My Christmas Carol 12 - A Changed Man

Scrooge awakes with a violent start. Breathing harshly, his face dripping wet, he glances around and finds, to his enormous relief and joy, that he is safe and sound in his own room. The room is aglow with morning.

SCROOGE: Why—why, I’m back in my own room! Everything’s here! I’m here! The shadows of the things that would have been may be dispelled. They will be. I know they will! All three spirits shall indeed strive within me. Oh, Jacob Marley, heaven and the Christmas time be praised for this. I say it on my knees, old Jacob, on my knees.

He makes a joyful spring out of bed.

SCROOGE: (laughing) Oh-ho-ho, I don’t know what to do! I am as light as a feather. I am as happy as an angel. I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man.

He rushes to the window and throws the shutters wide open.

SCROOGE: I don’t know what day or what month it is. Indeed, I don’t know what year it is! I don’t know anything; I’m quite a baby! Never mind, I don’t care.

Far below, he spots a young coster boy, as portrayed by Peter Pan.

SCROOGE: Hello, young man! Good morning!

Startled, the coster boy lifts his head to Scrooge’s voice.

SCROOGE: Do you know what today is?

COSTER BOY: Eh?

SCROOGE: What’s today, my fine fellow?

COSTER BOY: Today? Why, it’s Christmas Day!

SCROOGE: (to himself) It’s Christmas Day! I haven’t missed it! The Spirits have done it all in one night. Of course, they can do anything they like, to be sure. A very merry Christmas to you, my fine fellow!

COSTER BOY: And to you, sir.

SCROOGE: Pardon me, my lad, but do you, by any chance, know the butcher’s shop in the next street? The one at the corner?

COSTER BOY: I should hope I do.

SCROOGE: Ah, remarkable boy. Do you know whether they’ve sold that prize turkey that was hanging in the window? The big one?

COSTER BOY: What, the one almost as big as me?

SCROOGE: Yes, my boy.

COSTER BOY: It’s hanging there now.

SCROOGE: Is it? Well, then, be a good lad and fetch it for me at once, will you?

COSTER BOY: (indignantly) Come off it!

The boy starts to walk away.

SCROOGE: No, no, wait, my boy! I am in earnest. Go and fetch it, and tell them to bring it here, so that I may give them the proper directions. Come back with the man and I’ll give you a shilling. Come back with him in less than five minutes and I’ll give you half a crown.

COSTER BOY: (surprised, then ecstatic) A half a crown! Oh, yes, sir!

The boy takes off like a shot. Scrooge watches fondly from his window.

SCROOGE: Dear boy, clever boy. I shall send the bird to Bob Cratchit’s, and he and his family shall be none the wiser. A fine feast they’ll have of it, too. They deserve nothing less.