Tiny Tim's line didn't come out quite the way Charles Dickens penned it.

Audio: Hear the truncated version of "A Christmas Carol" as read by James Brice (requires RealPlayer)

"May God bless you all, every one, and pass the cookies."

That was former Roanoke Mayor David Bowers' off-the-cuff interpretation — and his only line — in a 25th anniversary performance of "A Christmas Carol."

Admittedly, it was in an extremely off-Broadway venue, in the back of Sheila's Restaurant on Kirk Avenue. And the players weren't known for being stars of the stage. In addition to Bowers, the performance featured retired corporate attorney Ben Richardson as Ebeneezer Scrooge, law student Rob Leftwich as Marley's ghost and retired Judge James Brice as every other part.

All are members of a daily coffee club that's been meeting downtown for decades, for whom the annual "Christmas Carol" performance has become a long-standing tradition.

"I think we started a little bit after Dickens wrote it," Brice joked. Brice is the author of the adaptation and rewrites it every year, depending on who's available to play what part.

"It's a combination of high drama and roasting," he said.

Retired Judge Richard Pattisall, another member of the unofficial club, said the group wanted to commemorate the tradition's 25th anniversary, because they had decided they've been performing the play for about that long.

Bowers cemented the celebration Thursday morning by proffering an "Ex-Mayor's Exclamation" calling the occasion "Judge James P. Brice 25th Anniversary Christmas Carol Day."

The four "Roanoke Bar Association Players," as Brice dubbed them, had just one handwritten script, which they passed back and forth as their turns came.

Brice began by reading a monologue ribbing some of his fellow members. He said retired Judge Jack Coulter kept a parrot beside the bench that repeated the words "Guilty! Guilty!" and good-naturedly picked on Bowers for "being the only man I know who wallpapered a room in his house with marriage licenses."

Though Richardson had not rehearsed, his deep, raspy "Bah! Humbugs!" drew appreciative laughs from the 14 others gathered there.

Bowers offered some topical comedy, saying that Brice "has decided to reject the pleas of the liberal left to rename the play 'Holiday Carol.' "

It's all in fun. Brice noted several times that the mutual lampooning is a tradition among lawyers. The idea arose in part from Brice's own habit of quoting Scrooge back in the days when the group met in the now-defunct Guy's restaurant downtown.

One year, Brice wrote Monica Lewinsky into the skit as an intern for Scrooge, he said.

The humor wasn't confined to the players. Retired businessman William Lamson complained of being the only Republican in the group, to which former state Sen. Granger Macfarlane, a Democrat, replied, "The rest of us are closet Republicans."

Coulter proclaimed that "the major decisions of city policy are decided at this coffee club," adding, though, that the city doesn't follow them.