On Christmas Eve in 1843 Ebenezer Scrooge (Seymour Hicks) a cold-hearted and greedy elderly money-lender is seen working in his freezing counting house along with his suffering, under-paid clerk Bob Cratchit (Donald Calthrop). Two fellow business men arrive at the counting house to collect a donation for the poor from Scrooge but the old man instead supports the prisons and workhouses and goes as far to say if the poor would rather die then they 'better do it and decrease the surplus population'. Scrooge catches Bob trying to take some coal but warns him he will be out of a job if he does not go back to work. Scrooge then refuses to dine with his only relative Fred his nephew and claims Christmas is 'Humbug!'.