The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge by Charlie Lovett Page B

and a fire in the grate. If a spirit can be said to smile, on that night Marley did. His chain, he said, was considerably lighter thanks to Scrooge’s machinations, and growing lighter every day. It was nearly four years before Marley paid his final visit, and on that occasion Scrooge’s late partner, overcome with emotion, could only mumble a simple thanks for the rest that was, at last, about to come his way.
    Cratchit continued to work hard, but he left the office after lunch every Tuesday and spent the afternoon with his grandson; Scrooge saw to it that Cratchit’s income did not suffer for this indulgence. Tim always looked upon his grandfather with eyes full of love, and would consider the hours the two spent together amongst the happiest of his childhood. As Cratchit’s life became blessed with additional grandchildren, he spent more time with them and less at the office, until Scrooge convinced his partner to take early retirement and to hand the reins of the business over to his son. From that day forward, not a day passed when Cratchit did not bless the life of some member of his increasing family with an act of kindness or a display of love, and it was said by those who knew him that he taught all the Cratchit grandchildren the true meaning of family and that they would doubtlesscarry this lesson forth in the world as they married and had children and grandchildren of their own.
    Freddie did his best to be a great reformer, and though he never became prime minister, he did attain various positions of influence and he was often, behind closed doors, the initiator and driving force behind many of the social improvements in the ensuing two decades. In his retirement, he continued to administer the charity founded in honour of his uncle.
    The Scrooge Society (which eventually included several members of Parliament in addition to Freddie) met for luncheon at the club of Messrs. Pleasant and Portly every Wednesday. Scrooge had wanted to change the name to the Wednesday Club, but the members insisted that the name reflect the role Mr. Scrooge had played in all their lives. These pages are too brief to enumerate all the good the society did as the years passed, but many a desperate Londoner had his life transformed by the generosity of its members, and though the money they gave away was not, strictly speaking, Scrooge’s, they nonetheless depended on the old man’s guidance. And Scrooge’s understanding of the people of London, coupled with his genuine belief that they were, as his nephew had said so long ago, fellow passengers to the grave, always steered the society towards accomplishing true change in the lives of the people it touched.
    Scrooge never stopped wandering the streets of London, looking for places where he might spread the spirit of Christmas and wishing the passersby a happy holiday. And though he preferred to be known as an eccentric old man rather than as a benefactor, Scrooge was not quite so anonymous as to have his deeds go wholly unrecognised. And so it was that, on occasion, whilst strolling down the Strand or when stopped before the window of a bookshop on Charing Cross Road, Scrooge would encounter some former beneficiary of his kindness, and that fortunate soul, be it man, woman, or child, would invariably greet him with a hearty, “God bless you, Mr. Scrooge,” to which Scrooge would as invariably reply, “God bless
us
, every one.”
    TheEnd

Afterword
    The gratitude I feel for Charles Dickens extends far beyond the inspiration for (and some of the passages in) this little story. Although Dickens may have been overcredited in the early twentieth century for single-handedly both reviving the observance of Christmas and inventing our modern version of its celebration, he certainly played an important role in codifying many Christmas customs that remain in use to this day—from carol singing to tree decorating. As I look back on the Christmas