The Further Adventures of Ebenezer Scrooge Read Online Free

businessman’s attire. His chain of cashboxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers, deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel was clasped about his middle. Scrooge thought its length must have diminished over the years, thanks to his friend’s good works, but it was still a heavy burden, and Marley seemed glad of the opportunity, however fleeting, to rest.
    On his otherwise barren chimneypiece, Scrooge kept a decanter of brandy and a pair of snifters (a long-ago Christmas gift from his nephew) for just such occasions. Only when his late partner was fully settled in the chair opposite did Scrooge rise and pour one glass nearly full, then dribble a few drops into the other. The full glass he passed to Marley; the other he kept for himself—not drinking, but periodically breathing the rich vapours that circulated in its depths. Marley hadpolitely taken his usual chair, a ragged and decrepit affair that would be no worse for the fresh brandy stains Scrooge would find there next morning—for it might truly be said of Marley that he could not hold his liquor.
    It occurred to Scrooge that he might remark on this defect in his friend’s character, for he was much in the habit of making merry, but Marley’s fixed, glazed eyes and the hot vapours that swirled his ghostly hair told Scrooge there was more import to this visit than desire for a friend’s society and wit. Marley was often wont to sit with Scrooge when the living member of this peculiar pair suffered a sleepless night due to an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, or a fragment of an underdone potato, but tonight Marley downed his brandy and, as the stain spread slowly across the cushion, raised his face to the ceiling and let out a cry of such lament that Scrooge, in spite of himself, felt chilled to his marrow.
    â€œWhat troubles you, good friend?” asked Scrooge, in as calm a voice as he could (for though he was quite content to chat with Marley for hours, he never forgot that his friend was a ghost, and he knew that mystery and terror might lurk around any corner of the conversation).
    â€œI’m sorry to frighten you,” said the ghost, not for a moment fooled by Scrooge’s false composure, “but I begin to despairof ever breaking these chains.” At this Marley rose and rattled the chains so that the sound echoed throughout the house, down the stairwell, across the yard below, and down the street, where gaslights flickered and neighbours abed shuddered in their sleep.
    Scrooge waited until the echoes had died in the heavy evening air and the spectre had fallen back into his brandy-soaked chair. “You are not so fettered as when you first came to these rooms,” he said. “Surely all your works in the past score of years have shortened the chains you bear. Surely you must be close on to earning your rest.”
    â€œThese chains!” cried Marley, holding his arms aloft so that the chains dragged across the floor with a dull growl. “Since the night I enlisted the help of three spirits to turn you from a man of impervious selfishness to one who embraces all his fellow men with Christian love, I have been relieved of but five links.”
    â€œFive links!” said Scrooge, jumping to his feet and striding to the window, where the thick summer air slid into the room. “Five links! But you have laboured these twenty years to help me be a better man, to keep me on the track you so wisely set me upon that Christmas Eve that seems another life ago. How can all those years of devotion have lessened your burden only five links?” And this Scrooge shouted into the night, as ifthose who imprisoned his friend might be lurking outside his window and find themselves moved by his passionate testimony.
    â€œFive links,” said Marley dully, not moving from his chair. “It is the paradox of my curse that in order to shorten my chains I must do good for those who still live, yet I