
Author · Theo Ashford·English
A charity subscription book frozen to Scrooge’s office step lists donations no one remembers making.
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Opening scene
On the coldest morning of the season, a charity subscription book is found frozen to the step outside Scrooge’s counting house. Its pages contain names of donors, amounts given, and promises of winter coal deliveries already marked as fulfilled. The difficulty is that several of the donors insist they never gave a penny, while three households swear the coal did arrive. Scrooge distrusts sentiment, but he distrusts unbalanced accounts even more. If generosity is being forged, someone is profiting from virtue; if it is not, then London has begun balancing books by means no clerk can explain.