2009م - 1444هـ
A Christmas Caro

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