Avarus Avidior

 Old Scrooge had felt the dyspepsia pass away and felt that he could sleep finally. Christmas and all its changes had passed. He heard a noise coming closer and closer, and at last he was shocked to see the shade of his old associate Jacob Marley enter the room, chained with ghostly yet seemingly substantial pork barrels which shooshed along the floor boards as he approached, his mien grey and ashen.
"Not you again, Jacob?" Scrooge said.
"Scrooge, why are you sitting here?" the shadow asked.
Scrooge smiled. "I was contemplating what I would do for the betterment of humanity in the New Year. I thought I'd start locally, on a small scale..."
Here Marley wailed and cut Scrooge short.
"The spirits of Christmas have changed, Scrooge. Mankind no longer is your business. You are to run for Parliament on the platform of re-invigorating the Poor Laws and to re-establish the Work House and Treadmill!"

So Scrooge did a 360 turn and politicked in the New Year as the inconstant ghosts of Christmas counseled him to. Even metaphysical laws and events seemed to be, at best, a divine "guesstimate" and one had to be ready to change with change, he thought, for "...the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night..." and he could but do his best.


The covey of ladies huddled in front of the poulterer's shop to escape the wind. Their sharp eyes spotted Bob Cratchit, and their tongues snared his attention.
"Is it true, then?" said one.
Bob slowed a bit, then stopped, turning his head. "Is what true, madam?"
They looked from one to the other, then the speaker said, "Is it true that Mr. Scrooge will soon be leaving us to spread his philosophy in the seats of power."
"If by that do you mean to ask whether Mr. Scrooge will be representing this riding in Parliament, the answer is yes."  said Cratchit... and God help us, he thought. For the old Scrooge had come back as fate would have it. God help us, everyone!

-- 
note:
title:  the miser yet more grasping