The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge by Charlie Lovett

 
STAVE I

Marley’s Ghost
    S crooge was alive, to begin with. There could be no doubt whatever about that—alive and kicking. Not that I know why that particular verb should exemplify life; for Scrooge’s part it might better be said that he was alive and singing, or alive and laughing, or alive and generally making a nuisance of himself.
    Yes, though Scrooge had approached, then reached, and finally surpassed the age at which most of us, in particular his former partner, Jacob Marley, like Hamlet and his unhappy clan, “shuffle off this mortal coil,” he nonetheless lived on, with no noticeable diminution of energy, or ecstasy, or enthusiasm. Cratchit knew this well. How could it be otherwise? Scrooge and Cratchit had been partners for nigh on twenty years and in all that time Cratchit, though he had watchedas the lines of age had waged their admittedly only modestly successful assault on Scrooge’s visage, had noted no decrease in his partner’s liveliness. Which brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Scrooge was as alive as ever—some might say more alive.
    Oh, but he was an openhanded benefactor, Scrooge! A generous, charitable, jolly, gleeful, munificent old fool, yielding as a feather pillow that welcomed the weariest soul to its downy breast. The light within him melted his hardened features, reddened his nose, puffed out his cheeks, loosened his gait (as well as his purse strings), made his eyes sparkle and his lips glow, and bubbled forth in his dulcet voice. A tuneful rhyme was ever in his throat, and his frosty eyebrows fooled no one. He carried his own warmth always about him; he could thaw ice blocks with his presence as easily at Christmastide as in the dog days of summer.
    External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge—no summer swelter could dissuade his glee nor winter weather chill his cheery countenance. No breeze that swayed the grasses of spring was gentler than he, no falling snow more soft and soothing, no rain more apt to nurture. And like the rain and snow and hail and sleet and beating sun combined, like our own relentless English weather, Scrooge never stopped, never altered that perfect disposition—not to please himself, and certainlynot to please those inhabitants of London on whom his constant kindnesses had grown wearisome from years of use.
    Nobody ever stopped in the street to say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Mr. Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?” For they knew that come he would, and bring gifts to the children he would, and press a coin into each of their outstretched hands he would, and sing a pleasant song he would, and such unrelenting happiness would he bring that the household would find it difficult to bear. No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle, for a ten-pound note would end their careers. No children asked him what was the o’clock, having no time to spare for stories and songs and tossing upon the knee. Even the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him, and when they saw him coming on, they would tug their owners into doorways and up courts; for where would such dogs be once Scrooge laid eyes upon their masters—Scrooge, who would gladly lead a blind man to Dover, if that were his destination? No, the dogs would wag their tails and hide their masters until Scrooge had passed, their employment ensured for another day.
    But what did Scrooge care? There was always another blind man or beggar or child just round the corner, always room in the crowded paths of life for his bottomless well of human sympathy.
    Once upon a time—of all the days in the year, that longest day when shadows in the narrowest alleys do not lengthen until well past the hour when men like Scrooge have taken their evening meal—old Scrooge whistled his way down a narrow street of Westminster. It was hot, sultry, sweaty weather and the shimmer on the Thames was enough to cloud the