A Christmas Carol Summary & ending explained

Jacob Marley had been dead for seven years, and nobody doubted it. Scrooge had signed the burial register himself, and closed a profitable deal on the day of the funeral. He never even had the old name painted over. The sign above the warehouse still said Scrooge and Marley, and Scrooge answered to either.

It was Christmas Eve, and by three o'clock London was already dark. Fog pressed against the windows of the counting-house. In a cramped back room, Bob Cratchit copied letters beside a fire so small it looked like a single coal. The coal-box sat in Scrooge's own office, and Bob knew better than to ask for it.

The door flew open. "Merry Christmas, uncle!"

It was Fred, Scrooge's nephew, glowing from the cold.

"Bah!" said Scrooge. "Humbug!"

Fred laughed and asked him to Christmas dinner. Scrooge asked why on earth Fred had married. Fred said it was because he had fallen in love, and Scrooge seemed to find that even sillier than Christmas. Fred left without a cross word, still wishing everyone well.

Two portly gentlemen came in after him, collecting for the poor. Thousands, they explained, lacked the barest necessities this winter.

"Are there no prisons?" Scrooge asked. "No workhouses?"

There were. But many people couldn't go there, and some would sooner die.

"Then let them," said Scrooge, "and cut down the surplus population." He showed them out.

A boy began a carol at the keyhole. Scrooge reached for his ruler, and the singer ran.

At closing time Scrooge grumbled that Bob would want all of Christmas Day, he supposed. He called it a way of picking his pocket once a year, but let him have it, on condition he came in all the earlier the morning after. Bob ran home to Camden Town as fast as his legs would go.

Scrooge ate a cheerless dinner alone and walked home to the gloomy rooms that had once been Marley's. He put his key in the lock. Then he looked up at the big iron knocker.

It wasn't a knocker any more. It was Marley's face.