Prudence was dead. There was no doubt about that. The register of her burial was signed by the governor of the Bank of England. Jack Scrooge signed it. Old Prudence was as dead as a door-nail.

Yet Scrooge never painted out Prudence’s name. Oh! He was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Jack Scrooge! A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his chin. He carried his own low temperature about with him; it iced the Ministry of Justice in the dog days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Winterval.

Once upon a time - on Winterval Eve - old Scrooge sat busy in his private office. ‘A merry Winterval, uncle! God save you!’ cried a cheerful voice. It was Bach.

‘Bah, humbug!’ said Scrooge. ‘Let me hear another sound from you, and you'll keep your Winterval by losing your situation. We have to make a further 12% headcount reduction and you can easily be added to the surplus population!’

In the snow-laden street, a man with a clipboard obstructed Scrooge’s progress. ‘Have I the pleasure of addressing Mr Scrooge? We have no doubts as to your liberality…’ At the word ‘liberality,’ Scrooge frowned.

‘In this festive season,’ persisted the gentleman, ‘it is more than usually desirable that we should make some provision for the poor and destitute, who suffer greatly at this time of year.’

‘Are there no prisons?’ asked Scrooge. ‘Plenty of prisons,’ said the gentleman, ‘some Titanic in size. What shall I put you down for?’

‘Nothing!’ Scrooge growled. ‘I support those establishments: they cost enough and those who are badly off must go there!’

Scrooge took his melancholy dinner in his usual Commons Canteen and, having read his melancholy Daily Mail, went home to bed.

He could not sleep. A dreadful noise sounded from below; then upon the stairs.

Something came on through the door, and passed into the room before his eyes. A ghastly spectral figure from the forgotten past. Clement Attlee? No: Prudence’s Ghost!

‘How now!’ cried Scrooge. ‘What do you want with me?’

‘Much! Let me introduce the Ghost of Legal Services Past.’ Suddenly the room was transformed into a cosy book-lined chamber, warmed by a grate of blazing banknotes. At mahogany desks two gentlemen were occupied. As the clock struck five, the elder of the pair, Old Frizzy-wig, folded his ledger and addressed the younger: ‘How now, young Jack: can I tempt you to join me in a glass of sherry-QC perhaps?’

The younger, a slender youth with prematurely greying hair, replied: ‘Thank you sir, but I have to compose a 3,000-word monograph on social exclusion for Barbara Castle.’

With a start, Scrooge recognised his younger self. ‘Well, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy,’ said Old Frizzy-wig. ‘If you get cold, feel free to throw another sack of refreshers on the fire.’

The vision faded, but the ghost remained. ‘Bah!’ expostulated Scrooge, ‘Legal Services Past, and a good thing, too.’ And yet a strange and unsettling chill rose in his marrow.

At this the shade of Prudence was lost in the brickwork of Threadneedle Street, only to be replaced by a new spirit. ‘I am the Ghost of Legal Services Present,’ it said. ‘Look upon me.’

Scrooge looked. The blazing grate was gone. In its place, a grim waiting room, where a line of mendicants sporting bandages and neck-braces fought for attention from a kindly if flustered legal adviser.

‘Pah!’ exclaimed Scrooge. ‘Ambulance chaser!’

‘But who is that little fellow seated in the corner?’

‘It is Tiny Lee Galaid,’ replied the spectre. Alas for Tiny Lee Galaid, he bore a crutch, and had his frail limbs supported by an iron frame. ‘Spirit,’ said Scrooge, with an interest he had never felt before, ‘tell me if Tiny Lee Galaid will live.’

‘I see before me a vacant seat,’ replied the Ghost, ‘in the poor chimney-corner, and a crutch without an owner.’

The clock struck twelve. Scrooge looked about him and beheld a solemn Phantom, coming towards him, like a mist along the ground.

‘Am I in the presence of the Ghost of Legal Services Yet To Come?’ trembled Scrooge. ‘I fear you above all - but I hope to live to be another man.’ The Phantom led him to a vast warehouse, where sat serried rows of young ladies and gentlemen speaking strange platitudes: ‘Thank you for contacting Pile Emhigh Legal. Your call is important to us. Please hold.’

Outside, a knot of businessmen was gathered about a stone. Observing that the Phantom’s hand was pointed thither, Scrooge advanced to listen.

‘No,’ said one of their number, ‘I don't know much about it. I only know it's dead.’ And there, on the tombstone, was carved: ‘Access to Justice for all: 1949-2009. RIP.’

Scrooge awoke in his own bed, to a new day. ‘I am as light as a feather, I am as merry as a schoolboy. I am as giddy as a drunken man!’ he cried.

‘Steady on,’ said Mistress Casey, ‘or we’ll slap an ASBO on you before you can say "community payback".’