Scroggie was identified on the gravestone as a “meal man”—a merchant of corn, you might say—but Dickens misread it as a “mean man”, and thought it rather a wretched description of an unfulfilled life.At the same time, in his mind, he turned Ebenezer Scroggie into Ebenezer Scrooge, and the story of “A Christmas Carol” began at that moment to take shape—the now famous story of a man who started out mean and miserly, but who, through a series of visions of the past, present and future, is transformed into a generous and genial gentleman, who says “Bah, humbug” no longer, but “Merry Christmas”, and means it for the very first time in his life.The Christmas story is an account...