“Merry Christmas, uncle! God bless you!” cried a happy voice. It was very cold in the cupboard, and Bob had to wear his long white scarf to try to keep warm. Scrooge had a very small fire, but Bob’s fire was much smaller. Bob spent his days in a dark little room, a kind of cupboard, next to his employer’s office. Scrooge kept his office door open, in order to check that his clerk, Bob Cratchit, was working. The fog covered everything, like a thick grey blanket. Outside it was already dark, although it was only three o’clock in the afternoon, and there were candles in all the office windows. One Christmas Eve, old Scrooge was working busily in his office. He liked being on the edge of people’s busy lives, while warning everyone to keep away from him. But what did Scrooge care! It was just what he wanted. Dogs used to hide in doorways when they saw him coming. Animals as well as people were afraid of him. Nobody ever stopped him in the street to say, with a happy smile, “My dear Scrooge, how are you? When will you come to see me?” No poor man asked him for money, no children asked him the time, no man or woman ever, in all his life, asked him the way. In the hottest days of summer his office was as cold as ice, and it was just as cold in winter. The frost in his heart made the air around him cold, too. It put white frost on his old head, his eyebrows and his chin. The cold inside him made his eyes red, and his thin lips blue, and his voice high and cross. He lived a secretive, lonely life, and took no interest in other people at all. Oh! He was a hard, clever, mean old man, Scrooge was! There was nothing warm or open about him. The only thing that mattered to him was the business, and making money. He did not care what name they called him. Sometimes people who were new to the business called Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. Both names still stood above the office door: Scrooge and Marley. When Marley died, Scrooge continued with the business alone. Scrooge and Marley had been partners in London for many years, and excellent men of business they were, too. It is important to remember that Jacob Marley was dead.