51
IV _The Last of the Spirits_ 76
V _The End of it_ 93

ILLUSTRATIONS

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

_"He had been Tim's blood horse all the way from church."_ Frontispiece

_"A Merry Christmas, Uncle! God save you!" cried a cheerful voice._ 14

_To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence, for a moment,
would play, Scrooge felt, the very deuce with him._ 26

_"You recollect the way?" inquired the spirit. "Remember it!" cried
Scrooge, with fervour; "I could walk it blindfold."_ 36

_"Why, it's Ali Baba!" Scrooge exclaimed in ecstasy. "It's dear old
honest Ali Baba!"_ 38

A CHRISTMAS CAROL

In Prose

BEING A GHOST STORY OF CHRISTMAS

STAVE ONE

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 not