A Shakespearean Christmas Carol

Act I.

Scene 1. A counting house. Enter Ebeneezer Scrooge and Bob Cratchit.

Scrooge:

If one time more that shovel you should grasp

Expecting to extract a lump of coal,

Your permanent dismissal shall result.

Cratchit:

Yes, Mr. Scrooge.

Scrooge:

And now return to that for which you're paid.

Enter Fred, Nephew of Scrooge.

Fred:

A Merry Christmas to you, Uncle Scrooge.

Scrooge:

To that I say bah humbug, nephew Fred.

Fred:

You cannot be sincere in such a thought.

Scrooge:

What right have you to be so merry now,

As destitute as you have always been?

Fred:

By that, what right have you to be morose?

King Solomon would envy thee your purse.

Scrooge:

Bah, humbug.

Fred:

Prithee don't be cross today.

Scrooge:

How can my humors set another way

When prating fools like you bestrew the globe?

Aroint a Merry Christmas. Out I say!

For 'tis a time to find one's self in debt,

And one year closer to oblivion.

If I could work my will, the idiot

Who walks about with "Christmas" on his lips

Would in a figgy pudding boiled be,

And thence interred with holly through his heart.

Keep then, Christmas in your private manner,

Affording me the selfsame luxury.

Fred:

You do not keep the holiday at all.

Scrooge:

Allow me then to turn my back on it.

Behold what little good it does for thee.

Fred:

If one may set aside the origins

Of this most sacred day of all the year,

Rejoicing in its other noble traits,

I find the closed-up hearts of every man

Thrown open to the world at Christmastime.

A fraction of the year wherein mankind

Proceeds in one consent to follow He