title: a-christmas-carol.txt.
 restless haste and moaning as
    they went                                                         32

  Then old Fezziwig stood out to
    dance with Mrs. Fezziwig                                          54

  A flushed and boisterous group                                      62

  Laden with Christmas toys and
    presents                                                          64

  The way he went after that plump
    sister in the lace tucker!                                       100

  "How are you?" said one.
    "How are you?" returned the other.
   "Well!" said the first. "Old
    Scratch has got his own at last,
    hey?"                                                            114

  "What do you call this?" said Joe.
    "Bed-curtains!" "Ah!" returned
    the woman, laughing....
    "Bed-curtains!"

  "You don't mean to say you took
    'em down, rings and all, with him
    lying there?" said Joe.

  "Yes, I do," replied the woman.
    "Why not?"                                                       120

  "It's I, your uncle Scrooge. I have
    come to dinner. Will you let
    me in, Fred?"                                                    144

  "Now, I'll tell you what, my friend,"
    said Scrooge. "I am not going
    to stand this sort of thing any
    longer."                                                         146

[Illustration]

_IN BLACK AND WHITE_


  Tailpiece                                                           vi
  Tailpiece to List of Coloured Illustrations                          x
  Tailpiece to List of Black and White Illustrations                  xi
  Heading to Stave One                                                 3
  They were portly gentlemen, pleasant to behold                      12
  On the wings of the wind                                         28-29
  Tailpiece to Stave One                                              34
  Heading to Stave Two                                                37
  He produced a decanter of curiously
  light wine and a block of curiously heavy cake                      50
  She left him, and they parted                                       60
  Tailpiece to Stave Two                                              65
  Heading to Stave Three                                              69
  There was nothing very cheerful in the climate                      75
  He had been Tim's blood-horse all the way from church            84-85
  With the pudding                                                    88
  Heading to Stave Four                                              111
  Heading to Stave Five                                              137
  Tailpiece to Stave Five                                            147

[Illustration]


STAVE ONE


[Illustration]




MARLEY'S GHOST


Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt whatever about that.
The register of his burial was signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the
undertaker, and the chief mourner. Scrooge signed it. And Scrooge's name
was good upon 'Change for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old
Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Mind! I don't mean to say that I know of my own knowledge, what there is
particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined, myself,
to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the
trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile; and my
unhallowed hands shall not disturb it, or the country's done for. You
will, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as
dead as a door-nail.

Scrooge knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise?
Scrooge and he were partners for I don't know how many years. Scrooge
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole
residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Scrooge
was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event but that he was an
excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised
it with an undoubted bargain.

The mention of Marley's funeral brings me back to the point I started
from. There is no doubt that Marley was dead. This must be distinctly
understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to
relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's father died
before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his
taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,
than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning
out after dark in a breezy spot--say St. Paul's Churchyard, for
instance--literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Scrooge never painted out Old Marley's name. There it stood, years
afterwards, above the warehouse door: Scrooge and Marley. The firm was
known as Scrooge and Marley. Sometimes people new to the business called
Scrooge Scrooge, and sometimes Marley, but he answered to both names. It
was all the same to him.

Oh! but he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a
squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old
sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out
generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster.
The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose,
shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin
lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime
