Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Theater presents a.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome. I'm a g Marshall. This is a very special
occasion for me. I'm to be a little more than
your host. This time I will not only be introducing
the story, but telling it to you, acting it out.
The Mystery Theater special Christmas story this year Charles Dickens
(00:42):
The Immortal Classic of Christmas Carol with guess who as.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Scrooge ah humbug our mister.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
A Christmas Carrol was adapted from the Charles Dickens classic,
especially for the Mystery Theater by Ian Martin.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I'll do that shortly.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
With that one, Charles Dickens A Christmas Carrol begins like this.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Marley was dead to begin with, there is no doubt
about that. Whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
The register of his burial was signed by the woman,
the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Screw sided Old Marley was dead as a doornail. Ebenezer Scrooge. Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
He was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, hard
and sharpest flint from which no steel had ever struck out.
Generous fire. Solitary is an oyster. He iced his office
in the dark days and didn't throw it out one degree,
even at Christmas. A Merry Christmas, uncle, God, say you, oh,
(02:12):
what old you nephew? What brings you here on a
mirrable cold, windy night like enough?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Cold and windy?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yes, and the snow falling softly?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Are perfect Christmas eve? To say? Merry Christmas?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Uncle?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Ah, humbug? Christmas a humbug? If you don't mean that,
I'm sure I do. Merry Christmas?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
What right have you to be married or the world
at large? What reason have you yourself to be married?
You're poor enough?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Come there enough? What reason of you to be dismal?
What reason of you to be morose? You're rich enough?
Don't you taunt me? Fred bah?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Don't indulge yourself in expectations.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Humbug.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Take me as I am, uncle, and as the season is,
and don't be cross? What else can I be when
I live in a world of fools?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Christmas hooly? What Christmas time? To you?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Were a time for paying bills without money, time for
finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer.
If I could work my will, every idiot who goes
about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled
in his own bumpudding and buried with a stake of holly,
who cover a long?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Uncle?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Can you not let down for once and enjoy your me?
You keep Christmas in your own way, and me keep
it in mind?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yes, but you don't keep it aave me alone?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Man?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Much good at me? Do you much good? Has it
ever done you? Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
There are a lot of things, ancles, from which I've
never profited. Christmas among the rests except that when it
comes around, who could resist it? A kind of forgiving
time of year, when men and women seem by one
consent to open up their hearts freely. So then I say, Uncle,
though it never put a scrap of silver or gold
in my pocket, I believe it has and will do
me good. And so I say, God, bless it?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Oh what'd her better?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I'm sorry, mister Scrooge.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
It says that it is.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
A holiday, and and my hands were so cold to
let me hear another word from you, bob crejit. And
you keep your Christmas by losing your employment. Oh please, sir,
I humbly beg your pardon. It was just an action
on the spur of the moment cares to pry the
spur to goad you into finishing your work, creget and
(04:37):
let's hear no more from you, Yes, sir, well never you?
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Why are you here to ask you to dine with
us tomorrow? Dine? Will you? Never?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
There's nothing more ridiculous than all the fuss and expense
over Christmas dinner. Oh uncle, I want and ask nothing
from your work. Can't really friends, Good afternoon with all
my I'm sorry to find you who resolute at least
I wish you were meddy Christmas, good afternoon and the
happy afternoon, and be sure to make the front door fast,
(05:11):
oh wasting a feat here and no extra logs on
the fire, Yes, uncle, mister Cretchen, Yes, sir may I
wish you were meddy Christmas and a happy here the
first time I'm sure of, and I thank you and
the other who knows what the future holds, be a
good hope the nerve of all of them, My neew
(05:37):
of westral and Bob crutches on fifteen shillings a week
with a wife and family talking about a merry Christmas
car set up to make a man retired to butlam.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
You're all mad, mad.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Begging your pardon, mister Scrooge, a gentleman to see you.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yes, Scrooge and Marley's.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I believe have I the honor of addressing mister Scrooge
or mister Marley. Mister Marley's been dead for seven years.
He died seven years ago this very night. Ah sad, sad. Indeed,
still I have no doubt his liberality is well represented
by his surviving partner liberality. At this festive season, it
(06:25):
is more than usually desirable that we all make some
slight provision for the poor and destitute. You may make
your pledge. Here are there no prisons? We speak of
the needy, the union workhouses.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
They're not still in operation.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
They are I wish I could say they were not.
A few of us private citizens are endeavoring to raise
a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink
and means of war. Now, what shall I put you
down for a mister Scrooge.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Nothing. Of course, you wish to be none of us.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I wish to be left alone by tax I hope
to support the establishments we have mentioned. They cost enough more.
Let those who were badly off go there. Many can't
go there, and many would rather die.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
They would rather die.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And let them do so, and decrease the surplus population.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Good afternoon. Sir, whatever your name is, I find you
hard to believe, mister Scrooge.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Greet it, let him out, close the door, cratch it
to extinguish what cold remain. Yes, sir, No, sir, he'll
come here, coming, mister Scrooge, you'll want.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
All day tomorrow's burns.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
If quite convenience, it's not convenient, and it's not fair.
If I wish to stop half a crown for it,
you'd think yourself in used.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I'd be bound else. And yet you don't think me
in use.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
When I pay a day's wages for no work, I would.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Not pre ill to have an opinion. But then it
is only one day a year, A.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Poor excuse for picking a man's pocket.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Of the twenty fifth of December, I have no choice.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
You must have the whole day. Just make sure you
are here earlier.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
The following morning, I died my usual melancholy dinner in
the usual melancholy towern Afterwards climbed the stairs to my
living quarters. In the gloom, something about my door knockers
stopped me as I was about to put key in lock.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
For once strange moment.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It looked like molly ghostly spectacles turned upon its ghostly forehead.
To say that I was not startled would not be
strictly true. And even after I was entered and locked
in and m candle it, I did pause irresolutely before
I dismissed it with humble still it was uneasy trimming
(09:02):
my candle. I walked through all my rooms to make
sure all was well, sitting the room, bed room, lumber room,
all as it should be, small fire in the grate,
spoon and base, already a little saucepan of gruel since I.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Had a cold. What's that? The front door, the side door, the.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Bell by my bed, the one in the mantle and
ann the sideboard?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
What do they hero? Who wrings them? The cellar door?
And that noise fall? I won't believe it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I say it was humbug sail the grim respector what
do you want with me?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Ask me who I was?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Who were you? Then?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Why I was no part Jacob Marley? You don't believe me,
I don't why about four sentence? Because a little thing
affects them, A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheese.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
You may be a bit of fun.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Adjusted beef and brood of mustard, crumb of cheese, raymond
and potato. There's more of gravy about you than the grave.
Wherever you are, I'm gonna tell you, unbeliever, So I
unrecked the bankerchief from above my head to reveal the
(10:38):
rotting face. The troll fallen slightly to my breast.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The muscle has eaten long since my words. Now do
you believe me for? And what I am? It's oh,
mercy dread apparition. Why do you trouble me? I must?
Why are you fettered? And bound and changed?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I where the train I faced in life?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I made it link by link.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I girded it on of my own free will.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
It is patterned so strange to you.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Oh, you learn the way some length of the coil
you wear yourself.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
It was full and as heavy.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And as long as mine.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
He's seven Christmas eves ago, and you have labored on
it since hall once part life. What a ponderous say
you have built to drag you down in death?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
No?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
No, Jacob, oh, Jacob Monty, speak some comfort to me.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I have none to give.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never
walked beyond our counting house in life.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
So in death.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
We read journeys life before me seven years dead and
traveling all the time, O rest, no peace, the incessant
tats of remort.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I am here tonight.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Ebisa toward you, that you have yet a hope of
escaping my favor. Oh, you are always a good friend thanke.
You will be haunted by three speed.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
That is the hope you mentioned. It is I think
I'd rather not.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Without their visits. You have no hope but the sun
and the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow when
the bell tolds what?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
But couldn't I take them all at once? It over?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Expect the second or the next night, at the same hour,
the third, when the last stroke of twelve has ceased.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
To vibrate on your battle clock.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
And for your road's sake, remember what has passed between us.
Pass between us. Take a bus, Do not leave me.
Yet She was gone, as if he had never been,
(13:34):
And yet he had been, and ever needs a Scrooge
would never be the same man again. He fell asleep
without undressing upon the instant, a sleep that was destined
to be disturbed, as I shall relate when I returned
with that two. When Scrooge awoke, it was dark, and
(14:08):
the chimes of a neighborhood church were striking the four quarters.
To his amazement, they were followed by twelve strokes of
the bell. Twelve impossible, it was true? When he went
to bed, Why it isn't possible? I could have slept
(14:32):
through a whole day and far into another night. As
I lay, I suddenly remembered that Molly had said a
ghost would visit me at one?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Who are you?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I am the ghost of Christmas past?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Long past? You're past? Don't you recognize me?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
A strange figure, almost like a child, the outlines dimly seen.
It wore a tunic of purest whites and a branch
of fresh green holly in his hand, in the singular
contradiction to the dress, which was trimmed with summer flowers.
But strangest of all, above its crown sprang a bright,
(15:17):
clear jet of light which illuminated the darkest corner but
obscured the face, and under its arm a cap which
looked for all the world like a candle snuffer. For
some reason, I wanted to put on its caper.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
The light is blinding? Would you not put on your cap?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Would you so.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Soon put out?
Speaker 5 (15:37):
With worldly hands the light I shed. Is it not
enough that you are the one who fashioned me this
cap and forced me to wear.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
It low upon my rack?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Aye?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
What business brings you here? Your welfare?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
If you would regard my welfare, you would leave my
sleep unwoken your reclamation.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Then take heed, rise and walk with me.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I cannot resist your command. But I am an old man,
lightly clad and nursing a coal to boot.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Do not deny me.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Come follow me. All of a sudden I was flying,
floating on air. Tonight had vanished as the city below me,
and I was looking down on the country in a clear,
old light of day, the snow dusting the ground. Good Heavens.
(16:36):
I was bred in this place. I was a boy.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Here, your lettuce trembling? What is that up on your cheek? Nothing? Nothing?
The wind makes my eyes water. Leave me where you will?
Do you not remember the way?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Remember it? I could walk it blind food strange.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
To have forgotten it. So many years have set our
feet on the road.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I will not tell you most of where we wandered
as time stood still or raced ahead a whim. The
school where I was a child, the house I grew
up in, an orphan a terrible rush of tears when
them bring another outcast, a foreigner, an alien who, in
our mutual loneliness I once befriended me. Poor Ali Baba,
(17:28):
I I it's too right now.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Nothing. There was a boy seeing a Christmas carol.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
At my door last night. I should like to have
given him something.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
That's her, what might have been?
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Let us see another Christmas?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
What's that Your aunt who brought you up passed away?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Oh? Oh, no, delicate creature whom a breath might of wicked.
But she had a large heart. Amen to that. I
will not gainsay its spirit. When she died she had
I think children, one child kill your nothing.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yes, we traveled further, scenes flashing by like slides in
a magic lantern. Old Fazzywig in his Welsh wig, my
first employer.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
His Christmas parties.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Were the groaning table and everyone dancing with a lightfoot
and heart to the festive music, His kind wife, and
the joy of working at a desk one wasn't nailed to.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
And then someone I had shut away so long ago.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
What is it, Scrooge, that girl whom you shall sit beside?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
No?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Oh, yes, this shadow most of all? Don't you remember?
I told you the light blinds me.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
Then remember me as I was before you put my
light out.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
No tears I beg you none.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
If the idol who has replaced me can cheer and
comfort you, I must not grieve what idle.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
A golden one.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Nothing but gain engrosses you.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
So if I have grown wiser, I am not changed
toward you.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
Our marriage contract was made when we were both poor.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
You are changed. When it was made. You were another man.
I was a boy.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Whatever you were, I freely offer you your release.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Have I ever sought it in words? Never?
Speaker 5 (19:47):
How then in a changed nature, in everything that made
my love of any worth or value in your sight?
And so I release you with a full heart for
the mother what once you were. May you be happy
in the life you've chosen.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
No, I recognize your spirits and why you've come back
to haunt me, torture me no more.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Some shadows still to see. No I I can bear it.
No longer haunts me. No longer.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
The light you shine is too bright for my eyes
to bear. You give me your cap so I may
extinguish it and you in a puff of smoke. The
figure was gone, and I had barely time to rail
to my bed, exhausted from the long night's travels, where
I fell into a heavy sleep.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
The clock taking away? Awake in the night of time?
Almost one? When the second messenger Molly sends me from
the grave will arrive. What ghastly shape might he take?
What hideous form? What torture might this one plan for me?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
At least? I am prepared for anything, well prepared for anything,
But but nothing? Hello there, Spirit, are you invisible to me? Uh?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I said, had great lights from beneath my sitting room
the door. Uh, he is a fearful waste of light,
a shocking extravagance. I'm just going to douse these candles.
I I'm afraid to answer.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
ODG, have any house gruge stops? I'll take it. I
your bedroom now and on n and uh. Why here's
a prodigal spending of light in a great roaring blaze,
hard enough to set the chimney flu on fire. Look
(22:06):
well on me. Have you ever seen the like of
me before? Never?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
This time your eyes were opened to this another thing? Spirit,
I will be no trouble. Conduct me where you will.
I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learned
a lesson which is working now tonight. If you have
ought to teach me, let me profit by it.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Hold fast tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
In the brink of an eye, we were transported to
a mean and shabby little house, threadbare but clean as
a new water shirt and ridul until the mouth watering
smelled goose basking and sage and onion, and a roama
is an eating house and pastry cooks next together, which
came from the Christmas pudding?
Speaker 6 (22:57):
Who Hena has got your precious father then? And your
brother tiny Tim I never remember him, Martha, as late
as this on Christmas?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Dear, what a place is this? House of your clock love? Cratchit?
See here he comes now, said child.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
He carries on his shoulder with a little crutch in
his hand, and his lower limbs bound in an iron cage.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
The youngest of the creche.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Him Why look at him struggle after the others as
his father sits him down?
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Where are they off to watch?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
One of the merrier sights of this merrier some seasons
the golden goose turn on the spit.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Listen, how leat you are, my dear, and how cold
will come?
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Come?
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Sit you down by the fire and of a warm love.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Blessy after I've had a look at that goose too. First,
tell me how did tiny Tim the heat through the
service as good as gold and batter? From how he
gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much and thinks the
strangest things.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
You ever heard? And now what was it this tiny
he told me coming home?
Speaker 4 (24:11):
He hoped everyone in the church saw him because he
was a cripple. Oh, because it might be pleasant to
them to remember upon Christmas Day who it was made
blame Begger's walk and blind and see it.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Oh, if he's so much fun? No, no, no, no,
you must not, my dear, remember the day. Come, let's
join the others. Tell me, Spirit, will tiny Tim live?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner
and a little crutch without an owner. If these shadows
remain unordered by the future.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
The child will die.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Oh, no, kind Spirit, spare him that from you.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Recall your own words.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
If he'd be like to die, he had better do
it and decrease the surplus population.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I am machine and should be man. If you'll be man.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
At heart forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered
what the surpose is and where it is listen a
toast before we eat to mister Scrooge. To me, I'll
give you, mister Scrooge, the founder of the feast, the
founder of.
Speaker 6 (25:32):
The feat Indeed, oh I wish I had him here.
I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon.
And I hope you have a good appetite for it.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Oh, my dear the children Christmas day, Well, I've been to.
Speaker 6 (25:46):
His health for your sake in the days, not for
his long life. To him, a merry Christmas and a
happy New Year.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Oh you'll be very merry. I'm very happy.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
I've no doubt, and a merry Christmas to us, all,
my DearS. God bless us, God bless us.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Every one of name, my very name, cast a pall
upon their happiness. But mark you on the wealth of
spirit among them, which thought kindly on a man.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
With as little spirit as yours.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
In particular that poor little lad tiny Kim. Did you
notice how generous he was to end the toast with
God bless us everyone, including even me, What a valiant
little soul in spite of all his handicaps.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Half your eyes are opening at last.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
But come, we are mortal, and where now your nephew's house,
he said, he said that Christmas was a humbug, as
I really believed it, to.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
My shame for him. Fred does my uncle and loss
of speak. So where is a comical old fellow? And
not so pleasant he might be. However, his offenses carry.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him,
and I will have no downturn bouves at this season.
So here's a glass of muld wine to our hands.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Let's drink to the old man.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Well, he has given us plenty of metament of pat
So to.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Uncle Screw, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year
to the old man. Whatever he is, he wouldn't take
it from me, but may he have it nevertheless to
Uncle Screw, to Uncle Screw, no, no, no wait wait,
let me go to them.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
May explain too late for me. We all grows too late. Away.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Where stand we now? This open place, a crossroads where
I must leave you and forgive me what I ask
When I see something strange.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Pro fooding from the skirt of.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Your robe might be a claw for all the flesh
there is upon it.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Yeah, then see what you must.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
See from the sanctuary. Came forth a boy and a girl, yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish,
the frustrate tune, the humility. I started back a pole, spirit,
(28:27):
are these yours?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
They are mans?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
The boy is ignorance, the girl is want aware of them.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Both and all of their degree.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
But most of all, beware this boy, for on his
brow I see written doom. Unless the writing can be erased,
my time is sounding. Wait, have these pitiful creatures no
refuge or resource? I answer in your own words? Are
(28:56):
there no prisons? Are there no what houses?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Old? For one moment? Help me? Where should I turn?
Nan pay your future? The black phantom that approaches you?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Now, Hey, your future?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Your future.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
As the last stroke of the bell struck twelve, Scrooge
turned to face a dread figure, a solemn phantom, draped
and put it in blacks and deep grays, coming creeping
like the mist about it towards him. I'll return with
Act three. There the last phantom, silent, slowly, gravely approached.
(30:04):
It was shrouded in a deep black garment which concealed
its head, its face, its.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Form, and left nothing.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Of its visible say one outstretched hand, which served as
its only voice. For the spirit neither spoke nor moved.
I am in the presence of the ghost of Christmas.
Yet to come your answer, not but point where we
(30:34):
are to go? Laid on spirit, and I will follow.
The great black cloud gathered me and carried me willy
nilly to the streets, its shroud like the figure that
stood by me, not about me, as I.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Listened to two gentlemen talking in the street.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So, mister rhyme, this old scratch has got his own at.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Last, I have been so informed, mister goodfellow.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
When did he die last night? Aly? What on earth
could he have caught?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I thought it?
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Never die?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
God knows?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Why should I care? What has he done with his money?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Heaven knows? Not left to charity, Its only not to me.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Left to his company.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Perhaps God knows.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
He appears not to have had any sort of personal tie,
by which token it's like to be of a cheap
funeral for upon my life I cannot think of anybody
to go to it. How tis more and awful to
(31:43):
dismiss another human being in such terms.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Will give me dread.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Ghost, I did not mean to diverge. You wish to
reveal something to me.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
You have my full.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
Attention, said The news is bad, bad, we are quite ruined.
Oh there's hope for us yet, if you're a LNGS. Yeah,
if he forgive is awful. Gay there might have been,
but it is too late for the miracle.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Poor old miserable boy, he's past relenting, he's dead.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
No, who waits for it? Wait? I'm not ready to leave.
What else would you have me look on?
Speaker 6 (32:37):
Tell me again about today, about the good him on
the grave?
Speaker 4 (32:43):
It would have done you good to see how green
a place it is.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
But you'll see it often, I promised him. I would
walk there.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Every other Sunday, My last born, poor little broken chocolate up?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Please I should break down with you, Oh my darling.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
We can all try to be brave, but how can
we hide our sorrow? What is more final and dreadful
than death?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I want to help specter, but something informs me that
our parting moment is at hand.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Tell me what man was it? I saw? Lying? Dead?
Very well?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Viewpoint? Where to this time? A churchyard?
Speaker 3 (33:37):
And here we are.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
The headstone? She would have me read it. But tell
me are these the shadows of things.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
That will be?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Or maybe only? Oh my own name Evaniza Scrooge.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
O spirit hear me?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I am not the man I was. I will not
be the man I must have been from all this intercourse?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Why show me this?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
If I am past all hope for once you make
no motion, your nature intercedes for me and pities me.
Good spirit, I will honor Christmas in my heart and
try to keep it all the year. The three spirits
shall strive within me. I will not shut out the
(34:29):
lessons that they teach.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Oh tell me.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I may sponge away the writing on the stone. Give
me your hand, You give me your hand.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I hold you to me. You cannot disappear. You cannot disappear.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
You will who woll bless my soul? What I cling
to is my own bedpost and wait, wait, Perhaps my
time is my own to make amends in Yes, I
will live in the past, in the present, and the future.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
The spirits of all three.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Shall strive within me. Old Jacob, Molly, Heaven and Christmas.
Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees,
Old Jacob, on my knees.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I don't know what's to do.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I'm as light as a feather, and I am as
happy as an angel. I'm as merry as a schoolboy, I'm.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
As giddy as a drunken man.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
A Merry Christmas to everyone, A happy New Year to
all the world. Hell, oh hello, there's the saucepan that
rules in there's the door by which the ghost of
Jacob Molly, And there's the corner where I saw the
wandering spirits. It's all right, it's true, it all happened.
Oh I don't know among the spirits.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I'm a baby. I don't know what month is.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Throw open the window and rejoin the world. Eh, mister Rhymes,
what's today?
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Why? Uh? Christmas Day?
Speaker 5 (36:00):
Christmas Day?
Speaker 3 (36:01):
I haven't missed it.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
If the spirits had done it all in one night,
they can do what they like, of course they can.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Hello, my fine.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Fellow, Hello, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to you. Do you
still run the Poulterer's shop in the next street for
one at the corner? And I should hope I did
on my way to open up. Oh pray then, mister Grimes,
do I dare hope you have not yet sold the
prize turkey that was hanging up there, Not the little
(36:32):
prize turkey.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
The big prize turkey, Ah, the.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
One as big as an ospirt toward delightful man, A
pleasure to talk to him. Yes, mister grime.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
It is hanging there.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Now what are we waiting for? I want to buy
it breed here that I may give directions where to
take it. Send back your boy and I'll give him
a shilling. Have him bring it back and rest than
five minutes, and I'll give him half a pound. Better still,
here's a five pound note. Send him to deliver the
turkey to mister crackit by cad at the address I
(37:04):
give you, and what's left.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Shall be your Christmas present. And his.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Shaving was not an easy task, for my hand was
shaking and shaving the man's attention. At last it was finished,
and I dressed myself and all my best and issued
forth to the streets. The first person I met was
a portly gentleman who had walked into my counting house
the day before, saying Scrooge and Marley's.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
I believe I hasten to intercept him. My dear sir,
how do you do?
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Do?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I beg your pardon? I hope you succeeded yesterday. A
merry Christmas to you, sir, mister Scrooge, that is my name.
I fear not pleasant to you. Allow me to ask
your pardon, and will you have the goodness to allow
me to contribute?
Speaker 3 (37:56):
May I have your ear sirtain Lord, bless me so much?
My dear mister Scrooge. Are you really serious? If you please?
Not a farthing less? Will you do me that favor? Oh,
my dear sir, I don't know what to say. We
(38:17):
don't say anything. Come and see me, Will you come
and see me?
Speaker 2 (38:22):
I will indeed thank you. I thank you fifty times.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Bless you? Marry Christmas?
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I buy all that's holy?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Is it you? Uncle me? Fred?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
You did ask me to dinner? Am I too late
to take up the invitation?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Too late? Will you let me? Will I let you in? Why?
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Here's the merriest turner Christmas can take, darling wife, here's
Uncle Scrooge to share our Christmas?
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Isn't at a present for this?
Speaker 6 (39:00):
You couldn't have brought Fred a better one.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Welcome to our.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Home, alcome for only the first of many times. I
hope it's a whole new year. Yes, and you may
spend it all with us, if you will, only today,
for I must be in the office as early as
can be. No, no, no, no, don't steal glances at
each other. It isn't business on my mind, but recompense.
(39:27):
Since at last I have learned to laugh, I want
to have my first joke with the man I have
perhaps wronged most all of these years, my faithful Bob Cratchitt,
A wonderful day, an evening with my nephew, a deep
sleep that might have lasted for days, except that I
(39:51):
was bound and determined to be earlier than my clerk
at the country house that Monday morning. I was as
pleased as a child when I beat him there, even
more please to find that, for once he was late.
When the door opened and he came in, he was
a full eighteen and one half minutes behind his time.
His hat and stick out were off before he opened
(40:12):
the door. In terror of the man I had been.
He was on his stool in a jiffy, writing his pain,
as if he were trying to overtake the last minute. Morning,
mister Scrooge, morning late for that?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
What do you mean by coming here this time of day?
Speaker 4 (40:27):
I am very sorry, sir, I am behind time you are.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
I think you are now Step this way, sir, if
you please.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
It's only once a year, sir. It shall not be repeated.
I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I'll tell you what, my friend, I'm not going to
stand with this sort of thing any longer, and therefore
I feel myself forced to raise your salary. Huh hi
by mister Scrooge. Sir, do you feel all right on
my merry Christmas?
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Bob?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
A merrier Christmas than I have given you for many
a year. Not only raise your salary, but discuss your
affairs and endeavor to help your struggling family over a
Christmas bowl or smoking bishop. So make up the fires
till they haunt us right out of the country house
before you got another eye, Bob Cretchitt. It's not only
(41:26):
a new year, but a whole new world for both
of us. As we all know, Scrooge was better than
his word. He did it all, and to Tiny Tim,
(41:47):
who did not die, he was a second father, and
he made a good new will for his nephew and
his future partner, Bob Kretchitt. One thing after a long life,
he took to his grave that he knew how to
keep Christmas well. May it be truly said of all
of us, And as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us everyone.
(42:25):
What more is there to say after Dickens Christmas Carol,
except the eternal message, it brings a merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
And a happy New Year.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Our cast included Marion Seldi's, Ian Martin E. V. Jester,
Robert Dryden, and William Redfield. The entire production was under
the direction of Hymond brown.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Well. A preview of our next tale. Okay, listen, hear
that singing. Of course, it's a cattle concert. That's where
everyone must be.
Speaker 7 (43:06):
Oh, come on, let's see if we can find them.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
I give up. I don't know where that music is
coming from.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
We've covered so many streets and nothing.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Yeah, no one. Oh hey, honey, you're shivering. I'm scared.
Speaker 7 (43:30):
Well, there's no hotel across the street. Let's go there
and use the phone. There's got to be one there.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
This is a ghost town. There's no use wandering about anymore.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
It's a ghost town in the middle of Ohio.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
This is E. G.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, Pleasant Dreams,
Theater presents a.
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Welcome. I'm a g Marshall. This is a very special
occasion for me. I'm to be a little more than
your host. This time I will not only be introducing
the story, but telling it to you, acting it out.
The Mystery Theater special Christmas story this year Charles Dickens
(00:42):
The Immortal Classic of Christmas Carol with guess who as.
Speaker 3 (00:47):
Scrooge ah humbug our mister.
Speaker 2 (01:01):
A Christmas Carrol was adapted from the Charles Dickens classic,
especially for the Mystery Theater by Ian Martin.
Speaker 3 (01:08):
I'll do that shortly.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
With that one, Charles Dickens A Christmas Carrol begins like this.
Speaker 3 (01:25):
Marley was dead to begin with, there is no doubt
about that. Whatever.
Speaker 2 (01:31):
The register of his burial was signed by the woman,
the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.
Speaker 3 (01:38):
Screw sided Old Marley was dead as a doornail. Ebenezer Scrooge. Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
He was a tight fisted hand at the grindstone, hard
and sharpest flint from which no steel had ever struck out.
Generous fire. Solitary is an oyster. He iced his office
in the dark days and didn't throw it out one degree,
even at Christmas. A Merry Christmas, uncle, God, say you, oh,
(02:12):
what old you nephew? What brings you here on a
mirrable cold, windy night like enough?
Speaker 3 (02:19):
Cold and windy?
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yes, and the snow falling softly?
Speaker 3 (02:22):
Are perfect Christmas eve? To say? Merry Christmas?
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Uncle?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Ah, humbug? Christmas a humbug? If you don't mean that,
I'm sure I do. Merry Christmas?
Speaker 2 (02:35):
What right have you to be married or the world
at large? What reason have you yourself to be married?
You're poor enough?
Speaker 3 (02:43):
Come there enough? What reason of you to be dismal?
What reason of you to be morose? You're rich enough?
Don't you taunt me? Fred bah?
Speaker 2 (02:54):
Don't indulge yourself in expectations.
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Humbug.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
Take me as I am, uncle, and as the season is,
and don't be cross? What else can I be when
I live in a world of fools?
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Christmas hooly? What Christmas time? To you?
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Were a time for paying bills without money, time for
finding yourself a year older and not an hour richer.
If I could work my will, every idiot who goes
about with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled
in his own bumpudding and buried with a stake of holly,
who cover a long?
Speaker 3 (03:30):
Uncle?
Speaker 2 (03:31):
Can you not let down for once and enjoy your me?
You keep Christmas in your own way, and me keep
it in mind?
Speaker 3 (03:39):
Yes, but you don't keep it aave me alone?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Man?
Speaker 3 (03:43):
Much good at me? Do you much good? Has it
ever done you? Oh?
Speaker 2 (03:46):
There are a lot of things, ancles, from which I've
never profited. Christmas among the rests except that when it
comes around, who could resist it? A kind of forgiving
time of year, when men and women seem by one
consent to open up their hearts freely. So then I say, Uncle,
though it never put a scrap of silver or gold
in my pocket, I believe it has and will do
me good. And so I say, God, bless it?
Speaker 3 (04:10):
Oh what'd her better?
Speaker 2 (04:13):
I'm sorry, mister Scrooge.
Speaker 3 (04:15):
It says that it is.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
A holiday, and and my hands were so cold to
let me hear another word from you, bob crejit. And
you keep your Christmas by losing your employment. Oh please, sir,
I humbly beg your pardon. It was just an action
on the spur of the moment cares to pry the
spur to goad you into finishing your work, creget and
(04:37):
let's hear no more from you, Yes, sir, well never you?
Speaker 3 (04:41):
Why are you here to ask you to dine with
us tomorrow? Dine? Will you? Never?
Speaker 2 (04:48):
There's nothing more ridiculous than all the fuss and expense
over Christmas dinner. Oh uncle, I want and ask nothing
from your work. Can't really friends, Good afternoon with all
my I'm sorry to find you who resolute at least
I wish you were meddy Christmas, good afternoon and the
happy afternoon, and be sure to make the front door fast,
(05:11):
oh wasting a feat here and no extra logs on
the fire, Yes, uncle, mister Cretchen, Yes, sir may I
wish you were meddy Christmas and a happy here the
first time I'm sure of, and I thank you and
the other who knows what the future holds, be a
good hope the nerve of all of them, My neew
(05:37):
of westral and Bob crutches on fifteen shillings a week
with a wife and family talking about a merry Christmas
car set up to make a man retired to butlam.
Speaker 3 (05:50):
You're all mad, mad.
Speaker 4 (05:55):
Begging your pardon, mister Scrooge, a gentleman to see you.
Speaker 3 (05:58):
Yes, Scrooge and Marley's.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
I believe have I the honor of addressing mister Scrooge
or mister Marley. Mister Marley's been dead for seven years.
He died seven years ago this very night. Ah sad, sad. Indeed,
still I have no doubt his liberality is well represented
by his surviving partner liberality. At this festive season, it
(06:25):
is more than usually desirable that we all make some
slight provision for the poor and destitute. You may make
your pledge. Here are there no prisons? We speak of
the needy, the union workhouses.
Speaker 3 (06:40):
They're not still in operation.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
They are I wish I could say they were not.
A few of us private citizens are endeavoring to raise
a fund to buy the poor some meat and drink
and means of war. Now, what shall I put you
down for a mister Scrooge.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
Nothing. Of course, you wish to be none of us.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
I wish to be left alone by tax I hope
to support the establishments we have mentioned. They cost enough more.
Let those who were badly off go there. Many can't
go there, and many would rather die.
Speaker 3 (07:15):
They would rather die.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
And let them do so, and decrease the surplus population.
Speaker 3 (07:20):
Good afternoon. Sir, whatever your name is, I find you
hard to believe, mister Scrooge.
Speaker 2 (07:27):
Greet it, let him out, close the door, cratch it
to extinguish what cold remain. Yes, sir, No, sir, he'll
come here, coming, mister Scrooge, you'll want.
Speaker 3 (07:40):
All day tomorrow's burns.
Speaker 2 (07:43):
If quite convenience, it's not convenient, and it's not fair.
If I wish to stop half a crown for it,
you'd think yourself in used.
Speaker 3 (07:51):
I'd be bound else. And yet you don't think me
in use.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
When I pay a day's wages for no work, I would.
Speaker 4 (07:59):
Not pre ill to have an opinion. But then it
is only one day a year, A.
Speaker 3 (08:05):
Poor excuse for picking a man's pocket.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
Of the twenty fifth of December, I have no choice.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
You must have the whole day. Just make sure you
are here earlier.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
The following morning, I died my usual melancholy dinner in
the usual melancholy towern Afterwards climbed the stairs to my
living quarters. In the gloom, something about my door knockers
stopped me as I was about to put key in lock.
Speaker 3 (08:36):
For once strange moment.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
It looked like molly ghostly spectacles turned upon its ghostly forehead.
To say that I was not startled would not be
strictly true. And even after I was entered and locked
in and m candle it, I did pause irresolutely before
I dismissed it with humble still it was uneasy trimming
(09:02):
my candle. I walked through all my rooms to make
sure all was well, sitting the room, bed room, lumber room,
all as it should be, small fire in the grate,
spoon and base, already a little saucepan of gruel since I.
Speaker 3 (09:18):
Had a cold. What's that? The front door, the side door, the.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Bell by my bed, the one in the mantle and
ann the sideboard?
Speaker 3 (09:28):
What do they hero? Who wrings them? The cellar door?
And that noise fall? I won't believe it.
Speaker 2 (09:41):
I say it was humbug sail the grim respector what
do you want with me?
Speaker 3 (09:49):
Who are you?
Speaker 2 (09:51):
Ask me who I was?
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Who were you? Then?
Speaker 2 (09:56):
Why I was no part Jacob Marley? You don't believe me,
I don't why about four sentence? Because a little thing
affects them, A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheese.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
You may be a bit of fun.
Speaker 2 (10:16):
Adjusted beef and brood of mustard, crumb of cheese, raymond
and potato. There's more of gravy about you than the grave.
Wherever you are, I'm gonna tell you, unbeliever, So I
unrecked the bankerchief from above my head to reveal the
(10:38):
rotting face. The troll fallen slightly to my breast.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
The muscle has eaten long since my words. Now do
you believe me for? And what I am? It's oh,
mercy dread apparition. Why do you trouble me? I must?
Why are you fettered? And bound and changed?
Speaker 2 (11:02):
I where the train I faced in life?
Speaker 3 (11:08):
I made it link by link.
Speaker 2 (11:12):
I girded it on of my own free will.
Speaker 3 (11:17):
It is patterned so strange to you.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Oh, you learn the way some length of the coil
you wear yourself.
Speaker 5 (11:26):
It was full and as heavy.
Speaker 3 (11:28):
And as long as mine.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
He's seven Christmas eves ago, and you have labored on
it since hall once part life. What a ponderous say
you have built to drag you down in death?
Speaker 3 (11:47):
No?
Speaker 2 (11:48):
No, Jacob, oh, Jacob Monty, speak some comfort to me.
Speaker 3 (11:52):
I have none to give.
Speaker 2 (11:55):
I cannot stay, I cannot linger anywhere. My spirit never
walked beyond our counting house in life.
Speaker 3 (12:04):
So in death.
Speaker 2 (12:06):
We read journeys life before me seven years dead and
traveling all the time, O rest, no peace, the incessant
tats of remort.
Speaker 3 (12:22):
I am here tonight.
Speaker 2 (12:23):
Ebisa toward you, that you have yet a hope of
escaping my favor. Oh, you are always a good friend thanke.
You will be haunted by three speed.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
That is the hope you mentioned. It is I think
I'd rather not.
Speaker 2 (12:45):
Without their visits. You have no hope but the sun
and the path I tread. Expect the first tomorrow when
the bell tolds what?
Speaker 3 (12:57):
But couldn't I take them all at once? It over?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Expect the second or the next night, at the same hour,
the third, when the last stroke of twelve has ceased.
Speaker 3 (13:09):
To vibrate on your battle clock.
Speaker 2 (13:13):
And for your road's sake, remember what has passed between us.
Pass between us. Take a bus, Do not leave me.
Yet She was gone, as if he had never been,
(13:34):
And yet he had been, and ever needs a Scrooge
would never be the same man again. He fell asleep
without undressing upon the instant, a sleep that was destined
to be disturbed, as I shall relate when I returned
with that two. When Scrooge awoke, it was dark, and
(14:08):
the chimes of a neighborhood church were striking the four quarters.
To his amazement, they were followed by twelve strokes of
the bell. Twelve impossible, it was true? When he went
to bed, Why it isn't possible? I could have slept
(14:32):
through a whole day and far into another night. As
I lay, I suddenly remembered that Molly had said a
ghost would visit me at one?
Speaker 3 (14:45):
Who are you?
Speaker 5 (14:47):
I am the ghost of Christmas past?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Long past? You're past? Don't you recognize me?
Speaker 2 (14:56):
A strange figure, almost like a child, the outlines dimly seen.
It wore a tunic of purest whites and a branch
of fresh green holly in his hand, in the singular
contradiction to the dress, which was trimmed with summer flowers.
But strangest of all, above its crown sprang a bright,
(15:17):
clear jet of light which illuminated the darkest corner but
obscured the face, and under its arm a cap which
looked for all the world like a candle snuffer. For
some reason, I wanted to put on its caper.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
The light is blinding? Would you not put on your cap?
Speaker 2 (15:36):
Would you so.
Speaker 3 (15:36):
Soon put out?
Speaker 5 (15:37):
With worldly hands the light I shed. Is it not
enough that you are the one who fashioned me this
cap and forced me to wear.
Speaker 3 (15:46):
It low upon my rack?
Speaker 2 (15:47):
Aye?
Speaker 3 (15:48):
What business brings you here? Your welfare?
Speaker 2 (15:52):
If you would regard my welfare, you would leave my
sleep unwoken your reclamation.
Speaker 5 (15:58):
Then take heed, rise and walk with me.
Speaker 2 (16:03):
I cannot resist your command. But I am an old man,
lightly clad and nursing a coal to boot.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Do not deny me.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Come follow me. All of a sudden I was flying,
floating on air. Tonight had vanished as the city below me,
and I was looking down on the country in a clear,
old light of day, the snow dusting the ground. Good Heavens.
(16:36):
I was bred in this place. I was a boy.
Speaker 3 (16:40):
Here, your lettuce trembling? What is that up on your cheek? Nothing? Nothing?
The wind makes my eyes water. Leave me where you will?
Do you not remember the way?
Speaker 2 (16:51):
Remember it? I could walk it blind food strange.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
To have forgotten it. So many years have set our
feet on the road.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
I will not tell you most of where we wandered
as time stood still or raced ahead a whim. The
school where I was a child, the house I grew
up in, an orphan a terrible rush of tears when
them bring another outcast, a foreigner, an alien who, in
our mutual loneliness I once befriended me. Poor Ali Baba,
(17:28):
I I it's too right now.
Speaker 3 (17:33):
Nothing. There was a boy seeing a Christmas carol.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
At my door last night. I should like to have
given him something.
Speaker 3 (17:42):
That's her, what might have been?
Speaker 5 (17:46):
Let us see another Christmas?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
What's that Your aunt who brought you up passed away?
Speaker 3 (18:00):
Oh? Oh, no, delicate creature whom a breath might of wicked.
But she had a large heart. Amen to that. I
will not gainsay its spirit. When she died she had
I think children, one child kill your nothing.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
Yes, we traveled further, scenes flashing by like slides in
a magic lantern. Old Fazzywig in his Welsh wig, my
first employer.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
His Christmas parties.
Speaker 2 (18:32):
Were the groaning table and everyone dancing with a lightfoot
and heart to the festive music, His kind wife, and
the joy of working at a desk one wasn't nailed to.
Speaker 3 (18:43):
And then someone I had shut away so long ago.
Speaker 5 (18:48):
What is it, Scrooge, that girl whom you shall sit beside?
Speaker 2 (18:53):
No?
Speaker 3 (18:53):
Oh, yes, this shadow most of all? Don't you remember?
I told you the light blinds me.
Speaker 5 (19:03):
Then remember me as I was before you put my
light out.
Speaker 3 (19:10):
No tears I beg you none.
Speaker 5 (19:13):
If the idol who has replaced me can cheer and
comfort you, I must not grieve what idle.
Speaker 3 (19:20):
A golden one.
Speaker 5 (19:22):
Nothing but gain engrosses you.
Speaker 3 (19:25):
So if I have grown wiser, I am not changed
toward you.
Speaker 5 (19:30):
Our marriage contract was made when we were both poor.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
You are changed. When it was made. You were another man.
I was a boy.
Speaker 5 (19:40):
Whatever you were, I freely offer you your release.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
Have I ever sought it in words? Never?
Speaker 5 (19:47):
How then in a changed nature, in everything that made
my love of any worth or value in your sight?
And so I release you with a full heart for
the mother what once you were. May you be happy
in the life you've chosen.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
No, I recognize your spirits and why you've come back
to haunt me, torture me no more.
Speaker 3 (20:13):
Some shadows still to see. No I I can bear it.
No longer haunts me. No longer.
Speaker 2 (20:19):
The light you shine is too bright for my eyes
to bear. You give me your cap so I may
extinguish it and you in a puff of smoke. The
figure was gone, and I had barely time to rail
to my bed, exhausted from the long night's travels, where
I fell into a heavy sleep.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
What's that?
Speaker 2 (20:49):
The clock taking away? Awake in the night of time?
Almost one? When the second messenger Molly sends me from
the grave will arrive. What ghastly shape might he take?
What hideous form? What torture might this one plan for me?
Speaker 3 (21:09):
At least? I am prepared for anything, well prepared for anything,
But but nothing? Hello there, Spirit, are you invisible to me? Uh?
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I said, had great lights from beneath my sitting room
the door. Uh, he is a fearful waste of light,
a shocking extravagance. I'm just going to douse these candles.
I I'm afraid to answer.
Speaker 3 (21:43):
ODG, have any house gruge stops? I'll take it. I
your bedroom now and on n and uh. Why here's
a prodigal spending of light in a great roaring blaze,
hard enough to set the chimney flu on fire. Look
(22:06):
well on me. Have you ever seen the like of
me before? Never?
Speaker 2 (22:11):
This time your eyes were opened to this another thing? Spirit,
I will be no trouble. Conduct me where you will.
I went forth last night on compulsion, and I learned
a lesson which is working now tonight. If you have
ought to teach me, let me profit by it.
Speaker 3 (22:32):
Hold fast tomorrow.
Speaker 2 (22:36):
In the brink of an eye, we were transported to
a mean and shabby little house, threadbare but clean as
a new water shirt and ridul until the mouth watering
smelled goose basking and sage and onion, and a roama
is an eating house and pastry cooks next together, which
came from the Christmas pudding?
Speaker 6 (22:57):
Who Hena has got your precious father then? And your
brother tiny Tim I never remember him, Martha, as late
as this on Christmas?
Speaker 3 (23:05):
Dear, what a place is this? House of your clock love? Cratchit?
See here he comes now, said child.
Speaker 2 (23:15):
He carries on his shoulder with a little crutch in
his hand, and his lower limbs bound in an iron cage.
Speaker 3 (23:23):
The youngest of the creche.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
Him Why look at him struggle after the others as
his father sits him down?
Speaker 3 (23:31):
Where are they off to watch?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
One of the merrier sights of this merrier some seasons
the golden goose turn on the spit.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Listen, how leat you are, my dear, and how cold
will come?
Speaker 3 (23:46):
Come?
Speaker 6 (23:46):
Sit you down by the fire and of a warm love.
Speaker 4 (23:49):
Blessy after I've had a look at that goose too. First,
tell me how did tiny Tim the heat through the
service as good as gold and batter? From how he
gets thoughtful sitting by himself so much and thinks the
strangest things.
Speaker 3 (24:05):
You ever heard? And now what was it this tiny
he told me coming home?
Speaker 4 (24:11):
He hoped everyone in the church saw him because he
was a cripple. Oh, because it might be pleasant to
them to remember upon Christmas Day who it was made
blame Begger's walk and blind and see it.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Oh, if he's so much fun? No, no, no, no,
you must not, my dear, remember the day. Come, let's
join the others. Tell me, Spirit, will tiny Tim live?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
I see a vacant seat in the poor chimney corner
and a little crutch without an owner. If these shadows
remain unordered by the future.
Speaker 3 (24:52):
The child will die.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Oh, no, kind Spirit, spare him that from you.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
Recall your own words.
Speaker 2 (25:01):
If he'd be like to die, he had better do
it and decrease the surplus population.
Speaker 3 (25:08):
I am machine and should be man. If you'll be man.
Speaker 2 (25:12):
At heart forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered
what the surpose is and where it is listen a
toast before we eat to mister Scrooge. To me, I'll
give you, mister Scrooge, the founder of the feast, the
founder of.
Speaker 6 (25:32):
The feat Indeed, oh I wish I had him here.
I'd give him a piece of my mind to feast upon.
And I hope you have a good appetite for it.
Speaker 4 (25:40):
Oh, my dear the children Christmas day, Well, I've been to.
Speaker 6 (25:46):
His health for your sake in the days, not for
his long life. To him, a merry Christmas and a
happy New Year.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Oh you'll be very merry. I'm very happy.
Speaker 4 (25:56):
I've no doubt, and a merry Christmas to us, all,
my DearS. God bless us, God bless us.
Speaker 2 (26:07):
Every one of name, my very name, cast a pall
upon their happiness. But mark you on the wealth of
spirit among them, which thought kindly on a man.
Speaker 3 (26:17):
With as little spirit as yours.
Speaker 2 (26:20):
In particular that poor little lad tiny Kim. Did you
notice how generous he was to end the toast with
God bless us everyone, including even me, What a valiant
little soul in spite of all his handicaps.
Speaker 3 (26:39):
Half your eyes are opening at last.
Speaker 2 (26:42):
But come, we are mortal, and where now your nephew's house,
he said, he said that Christmas was a humbug, as
I really believed it, to.
Speaker 3 (26:55):
My shame for him. Fred does my uncle and loss
of speak. So where is a comical old fellow? And
not so pleasant he might be. However, his offenses carry.
Speaker 2 (27:04):
Their own punishment, and I have nothing to say against him,
and I will have no downturn bouves at this season.
So here's a glass of muld wine to our hands.
Speaker 3 (27:14):
Let's drink to the old man.
Speaker 6 (27:16):
Well, he has given us plenty of metament of pat
So to.
Speaker 2 (27:21):
Uncle Screw, a merry Christmas and a happy New Year
to the old man. Whatever he is, he wouldn't take
it from me, but may he have it nevertheless to
Uncle Screw, to Uncle Screw, no, no, no wait wait,
let me go to them.
Speaker 3 (27:36):
May explain too late for me. We all grows too late. Away.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
Where stand we now? This open place, a crossroads where
I must leave you and forgive me what I ask
When I see something strange.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
Pro fooding from the skirt of.
Speaker 2 (27:59):
Your robe might be a claw for all the flesh
there is upon it.
Speaker 3 (28:04):
Yeah, then see what you must.
Speaker 2 (28:07):
See from the sanctuary. Came forth a boy and a girl, yellow, meager, ragged, scowling, wolfish,
the frustrate tune, the humility. I started back a pole, spirit,
(28:27):
are these yours?
Speaker 3 (28:28):
They are mans?
Speaker 2 (28:30):
The boy is ignorance, the girl is want aware of them.
Speaker 3 (28:33):
Both and all of their degree.
Speaker 2 (28:35):
But most of all, beware this boy, for on his
brow I see written doom. Unless the writing can be erased,
my time is sounding. Wait, have these pitiful creatures no
refuge or resource? I answer in your own words? Are
(28:56):
there no prisons? Are there no what houses?
Speaker 3 (29:03):
Old? For one moment? Help me? Where should I turn?
Nan pay your future? The black phantom that approaches you?
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Now, Hey, your future?
Speaker 3 (29:18):
Your future.
Speaker 2 (29:29):
As the last stroke of the bell struck twelve, Scrooge
turned to face a dread figure, a solemn phantom, draped
and put it in blacks and deep grays, coming creeping
like the mist about it towards him. I'll return with
Act three. There the last phantom, silent, slowly, gravely approached.
(30:04):
It was shrouded in a deep black garment which concealed
its head, its face, its.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
Form, and left nothing.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Of its visible say one outstretched hand, which served as
its only voice. For the spirit neither spoke nor moved.
I am in the presence of the ghost of Christmas.
Yet to come your answer, not but point where we
(30:34):
are to go? Laid on spirit, and I will follow.
The great black cloud gathered me and carried me willy
nilly to the streets, its shroud like the figure that
stood by me, not about me, as I.
Speaker 3 (30:53):
Listened to two gentlemen talking in the street.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
So, mister rhyme, this old scratch has got his own at.
Speaker 4 (31:02):
Last, I have been so informed, mister goodfellow.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
When did he die last night? Aly? What on earth
could he have caught?
Speaker 2 (31:10):
I thought it?
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Never die?
Speaker 2 (31:12):
God knows?
Speaker 3 (31:13):
Why should I care? What has he done with his money?
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Heaven knows? Not left to charity, Its only not to me.
Speaker 3 (31:20):
Left to his company.
Speaker 1 (31:21):
Perhaps God knows.
Speaker 2 (31:23):
He appears not to have had any sort of personal tie,
by which token it's like to be of a cheap
funeral for upon my life I cannot think of anybody
to go to it. How tis more and awful to
(31:43):
dismiss another human being in such terms.
Speaker 3 (31:48):
Will give me dread.
Speaker 2 (31:49):
Ghost, I did not mean to diverge. You wish to
reveal something to me.
Speaker 3 (31:56):
You have my full.
Speaker 6 (31:57):
Attention, said The news is bad, bad, we are quite ruined.
Oh there's hope for us yet, if you're a LNGS. Yeah,
if he forgive is awful. Gay there might have been,
but it is too late for the miracle.
Speaker 2 (32:17):
Poor old miserable boy, he's past relenting, he's dead.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
No, who waits for it? Wait? I'm not ready to leave.
What else would you have me look on?
Speaker 6 (32:37):
Tell me again about today, about the good him on
the grave?
Speaker 4 (32:43):
It would have done you good to see how green
a place it is.
Speaker 3 (32:46):
But you'll see it often, I promised him. I would
walk there.
Speaker 4 (32:50):
Every other Sunday, My last born, poor little broken chocolate up?
Speaker 3 (32:57):
Please I should break down with you, Oh my darling.
Speaker 4 (33:02):
We can all try to be brave, but how can
we hide our sorrow? What is more final and dreadful
than death?
Speaker 2 (33:14):
I want to help specter, but something informs me that
our parting moment is at hand.
Speaker 3 (33:21):
Tell me what man was it? I saw? Lying? Dead?
Very well?
Speaker 2 (33:30):
Viewpoint? Where to this time? A churchyard?
Speaker 3 (33:37):
And here we are.
Speaker 2 (33:40):
The headstone? She would have me read it. But tell
me are these the shadows of things.
Speaker 3 (33:47):
That will be?
Speaker 2 (33:49):
Or maybe only? Oh my own name Evaniza Scrooge.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
O spirit hear me?
Speaker 2 (34:01):
I am not the man I was. I will not
be the man I must have been from all this intercourse?
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Why show me this?
Speaker 2 (34:08):
If I am past all hope for once you make
no motion, your nature intercedes for me and pities me.
Good spirit, I will honor Christmas in my heart and
try to keep it all the year. The three spirits
shall strive within me. I will not shut out the
(34:29):
lessons that they teach.
Speaker 3 (34:30):
Oh tell me.
Speaker 2 (34:31):
I may sponge away the writing on the stone. Give
me your hand, You give me your hand.
Speaker 3 (34:41):
I hold you to me. You cannot disappear. You cannot disappear.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
You will who woll bless my soul? What I cling
to is my own bedpost and wait, wait, Perhaps my
time is my own to make amends in Yes, I
will live in the past, in the present, and the future.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
The spirits of all three.
Speaker 2 (35:04):
Shall strive within me. Old Jacob, Molly, Heaven and Christmas.
Time be praised for this. I say it on my knees,
Old Jacob, on my knees.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
I don't know what's to do.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
I'm as light as a feather, and I am as
happy as an angel. I'm as merry as a schoolboy, I'm.
Speaker 3 (35:23):
As giddy as a drunken man.
Speaker 2 (35:24):
A Merry Christmas to everyone, A happy New Year to
all the world. Hell, oh hello, there's the saucepan that
rules in there's the door by which the ghost of
Jacob Molly, And there's the corner where I saw the
wandering spirits. It's all right, it's true, it all happened.
Oh I don't know among the spirits.
Speaker 3 (35:47):
I'm a baby. I don't know what month is.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
Throw open the window and rejoin the world. Eh, mister Rhymes,
what's today?
Speaker 3 (35:57):
Why? Uh? Christmas Day?
Speaker 5 (36:00):
Christmas Day?
Speaker 3 (36:01):
I haven't missed it.
Speaker 2 (36:03):
If the spirits had done it all in one night,
they can do what they like, of course they can.
Speaker 3 (36:08):
Hello, my fine.
Speaker 2 (36:09):
Fellow, Hello, Merry Christmas, Merry Christmas to you. Do you
still run the Poulterer's shop in the next street for
one at the corner? And I should hope I did
on my way to open up. Oh pray then, mister Grimes,
do I dare hope you have not yet sold the
prize turkey that was hanging up there, Not the little
(36:32):
prize turkey.
Speaker 3 (36:33):
The big prize turkey, Ah, the.
Speaker 2 (36:36):
One as big as an ospirt toward delightful man, A
pleasure to talk to him. Yes, mister grime.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
It is hanging there.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Now what are we waiting for? I want to buy
it breed here that I may give directions where to
take it. Send back your boy and I'll give him
a shilling. Have him bring it back and rest than
five minutes, and I'll give him half a pound. Better still,
here's a five pound note. Send him to deliver the
turkey to mister crackit by cad at the address I
(37:04):
give you, and what's left.
Speaker 3 (37:06):
Shall be your Christmas present. And his.
Speaker 2 (37:12):
Shaving was not an easy task, for my hand was
shaking and shaving the man's attention. At last it was finished,
and I dressed myself and all my best and issued
forth to the streets. The first person I met was
a portly gentleman who had walked into my counting house
the day before, saying Scrooge and Marley's.
Speaker 3 (37:31):
I believe I hasten to intercept him. My dear sir,
how do you do?
Speaker 4 (37:37):
Do?
Speaker 2 (37:37):
I beg your pardon? I hope you succeeded yesterday. A
merry Christmas to you, sir, mister Scrooge, that is my name.
I fear not pleasant to you. Allow me to ask
your pardon, and will you have the goodness to allow
me to contribute?
Speaker 3 (37:56):
May I have your ear sirtain Lord, bless me so much?
My dear mister Scrooge. Are you really serious? If you please?
Not a farthing less? Will you do me that favor? Oh,
my dear sir, I don't know what to say. We
(38:17):
don't say anything. Come and see me, Will you come
and see me?
Speaker 2 (38:22):
I will indeed thank you. I thank you fifty times.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
Bless you? Marry Christmas?
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I buy all that's holy?
Speaker 3 (38:40):
Is it you? Uncle me? Fred?
Speaker 2 (38:43):
You did ask me to dinner? Am I too late
to take up the invitation?
Speaker 3 (38:48):
Too late? Will you let me? Will I let you in? Why?
Speaker 2 (38:52):
Here's the merriest turner Christmas can take, darling wife, here's
Uncle Scrooge to share our Christmas?
Speaker 3 (38:58):
Isn't at a present for this?
Speaker 6 (39:00):
You couldn't have brought Fred a better one.
Speaker 3 (39:03):
Welcome to our.
Speaker 2 (39:05):
Home, alcome for only the first of many times. I
hope it's a whole new year. Yes, and you may
spend it all with us, if you will, only today,
for I must be in the office as early as
can be. No, no, no, no, don't steal glances at
each other. It isn't business on my mind, but recompense.
(39:27):
Since at last I have learned to laugh, I want
to have my first joke with the man I have
perhaps wronged most all of these years, my faithful Bob Cratchitt,
A wonderful day, an evening with my nephew, a deep
sleep that might have lasted for days, except that I
(39:51):
was bound and determined to be earlier than my clerk
at the country house that Monday morning. I was as
pleased as a child when I beat him there, even
more please to find that, for once he was late.
When the door opened and he came in, he was
a full eighteen and one half minutes behind his time.
His hat and stick out were off before he opened
(40:12):
the door. In terror of the man I had been.
He was on his stool in a jiffy, writing his pain,
as if he were trying to overtake the last minute. Morning,
mister Scrooge, morning late for that?
Speaker 3 (40:25):
What do you mean by coming here this time of day?
Speaker 4 (40:27):
I am very sorry, sir, I am behind time you are.
Speaker 3 (40:32):
I think you are now Step this way, sir, if
you please.
Speaker 4 (40:35):
It's only once a year, sir. It shall not be repeated.
I was making rather merry yesterday, sir.
Speaker 2 (40:42):
I'll tell you what, my friend, I'm not going to
stand with this sort of thing any longer, and therefore
I feel myself forced to raise your salary. Huh hi
by mister Scrooge. Sir, do you feel all right on
my merry Christmas?
Speaker 3 (41:02):
Bob?
Speaker 2 (41:03):
A merrier Christmas than I have given you for many
a year. Not only raise your salary, but discuss your
affairs and endeavor to help your struggling family over a
Christmas bowl or smoking bishop. So make up the fires
till they haunt us right out of the country house
before you got another eye, Bob Cretchitt. It's not only
(41:26):
a new year, but a whole new world for both
of us. As we all know, Scrooge was better than
his word. He did it all, and to Tiny Tim,
(41:47):
who did not die, he was a second father, and
he made a good new will for his nephew and
his future partner, Bob Kretchitt. One thing after a long life,
he took to his grave that he knew how to
keep Christmas well. May it be truly said of all
of us, And as Tiny Tim observed, God bless us everyone.
(42:25):
What more is there to say after Dickens Christmas Carol,
except the eternal message, it brings a merry Christmas.
Speaker 3 (42:35):
And a happy New Year.
Speaker 2 (42:38):
Our cast included Marion Seldi's, Ian Martin E. V. Jester,
Robert Dryden, and William Redfield. The entire production was under
the direction of Hymond brown.
Speaker 3 (42:50):
Well. A preview of our next tale. Okay, listen, hear
that singing. Of course, it's a cattle concert. That's where
everyone must be.
Speaker 7 (43:06):
Oh, come on, let's see if we can find them.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
I give up. I don't know where that music is
coming from.
Speaker 5 (43:21):
We've covered so many streets and nothing.
Speaker 3 (43:25):
Yeah, no one. Oh hey, honey, you're shivering. I'm scared.
Speaker 7 (43:30):
Well, there's no hotel across the street. Let's go there
and use the phone. There's got to be one there.
Speaker 3 (43:35):
This is a ghost town. There's no use wandering about anymore.
Speaker 5 (43:40):
It's a ghost town in the middle of Ohio.
Speaker 3 (43:43):
This is E. G.
Speaker 2 (43:44):
Marshall inviting you to return to our Mystery Theater for
another adventure in the macabre. Until next time, Pleasant Dreams,
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