Stave One. Marley's Ghost. (Part 2!)

The next character to appear is Scrooge's nephew. He's also not called by name until later in the book. (Spoiler: It's Fred.) He's very cheerful and full of Christmas spirit, though poor in Scrooge's eyes. He's married and would like Scrooge to come to Christmas dinner and meet his wife. Scrooge is not pleased that Fred is married. Scrooge's famous "Bah! Humbug!" remark is directed at his nephew, who brushes it off and remains cheerful.

An interesting point is that Fred has apparently never met Cratchit before, although most adaptations have the two of them exchanging pleasantries as if they were already acquainted, with Fred asking how Bob's family was doing. Bob states later in the book that he had only met Scrooge's nephew that one time.

Scrooge's nephew isn't really in the book that much, but a lot of versions give him an expanded role, although sometimes he's omitted altogether!

The next two characters' names are never revealed and they are only described as portly! Kind of harsh! These are the two gentlemen who come into the office asking for donations to charity. Only one of them speaks in the book and this is often the case in various adaptations.

The gentlemen do not know whether Scrooge is Scrooge or Marley (that sign again!), but this gives Scrooge a chance to mention that Marley had died seven years ago on Christmas Eve.

The fact that they don't know who Scrooge is shows that Scrooge is not known by everybody in London, let alone that he's such a miser. These two find out pretty quickly, though!

This scene contains some of the snappiest dialogue in the book, with all the talk about prisons and workhouses and decreasing the surplus population and all. Those lines by Scrooge really illustrate his character and are almost always used.

After the gentlemen leave, Dickens goes on for a bit about people scurrying around and preparations for the Lord Mayor's Christmas dinner. Very descriptive, but it slows the narrative down, so most adaptations don't deal with it at all.

At this point, a young caroler sings outside the door, but Scrooge chases him off with a ruler. A commonly used incident, but often placed after Scrooge leaves his office.

Before he leaves, however, he engages in a bit of business with Cratchit about taking the whole day off for Christmas. I love Scrooge's line, "A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth of December!"

A little bit of character development for Bob Cratchit is that he's so excited to be done with work and start celebrating the holiday that he goes down a slide with a bunch of boys twenty times! A good Cratchit to me is meek and mild at work, but fun and jolly at home. He loves his family and knows that he needs to keep his job to support them. Things haven't changed much,have they?

Bob goes home and Scrooge is about to go home himself. What will he find there?