_Fred._ Ay, ay, Bob; God bless that too. [_Exit_, R. _Scrooge._ Here, you! _Bob_ (_jumping off stool_). Yes, sir. _Scrooge._ _You'll_ want all day to-morrow, I suppose? _Bob._ If quite convenient, sir. _Scrooge._ It's not convenient, and it's not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for it, you'd think yourself mightily ill-used, I'll be bound. _Bob._ Yes, sir. _Scrooge._ And yet you don't think me ill-used, when I pay a day's wages for no work. _Bob._ It's only once a year, sir. _Scrooge._ A poor excuse for picking a man's pocket every twenty-fifth day of December. Well, you can't have it. _Bob._ But, sir— _Scrooge._ You can't have it. I shall expect you here earlier to-morrow. _Bob._ But, sir— _Scrooge._ No more. Go! (BOB, _with a very rueful face, puts on his hat, looks at_ SCROOGE, _and goes slowly out_ R.) _Scrooge_ (_turns his chair round to face_ C.) There's another fellow, my clerk, with fifteen shillings a week, and a wife and family, talking about a "merry Christmas!" I'll retire to Bedlam. I don't make merry myself at Christmas, and I can't afford to make idle people merry. I help to support the prisons and the workhouses. They cost enough, and those who are badly off can go there. Merry Christmas! Pooh! bah! humbug, humbug! (_Bell rings_ R., _bell rings_ L., _and then_ R. _and_ L. _together_.) Mercy! what's that? (_Music, piano, slow and solemn. Enter_ R., MARLEY, _dragging his chain, moving slow. Stops_ C., _looking at_ SCROOGE; _a bandage of white cloth, passing under his jaws, tied on top of his head_.) How now? What do you want with me? _Marley._ Much. _Scrooge._ Who are you? _Marley._ Ask me who I _was_. _Scrooge._ Who _were_ you, then? _Marley._ In life, I was your partner, Jacob Marley. _Scrooge._ Can—can you sit down? _Marley._ I can. _Scrooge._ Do it, then. (MARLEY _sits on stool_, C., _facing_ SCROOGE.) _Marley._ You don't believe in me. _Scrooge._ I don't. _Marley._ What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your senses? _Scrooge._ I don't know. _Marley._ Why do you doubt your senses? _Scrooge._ Because a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats. You may be an undigested blot of beef, a bit of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato. There's more of gravy than grave about you, whatever you are. (MARLEY _takes the bandage from his head; his jaw drops_.) Mercy! Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me? Why do spirits walk the earth? and why do they come to me?