ThE mineR
Making
Christmas
A Christmas Carol By Charles Dickens Edited for public reading by Theresa Race Hoffman. This version Copyright © 2006 by Theresa Hoffman. All Rights Reserved.
M
1b
November 18, 2015 |
ARLEY was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that. The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail. This must be understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. Scrooge never painted out Old Marley’s name. The firm was known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It was all the same to him. Oh! But he was a squeezing, grasping, scraping old sinner! The cold within him froze his features, nipped his pointed nose, made his eyes red, his thin lips blue. And he didn’t thaw one degree at Christmas. Once upon a time, on a dark Christmas Eve, old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house. It was biting weather, and the fog poured in at every chink and keyhole. The door was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who was copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire. But the clerk’s poor fire looked like one little coal. “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried a cheerful voice. It was Scrooge’s nephew, come into the room. “Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!” This nephew’s breath smoked in the cold. “Christmas a humbug, uncle!” he said. “You don’t mean that?” “If I could work my will,” said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes about with ‘Merry Christmas’ on his lips, should be boiled with his own pudding, and buried
Merry
Stave 1 - Marley’s Ghost
with a stake of holly through his heart!” The nephew answered, “Don’t be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us to-morrow.” “Bah, humbug!” “But why?” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “Why cannot we be friends? Merry Christmas, uncle!” “Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. “And a Happy New Year!” “Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. His nephew even stopped at the outer door to wish season’s greetings on the clerk. “There’s another fellow,” muttered Scrooge; who overheard him: “my clerk, fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a merry Christmas. Humbug!” Scrooge’s nephew had let two other people in. They bowed to him. “Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?” said one of the gentlemen, referring to his list. “Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years,” Scrooge replied. “He died seven years ago, this very night.” “Mr. Scrooge,” said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “a few of us are endeavouring to buy the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmth. What shall I put you down for?” “Nothing,” said Scrooge. “I don’t make merry myself at Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people merry. They can go to debtors’ prisons.” “Many would rather die.” “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge, “they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population. Good afternoon, gentlemen!” Seeing that it was useless, the gentlemen withdrew. Scrooge went back to his work. Meanwhile the fog and darkness and biting cold thickened. One cold young boy stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him with a Christmas carol: but at
the first sound of “God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!” Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy, that the singer fled in terror, leaving the keyhole to the fog. At length the hour of shutting up arrived. Scrooge nodded to the clerk, who instantly snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat. “You’ll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?” said Scrooge. The clerk observed that it was only once a year. “A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every twentyfifth of December!” said Scrooge. “Be here all the earlier next morning.” The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge walked out with a growl. The office was closed, and the clerk ran home as hard as he could. Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual melancholy tavern; and having read all the newspapers, and See Carol, 3B
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