"Come in!" exclaimed the Ghoul-Ghost. "Come in, and know me better, (G. O.) Man!"
SADSTONE entered timidly, and hung his head before the Spirit. He was hardly the dogged SADSTONE he had been, and the Spirit's eyes were so glowering and ungenial, he did not like to meet them.
"I am the Spirit of Christmas Present," said the apparition. "Look upon me!"
SADSTONE sorrowfully did so. It was clothed in one simple emerald-green robe or mantle, bordered with buff fur of the dull tint dear to the old Scotch Whig. 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. On its head it wore no other covering than a wreath of shamrock, set here and there with a thistle. Its dull black curls were long and elf-like and weird; weird as its frowning face, its staring eye, its clenched hand, its raucous voice, its despotic demeanour, and its gloomy air. Girded round its middle was an antique scabbard, holding a huge two-handed sword; the blade, ready to leap from its sheath, seemed a most unsuitable and unseasonable adjunct to what mankind has been wont to regard as the gentle and genial Spirit of Peace and Goodwill.
"You have never seen the like of _Me_ before!" exclaimed the Spirit.
"_Ne-e-ver!_" SADSTONE made answer to it, in accents stammering somewhat, yet most emphatic.
[Illustration: THE SPIRIT OF CHRISTMAS PRESENT.
"COME IN, AND KNOW ME BETTER, (G. O.) MAN!"]
[Illustration: IT] _is New Year's Eve. In a comfortable arm-chair by the fire sits the_ Metropolitan Magistrate. _He smiles in self-complacency. He speaks:--_
This year I have most faithfully fulfilled my duty; the spirit of sweet leniency has marked my every sentence--at least toward the more flagitious and inhuman offender. Thus have I, in place of punishing, won over to more virtuous ways; so may I doze the cheerful, self-admiring doze of virtue.
[_He dozes. Gathering from the comfortable reflections of the fire and lamp thrown from the polished furniture, a radiant form shapes itself at his elbow. The_ Magistrate _smiles in his sleep, in great content_.
_The Metropolitan Magistrate._ Who art thou, visitant?
_The Form._ I am the Spirit of thy Leniency. I come to show thee how fair and flattering a result thy milder sentences--to wit, those passed upon the more outrageous culprits--have yielded. See! (_Waves a wand._) This is he who came before thy judgment seat for--after repeated warning--selling milk from premises teeming with scarlet fever. Thou didst say, "_It is the grossest, and most shocking case of brutal disregard for human life I ever heard!_" and thereupon didst fine him half-a-crown--the minimum penalty.