was reading near a feeble fire; and Holmes sat down upon a form, and frowned to see his poor forgotten self as he used to be.

“I wish,” Holmes muttered, looking about him, “ah, but it’s too late now.”

“What is the matter?” asked the spirit.

“Nothing,” said Holmes. “Nothing. There was a boy singing a Christmas carol at my door last night. I should like to have given him something: that’s all.”

The ghost smiled thoughtfully, and waved its hand: saying as it did so, “Let us see another Christmas!”

Holmes’ former self grew larger at the words, and the room became a little darker and more dirty. The panels shrunk, the windows cracked; fragments of plaster fell out of the ceiling, and the naked laths were shown instead; but how all this was brought about, Holmes knew no more than you do. He only knew that it was quite correct; that everything had happened so; that there he was, alone again, when all the other boys had gone home for the jolly holidays.

The young Holmes was not reading now, but walking up and down despairingly. Holmes looked at the ghost, and with a mournful shaking of his head, glanced anxiously towards the door.

It opened; and a young man, perhaps half a decade older than the boy, came darting in, and shaking him by the hand, addressed him fondly, and was answered similarly.

“I have come to bring you home, Sherlock!” said the youth, beaming widely.

“Home, Mycroft?” returned the boy.

“Yes!” said Mycroft, brimful of glee. “Home, for good and all. Home, for ever and ever. Father is so much kinder than he used to be, that home’s like Heaven! He spoke so gently to me one night when I was going to bed, that I was not afraid to ask him once more if you might come home; and he said yes, you should; and sent me in a coach to bring you. And you are never to come back here; but first, we’re to be together all the Christmas long, and have the merriest time in all the world.”

“You have made me the happiest lad in all of Sussex!” exclaimed the boy.

Mycroft laughed and ruffled his brother’s hair fondly. Then he began to drag him, in his youthful eagerness, towards the door; and young Sherlock, nothing loth to go, accompanied his brother.

“Such a jolly youth your brother was,” said the ghost.

“So he was,” replied Holmes. “You’re right. I’ll not gainsay it, spirit.”

“And yet he is not so jolly now, is he?”

Holmes seemed uneasy in his mind; and answered briefly, “No.”

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 battled 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. They walked along until they came to Baker Street, and ascended into the very apartment from where they had started their journey.

“My time grows short,” observed the spirit. “Quick!”

This was not addressed to Holmes, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Holmes saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of ennui and cynicism.

He was not alone, but sat in the bow-window, with a slightly younger John Watson standing behind him. As this Holmes stared out into the street below, the good doctor looked upon his companion, his eyes softened with some light that was quite indefinable.

“Holmes,” Watson said quietly, “do you wish to open our presents?”

The shade of Holmes did not answer, but continued staring out into the street, frowning slightly as if trying to recall some half-forgotten name.

“Holmes –”

“I heard you, Doctor. As I have already told you, the tradition of exchanging Christmas gifts is not one that I choose to observe.”

“But Holmes –”

“Doctor, we shall not discuss this further. If you insist upon presenting me with the pipe you purchased –”

“Holmes, how could you –”

“Honestly, Watson! It was a simple enough deduction.”

Watson took a deep breath, his face reddening somewhat. “That is not what I meant, Holmes. I meant how could you be so unfeeling?”

Holmes did not turn around, but still glared out of the window. “You know my methods, Watson. Emotions are a liability –”

But Watson had heard enough. He turned upon his heel and strode to the sitting-room door, slamming it behind him with enough force to rattle the pictures upon the wall.

The Holmes who watched alongside the spirit shook his head sadly. “Even then, he did not understand me.” And yet, his voice held an uncertain tone quite unfamiliar to him.

“I should think,” the spirit answered evenly, “that he understands you better than you think.”

Sherlock Holmes regarded the spirit critically. “Exactly what do you mean by that?” he asked slowly.

“He alone, of all those around you, can see in your eyes the boy you were.”

“Bah! Stuff and nonsense!” Holmes said, and yet there was a gleam in his eye that said otherwise. “In any case, what do I matter to him?”

The spirit said nothing, but waved its hand.

In a shimmering of air, the sitting-room vanished and they were in Watson’s second-story bedroom, with the cheerful sailing prints upon the walls and the high window looking out into the back yard of the house, where the solitary plane tree stood covered in snow.

John Watson sat at his desk, his back to them. He was busy at something, his head bowed over his work, and Holmes had to edge forward to see that the doctor had his service pistol out and was cleaning it.

“He is always so responsible with his firearms,” Holmes said with no little pride.

“You are fond of your friend.”

Holmes frowned at the ghost. “I know what you are trying for, spirit, and I do not appreciate such obvious manipulation. You are trying to tell me that my affection for this man –” the words dried in his mouth, however, as Watson finished cleaning the pistol and, pulling a box of bullets out of a drawer, solemnly loaded it with a single bullet before spinning the chamber and placing the muzzle in his mouth.

“Watson!” Holmes yelled. “Watson, what do you –”

“He cannot see or hear you,” the spirit said calmly.

“But he is about to –” Holmes watched helplessly as Watson pulled the trigger, producing only a sharp click from the firearm. The doctor threw the weapon aside and collapsed upon the desk, his shoulders shaking in silent sobs.

Holmes watched this spectacle, the skin upon his neck tingling unpleasantly. “Watson, why?” he whispered.

“I think you know the answer to that,” the spirit replied gently. “He believes that the one person he cares for most in all the world cares nothing for him.”

“But that is preposterous! I care for him. Why, only the other day –”

“You do not show your affection for him.”

“I am a man of rational intellect. I have no use for …” Holmes looked again at the trembling shoulders of his friend and wondered exactly what he had refused in turning away from this man.

“Spirit!” said Holmes in a broken voice, “remove me from this place.”

“I told you these were shadows of the things that have been,” said the ghost. “That they are what they are, do not blame me!”

“Remove me!” Holmes exclaimed, “I cannot bear it!”

He turned upon the ghost, and seeing that it looked upon him with a face, in which in some strange way there were fragments of all the faces it had shown him, wrestled with it.

“Leave me! Take me back. Haunt me no longer!”

In the struggle, if that can be called a struggle in which the ghost with no visible resistance on its own part was undisturbed by any effort of its adversary, Holmes observed that its light was burning high and bright; and dimly connecting that with its influence over him, he seized the extinguisher-cap, and by a sudden action pressed it down upon its head.

The spirit dropped beneath it, so that the extinguisher covered its whole form; but though Holmes pressed it down with all his force, he could not hide the light, which streamed from under it, in an unbroken flood upon the ground.

He was conscious of being exhausted, and overcome by an irresistible drowsiness; and, further, of being in his own bedroom. He gave the cap a parting squeeze, in which his hand relaxed; and had barely time to reel to bed, before he sank into a heavy sleep.

Waking in the middle of a prodigiously tough snore, and sitting up in bed to get his thoughts together, Holmes had no occasion to be told that the bell was again upon the stroke of one. He felt that he was restored to consciousness in the right nick of time, for the especial purpose of holding a conference with the second messenger dispatched to him through Hilton Cubitt’s intervention. But, finding that he turned uncomfortably cold when he began to wonder how this new spectre would greet him, established a sharp look-out all round the bed. For, he wished to challenge the spirit on the moment of its appearance, and did not wish to be taken by surprise.

Now, I don’t mind calling on you to believe that he was ready for a good broad field of strange appearances, and that nothing between a baby and rhinoceros would have astonished him very much. Thus being prepared for almost anything, he was not by any means prepared for nothing; and, consequently, when the bell struck one, and no shape appeared, he was taken with a violent fit of trembling. Five minutes, ten minutes, a quarter of an hour went by, yet nothing came. All this time, he lay upon his bed, the very core and centre of a blaze of ruddy light, which streamed upon it when the clock proclaimed the hour; and which, being only light, was more alarming than a dozen ghosts, as he was powerless to make out what it meant, or would be at. At last, however, he began to realize that the source and secret of this ghostly light came from the adjoining room. This idea taking full possession of his mind, he got up softly and shuffled in his slippers to the door.

The moment Holmes’s hand was on the lock, a strange voice called him by his name, and bade him enter. He obeyed.

It was his own sitting-room. There was no doubt about that. But it had undergone a surprising transformation. The walls and ceiling were so hung with living green, that it looked a perfect grove; from every part of which, bright gleaming berries glistened. The crisp leaves of holly, mistletoe, and ivy reflected back the light, as if so many little mirrors had been scattered there; and such a mighty blaze went roaring up the chimney, as that dull petrifaction of a hearth had never known in Holmes’ time, or for many and many a winter season gone. Heaped up on the floor, to form a kind of throne, were turkeys, geese, game, poultry, brawn, great joints of meat, sucking-pigs, long wreaths of sausages, mince-pies, plum-puddings, barrels of oysters, red-hot chestnuts, cherry-cheeked apples, juicy oranges, luscious pears, immense twelfth-cakes, and seething bowls of punch, that made the chamber dim with their delicious steam. In easy state upon this couch, there sat a jolly giant, glorious to see, who bore a glowing torch, in shape not unlike Plenty’s horn, and held it up, high up, to shed its light on Holmes, as he came peeping round the door.

“Come in!” exclaimed the ghost. “Come in, and know me better, man.”

Holmes entered timidly, and hung his head before this spirit. He was not the fiery and independent soul he had been; and though the spirit’s eyes were clear and kind, he did not like to meet them.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Present,” said the spirit. “Look upon me.”

Holmes reverently did so. It was clothed in one simple green robe, or mantle, bordered with white fur. This garment hung so loosely on the figure, that its capacious breast was bare, as if disdaining to be warded or concealed by any artifice. Its feet, observable beneath the ample folds of the garment, were also bare; and on its head it wore no other covering than a holly wreath, set here and there with shining icicles. Its dark brown curls were long and free; free as its genial face, its sparkling eye, its open hand, its cheery voice, its unconstrained demeanour, and its joyful air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard; but no sword was in it, and the ancient sheath was eaten up with rust.

“You have never seen the like of me before?” exclaimed the spirit.

“Never,” Holmes answered.

“Have you never walked forth with the younger members of my family; meaning (for I am very young) my elder brothers born in these later years?” pursued the phantom.

“I don’t think I have,” said Holmes. “Have you had many brothers, spirit?”

“Almost nineteen hundred,” said the ghost.

“A tremendous family to provide for,” muttered Holmes.

The Ghost of Christmas Present rose.

“Spirit,” said Holmes in a submissive manner quite unlike his own, “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.”

Holmes 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 (for the weather was severe) 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.

But soon the steeples called good people all, to church and chapel, and away they came, flocking through the streets in their best clothes, and with their gayest faces. And at the same time there emerged from scores of bye-streets, lanes, and nameless turnings, innumerable people, carrying their dinners to the bakers’ shops. The sight of these poor revellers appeared to interest the Spirit very much, for he stood with Holmes beside him in a baker’s doorway, and taking off the covers as their bearers passed, sprinkled incense on their dinners from his torch. And it was a very uncommon kind of torch, for once or twice when there were angry words between some dinner-carriers who had jostled each other, he shed a few drops of water on them from it, and their good humour was restored directly. For they said, it was a shame to quarrel upon Christmas Day. And so it was. God love it, so it was.

In time the bells ceased, and the bakers were shut up; and yet there was a genial shadowing forth of all these dinners and the progress of their cooking, in the thawed blotch of wet above each baker’s oven; where the pavement smoked as if its stones were cooking too.

“Is there a peculiar flavour in what you sprinkle from your torch?” asked Holmes.

“There is. My own.”

“Would it apply to any kind of dinner on this day?” asked Holmes.

“To any kindly given.”

So they went on, invisible, as they had been before, into the centre of the town. It was a remarkable quality of the ghost, that notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease; and that he stood beneath a low roof quite as gracefully and like a supernatural creature, as it was possible he could have done in any lofty hall.

And perhaps it was the pleasure the good spirit had in showing off this power of his, or else it was his own kind, generous, hearty nature, and his sympathy with all men, that led him straight to Scotland Yard; for there he went, and took Holmes with him, holding to his robe; and on the threshold of the door the spirit smiled, and stopped to bless the station-house with the sprinkling of his torch.