«Go buy it! Come back with the man and I'll give you a shilling. Come back in less than five minutes and I'll give you a crown!»
And the boy went to fetch.
And buttoning his coat, carrying his books. Old Harry Ebenezer Scrooge Julius Caesar Pickwick Pip and half a thousand others marched off along the road in winter weather. The road was long and beautiful. The waves were gunflre on the coast. The wind was bagpipes in the north.
Ten minutes later, when he had gone singing beyond a hill, by the look of it, all the lands of England seemed ready for a people who someday soon in history might arrive….