He disliked cold, though he kept his office cold. He disliked noise, though he made plenty when he slammed his cashbox. Most of all, he disliked Christmas.
“Bah, humbug!” he told his cheerful nephew Fred, who invited him to Christmas dinner anyway. Two gentlemen asked Scrooge to help poor families buy food and coal. He refused them too.
His clerk, Bob Cratchit, worked beside a tiny fire that was trying its best and failing politely.
At closing time, Scrooge grudgingly allowed Bob to take Christmas Day off, provided he arrived early the morning after. Then he ate a lonely supper and went home. As he reached his door, the knocker changed into the face of Jacob Marley, his old business partner, dead seven years.
Scrooge stared. "Nonsense," he said, because nonsense was cheaper than fear.
But after supper, bells rang through the house. Then Marley's ghost appeared, wrapped in chains made of keys, locks, ledgers, and heavy regret.
"Ebenezer," groaned Marley. "I cared only for business and forgot kindness. Now I wear the chain I made in life."
Scrooge's knees knocked together, which annoyed him because he had not given them permission.
"Why have you come?" he whispered.
"To warn you. You still have a chance. Tonight you will be visited by three spirits. Listen to them."
Scrooge tried to say he would rather not. But ghosts are not known for flexible scheduling.
Marley floated to the window. Outside, Scrooge saw other chained spirits reaching helplessly toward a mother and child in the street. They had lost the power to help people when they lost their lives.
Then Marley vanished.
Scrooge climbed into bed and pulled the blankets high.
"A dream," he muttered.
But when the clock struck one, the curtains stirred.
From the glow beyond the curtains stepped a strange figure, old and young at once, with a light blazing from its head. Scrooge gripped his bedpost as the room began to fade.