But what did Scrooge care It was the very thing he liked To edge his way along the crowded paths of life warning all human sympathy to keep its distance was what the knowing ones call nuts to Scrooge Once upon a time of all the good days in the year on Christ mas Eve old Scrooge sat busy in his countinghouse It was cold bleak biting weather foggy withal and he could hear the people in the court outside go wheezing up and down beating their hands upon their breasts and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them The city clocks had only just gone three but it was quite dark already it had not been light all day and candles were flaring in the windows of the neighbouring offices like ruddy smears upon the pal pable brown air The fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole and was so dense without that although the court was of the narrow est the houses opposite were mere phantoms To see the dingy cloud come drooping down obscuring everything one might have thought that Nature lived hard by and was brewing on a large scale The door of Scrooge’s countinghouse was open that he might keep his eye upon his clerk who in a dismal little cell beyond a sort of tank was copying letters Scrooge had a very small fire but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller that it looked like one coal But he couldn’t re plenish it for Scrooge kept the coal-box in his own room and so surely MARLEY’S GHOST 10 A CHRISTMAS CAROL
as the clerk came in with the shovel the master predicted that it would be necessary for them to part Wherefore the clerk put on his white comforter and tried to warm himself at the candle in which effort not being a man of a strong imagination he failed A merry Christmas uncle God save you cried a cheerful voice It was the voice of Scrooge’s nephew who came upon him so quickly that this was the first intimation he had of his approach Bah said Scrooge Humbug He had so heated himself with rapid walking in the fog and frost this nephew of Scrooge’s that he was all in a glow his face was ruddy and handsome his eyes sparkled and his breath smoked again Christmas a humbug uncle said Scrooge’s nephew You don’t mean that I am sure I do said Scrooge Merry Christmas What right have you to be merry What reason have you to be merry You’re poor enough Come then returned the nephew gaily What right have you to be dismal What reason have you to be morose You’re rich enough Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment said Bah again and followed it up with Humbug Don’t be cross uncle said the nephew What else can I be returned the uncle when I live in such a MARLEY’S GHOST 11 CHARLES DICKENS
world of fools as this Merry Christmas Out upon merry Christ mas What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying bills without money a time for finding yourself a year older but not an hour richer a time for balancing your books and having every item in em through a round dozen of months presented dead against you 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 bur ied with a stake of holly through his heart He should Uncle pleaded the nephew Nephew returned the uncle sternly keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep it in mine Keep it repeated Scrooge’s nephew But you don’t keep it Let me leave it alone then said Scrooge Much good may it do you Much good it has ever done you There are many things from which I might have derived good by which I have not profited I dare say returned the nephew Christmas among the rest But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time when it has come round apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin if anything belonging to it can be apart from that as a good time a kind forgiving charitable pleasant time the only time I know of in the long calendar of the year when men and women seem by MARLEY’S GHOST 12 A CHRISTMAS CAROL
one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys And therefore uncle though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket I believe that it has done me good and will do me good and I say God bless it The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded Becoming imme diately sensible of the impropriety he poked the fire and extinguished the last frail spark forever Let me hear another sound from you said Scrooge and you’ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation You’re quite a powerful speaker sir he added turning to his nephew I wonder you don’t go into Parliament Don’t be angry uncle Come Dine with us tomorrow Scrooge said that he would see him yes indeed he did He went the whole length of the expression and said that he would see him in that extremity first But why cried Scrooge’s nephew Why Why did you get married said Scrooge Because I fell in love Because you fell in love growled Scrooge as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas MARLEY’S GHOST 13 k CHARLES DICKENS
