The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge by Charlie Lovett Read Free Book Online Page A

will forgive us, Mr. Scrooge,” said Mr. Portly in a shaky voice, “we really must be abed; our business begins quite early tomorrow.”
    â€œIt is tomorrow,” laughed Scrooge, pointing to the clock on the chimneypiece, which was about to strike the quarter after two. “And your business begins now.” With the final syllable of this proclamation, Scrooge’s voice acquired an intensity that Messrs. Pleasant and Portly found more menacing than the giant, who now flicked a bare turkey bone into the fire.
    â€œShall we go?” asked the Spirit, standing and shaking the crumbs out of his mantle. It was a remarkable quality of the ghost (which Scrooge had observed in his brother) that, notwithstanding his gigantic size, he could accommodate himself to any place with ease. For the residents of that house, the sight of this colossal figure standing comfortably in their parlour finally shocked them into the realisation that they would not be slipping quietly off to their bedchambers, but that some ominous adventure lay waiting for them. In another moment, the Spirit had grabbed the unsuspecting gentlemen by the hands; the parlour, the fire, and the trappings of Christmas had all disappeared; and the quartet stood in the cold winter air of a black, dilapidated lane flanked by tenements that looked as though they might topple forward into the street at any moment.
    â€œWelcome, gentlemen, welcome,” said Scrooge. “I daresay you have seldom ventured into this part of London. Not so many customers here as in Mayfair, no doubt.”
    â€œIs this about those charity cheques, Mr. Scrooge?” enquired Mr. Pleasant. “Surely you must know that you could write a thousand cheques for fifty pounds and the London poor would still be with us.”
    â€œIndeed,” said Mr. Portly, shaking his head, “one person simply cannot change the plight of the unfortunate.”
    â€œBut one person might change the plight of one unfortunate,” said Scrooge. “One person may even change the plight of ten, or a score, or a hundred unfortunates. Let us go in, shall we?”
    On entering the nearest house, the men were met with a fetid smell that made further ingress difficult. Nevertheless, clutching their sleeves across their noses, they pressed on, down a dark and filthy staircase. As parasites appear on the ruined human wretch, so this ruined shelter had bred a crowd of foul vermin that crawled in and out of gaps in walls and boards, fetching and carrying fever and sowing evil in their every footprint.
    They emerged amongst a range of damp and gloomy stone vaults beneath the ground. The filth of humanity oozed up around their feet. From ahead in the near darkness, they heard a soft moan.
    â€œYou don’t really mean to say that human beings live down in these wretched dungeons?” asked Mr. Pleasant.
    â€œLive down here and die down here, too, very often,” replied Scrooge solemnly, pushing open a door to reveal a small chamber. The room was colder than the street outside. No fire could be placed in the grate, for there was no grate, the stone vault having been intended originally for keeping a small quantity of coal to supply lodgers in a room above. Seated against the wall on the wet floor were four wretched beings, who seemed human only in form. As Scrooge informed his companions, they had once occupied rooms on an upper floor of the same house. The father, whose head lolled loosely on his shoulders, had been a weaver, and had supported his family passably well until a dry spell of work forced him to burn his loom to keep the children warm. The bedsteads, chairs, and tables he had already burned. Now, as his whisperings revealed, he only prayed that death might take his children quickly, and with little pain.
    â€œBut what can we do?” asked Mr. Portly. “There are so many living in such conditions.”
    â€œThere are not so many here,” said Scrooge.