Marley was dead, dead as a doornail. All that remained of the firm of Scrooge and Marley was Ebenezer Scrooge.
Scrooge… a grasping, greedy, gruesome old man ! He was as hard as stone, and so cold inside his face looked frozen.
Scrooge didn’t care for anyone and hardly anyone cared for him. Even Christmas cheer couldn’t thaw his icy heart.
One Christmas Eve, he was busy in his counting house. He had left his office door open, to keep an eye on his clerk, Bob Cratchit.
“A Merry Christmas, Uncle !” cried a cheerful voice suddenly. It was Scrooge’s nephew, Fred. “Bah, humbug!” said Scrooge.
“If I had my way,” Scrooge added, “every idiot who said ‘Merry with his own cake!”
“Really, Uncle!” cried Fred. “come, why not eat with us tomorrow ?”
“Good afternoon!” Scrooge replied, returning to his books.
As Fred left, two other men came in, collecting for the poor. “Are there no prisons ?” asked Scrooge. “No workhouses? I pay for those. That’s enough.”
The men went out into the bitterly cold afternoon, shaking their heads. A little later, a scruffy boy paused by Scrooge’s office and began to sing.
God bless you, merry gentlemen…
But one look at Scrooge and he fled without finishing the verse.
Finally, it was time to go home. “You’ll want the whole day off tomorrow, I suppose?” Scrooge snapped at Bob.
“If it’s convenient,” said Bob. “It isn’t. Be here all the earlier the day after.”
Scrooge left the office with a growl. Bob quickly locked up and set off for home. Scrooge went for his usual lonely dinner in a lonely inn.
Then he too set off for home, a few gloomy rooms in an old house which once belonged to Marley.