A CHRISTMAS CAROL
(Act 1, Scene 2)
SCROOGE: What are you doing, Cratchit? Acting cold, are you? Next, you’ll be asking to replenish your coal from my coal-box, won’t you? Well, save your breath Cratchit! Unless you’re prepared to find employ elsewhere!
FRED: A Merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you!
SCROOGE: Bah! Humbug!
FRED: Christmas a humbug, Uncle? I’m sure you don’t mean that.
SCROOGE: I do. What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You’re poor enough!
FRED: Come, then. What right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You’re rich enough!
SCROOGE: Bah! Humbug!
FRED: Don’t be cross, Uncle!
SCROOGE: What else can I be, eh? When I live in a world of fools such as this? Merry Christmas?! What’s Christmas to you but a time for paying bills without any money; a time for finding yourself a year older, but not an hour richer. If I could work my will, every idiot who goes about with “Merry Christmas” on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart. [Pauses] He should!
FRED: Uncle!
SCROOGE: Nephew! You keep Christmas in your own way and let me keep it in mine.
FRED: Keep it? But you don’t keep it, Uncle!
SCROOGE: Let me leave it alone then. Much good it has ever done you.
FRED: There are many things I’ve derived good, but from which I’ve not profited, I dare say. Christmas among the rest. But I’m sure I’ve always thought Christmas, when it comes around, as a good time when men and women open their shut-up hearts freely and think of the people below them as fellow passengers to the grave and not as another race of creatures bound of other journeys. So, therefore, Uncle, although it has never out a scrap of silver or gold in my pocket, I believe it has done me good and that it will do me good, and I say, God bless it!
SCROOGE: [To Cratchit] Let me hear another sound from you and you’ll be keeping your Christmas by losing your situation. [To nephew] You’re quite a powerful speaker, sir. I wonder why you don’t go into parliament.
FRED: Don’t be angry, Uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.
SCROOGE: I’d rather see myself dead than see myself with your family!
FRED: Why? But why?
SCROOGE: Why did you get married?
FRED: Because I fell in love.
SCROOGE: That, sir, is the only thing that you have said in your entire lifetime that is more ridiculous than “Merry Christmas.” [Turns away] Good Afternoon!
FRED: Nay, Uncle, you never came to visit me before I was married. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?
SCROOGE: Good afternoon, Nephew!
FRED: I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; Why can we not be friends?
SCROOGE: Good Afternoon!
FRED: I am sorry with all my heart, to find you so resolute. But I have made the trial in homage to Christmas, and I’ll keep my Christmas humor to the last. So, a Merry Christmas, Uncle!
SCROOGE: Good Afternoon!
FRED: And a Happy New Year!
SCROOGE: GOOD AFTERNOON!
FRED: [Facing Scrooge] Uncle, you are the most...no, I shan’t. My Christmas humor is still intact...God bless you, Uncle. [Stops at Bob Cratchit’s cage] Merry Christmas, Bob Cratchit!
SCROOGE: Oh fine, a perfection, just fine...to see the perfect pair of you, husbands, with wives and children to support...my clerk over there earning 15 shillings a week ...and the perfect pair of you, talking about a Merry Christmas...I’ll retire to Bedlam!
NEPHEW: He’s impossible.
CRATCHIT: Oh mind him not sir. He’s getting on in years and he’s along. He noticed your visit. I’ll wager your visit has warmed him!
NEPHEW: Him? Uncle Ebenezer Scrooge? Warmed? You are a better Christian than I am, sir!
CRATCHIT: [Opens door 2 men enter] Good day to you, sir and God bless!
NEPHEW: God bless…
CRATCHIT: Can I help you, Gentlemen?
THIN MAN: Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe. Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr. Scrooge or Mr. Marley?
SCROOGE: Mr. Marley has been dead these 7 years. He died 7 years ago this very night.
PORTLY MAN: We have no doubt his liberality is well represented by his surviving partner. [Hands card]
SCROOGE: [Hands back card without looking at it] Good afternoon.
THIN MAN: This will take but a moment, sir.
PORTLY MAN: At this festive season, Mr. Scrooge, it is more than usually desirable that we could make some slight provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at the present time. Many thousands of common necessities hundreds are in want of common comforts.
SCROOGE: Are there no prisons?
PORTLY MAN: Plenty of prisons.
SCROOGE: And aren’t the Union Workhouses still in operation?
THIN MAN: They are still. I wish I could say they are not.
SCROOGE: The treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigor, then?
THIN MAN: Both very busy, sir.
SCROOGE: Ohh. I see...I was afraid of what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them from their useful course. [Pause] I’m glad to hear it.
PORTLY: Under the impression...what shall I put you down for, sir?
SCROOGE: Nothing!
PORTLY MAN: [Looks at THIN MAN] Ohhh! I see! You wish to be left anonymous!
SCROOGE: I wish to be left alone [turns, pause, turns back] Since you ask me what I wish, Gentlemen, that is my answer. I help to support the establishments I have mentioned; they cost enough and those who are badly off must go there,
THIN MAN: Many can’t go there and many would rather die.
SCROOGE: If they would rather die, they had better do it and decrease the surplus population. Besides - excuse me - I don’t know that.
THIN MAN: But you might know it.
SCROOGE: It’s not my business. It’s enough for a man to understand his own business, and not interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies me constantly. Good afternoon, Gentleman. [Turns to desk]
PORTLY MAN: But sir, Mr. Scrooge, think of the poor.
SCROOGE: Take your leave of my offices, sirs, while I’m still smiling.
THIN MAN: Good day, sir [To Cratchit] A Merry Christmas to you, sir.
CRATCHIT: Yes. A Merry Christmas to both of you...
PORTLY MAN: Merry Christmas.
THIN MAN: What’s this?
CRATCHIT: Shh...
THIN MAN: Thank you, sir, thank you.
SCROOGE: It's less of a time of year for being merry and more of a time of year for being lonely...if you ask me.
CRATCHIT: Well I don’t know, sir [6 bells] Well, there it is, eh, 6?
SCROOGE: Saved by six bells, are you?
CRATCHIT: I must be going home...lovely day tomorrow.
SCROOGE: Hmm, Oh you’ll be wanting the whole day tomorrow, I suppose.
CRATCHIT: If quite convenient, sir.
SCROOGE: It’s not convenient, and it’s not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll be bound?
[Cratchit smiles faintly.]
CRATCHIT: I don’t know, sir...
SCROOGE: And yet, you don’t think me ill-used when I pay a day’s wages for no work.
CRATCHIT: It’s only once a year, sir.
SCROOGE: A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket every 25th of December. But I suppose you must leave the whole day. Be here all the earlier the next morning!
CRATCHIT: Oh I will, sir, I will. And sir...
SCROOGE: Don’t say it, Cratchit!
CRATCHIT: But, sir, let me wish you a...
SCROOGE: Cratchit, I warn you...
CRATCHIT: Sir! [opens door]
SCROOGE: CRATCHIT!
CRATCHIT: All right...well...ah...MERRY CHRISTMAS! [Runs out the door]
BOY: [Singing] “Away in a manger…”
SCROOGE: [Hits boy with a ruler] Bah! Humbug! Christmas! Bah! Humbug!
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