Ebenezer Scrooge is known all over town as being a money-grubbing, penny pinching, money-making miser. He has no family, nor friends in the world. He is dressed in shoddy, worn-out clothes and labors like a mad work-a-holic, working without vacations or days off. This cheapskate employer hoards every penny, and pays pitiful paychecks to his employee, Bob Cratchit. Although Scrooge makes enough money to live in luxury and wealth, the moneybags miser is known by all as a selfish, cold-hearted man.
On this particular evening, after his clerk, Bob Cratchit has worked through another unbearably cold day, (because Scrooge refuses to waste money to heat up the room) he is outraged to hear his employer ask for a day off for Christmas. After harshly scolding him for such a request, he gives Bob the day off to spend with his family.
It's Christmas Eve, and Scrooge is about to head home after another long working day. His underpaid, over-worked clerk, Bob Cratchit, is also getting ready to leave the office. As Scrooge starts to button up his winter coat, he expresses his displeasure at Cratchit's wanting to have Christmas Day off work—and expecting to be paid for it too! As far as the mean old skinflint's concerned, this is a gross inconvenience, not to mention daylight robbery. He considers it an outrage that he should have to pay someone not to work.
Nonetheless, he gives a more-grateful-than-he-really-ought-to-be Cratchit the day off to celebrate Christmas with his family. Cratchit is understandably overjoyed at the news and slides down Cornhill no fewer than twenty times in a state of considerable excitement before rushing home to be with his family.
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