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  • This audio production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN  PROSE BEING A Ghost Story of Christmas BY CHARLES  

  • DICKENS is owned by Hubbub and is protected by  copyright. This book was originally published in  

  • 1843 and is now in the public domain. Artwork  by JOHN LEECH which accompanied the original  

  • publication has been inlcuded. PREFACE  

  • I HAVE endeavoured in this Ghostly little bookto raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not  

  • put my readers out of humour with themselveswith each other, with the season, or with me.  

  • May it haunt their houses pleasantlyand no one wish to lay it.  

  • Their faithful Friend and Servant, C. D. December 1843  

  • 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 uponChangefor 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 simileand 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 administratorhis 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 spotsay Saint  

  • Paul’s Churchyard for instanceliterally  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, wrenchinggrasping, 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 oysterThe 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 was on his head,  

  • and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried  his own low temperature always about with him;  

  • he iced his office in the dog-days; and  didn’t thaw it one degree at Christmas.  

  • External heat and cold had little influence on  Scrooge. No warmth could warm, no wintry weather  

  • chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than heno falling snow was more intent upon its purpose,  

  • no pelting rain less open to entreatyFoul weather didn’t know where to have  

  • him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hailand sleet, could boast of the advantage over  

  • him in only one respect. They oftencame  downhandsomely, and Scrooge never did.  

  • Nobody ever stopped him in the street to  say, with gladsome looks, “My dear Scrooge,  

  • how are you? When will you come to see me?”  No beggars implored him to bestow a trifle,  

  • no children asked him what it was o’clock, no  man or woman ever once in all his life inquired  

  • the way to such and such a place, of ScroogeEven the blind men’s dogs appeared to know him;  

  • and when they saw him coming on, would tug their  owners into doorways and up courts; and then would  

  • wag their tails as though they said, “No eye at  all is better than an evil eye, dark master!”  

  • But what did Scrooge care! It was  the very thing he liked. To edge his  

  • way along the crowded paths of life, warning  all human sympathy to keep its distance, was  

  • what the knowing ones callnutsto Scrooge. Once upon a timeof all the good days in the year,  

  • on Christmas Eveold Scrooge sat busy in  his counting-house. It was cold, bleak,  

  • biting weather: foggy withal: and he could hear  the people in the court outside, go wheezing up  

  • and down, beating their hands upon their breastsand stamping their feet upon the pavement stones  

  • to warm them. The city clocks had only just gone  three, but it was quite dark alreadyit had not  

  • been light all dayand candles were flaring  in the windows of the neighbouring offices,  

  • like ruddy smears upon the palpable brown air. The  fog came pouring in at every chink and keyhole,  

  • and was so dense without, that although  the court was of the narrowest, the houses  

  • opposite were mere phantoms. To see the dingy  cloud come drooping down, obscuring everything,  

  • one might have thought that Nature lived  hard by, and was brewing on a large scale.  

  • The door of Scrooge’s counting-house was open  that he might keep his eye upon his clerk, who in  

  • a dismal little cell beyond, a sort of tank, was  copying letters. Scrooge had a very small fire,  

  • but the clerk’s fire was so very much smaller  that it looked like one coal. But he couldn’t  

  • replenish it, for Scrooge kept the coal-box in  his own room; and so surely as the clerk came  

  • in with the shovel, the master predicted that it  would be necessary for them to part. Wherefore  

  • the clerk put on his white comforter, and tried to  warm himself at the candle; in which effort, not  

  • being a man of a strong imagination, he failed. “A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!” cried  

  • a cheerful voice. It was the voice of Scrooge’s  nephew, who came upon him so quickly that this was  

  • the first intimation he had of his approach. “Bah!” said Scrooge, “Humbug!”  

  • He had so heated himself with rapid walking in  the fog and frost, this nephew of Scrooge’s,  

  • that he was all in a glow; his face was  ruddy and handsome; his eyes sparkled,  

  • and his breath smoked again. “Christmas a humbug, uncle!” said Scrooge’s  

  • nephew. “You don’t mean that, I am sure?” “I do,” said Scrooge. “Merry Christmas! What  

  • right have you to be merry? What reason have  you to be merry? Youre poor enough.”  

  • Come, then,” returned the nephew gaily. “What  right have you to be dismal? What reason have  

  • you to be morose? Youre rich enough.” Scrooge having no better answer ready on the  

  • spur of the moment, said, “Bah!” againand followed it up withHumbug.”  

  • Don’t be cross, uncle!” said the nephew. “What else can I be,” returned the uncle,  

  • when I live in such a world of fools as thisMerry Christmas! Out upon merry Christmas!  

  • What’s Christmas time to you but a time for paying  bills without money; a time for finding yourself a  

  • year older, but not an hour richer; a time for  balancing your books and having every item in  

  • em through a round dozen of months presented  dead against you? If I could work my will,”  

  • said Scrooge indignantly, “every idiot who goes  about withMerry Christmason his lips, should  

  • be boiled with his own pudding, and buried withstake of holly through his heart. He should!”  

  • Uncle!” pleaded the nephew. “Nephew!” returned the uncle sternly,  

  • keep Christmas in your own wayand let me keep it in mine.”  

  • Keep it!” repeated Scrooge’s  nephew. “But you don’t keep it.”  

  • Let me leave it alone, then,”  said Scrooge. “Much good may it  

  • do you! Much good it has ever done you!” “There are many things from which I might  

  • have derived good, by which I have not profited,  I dare say,” returned the nephew. “Christmas among  

  • the rest. But I am sure I have always thought  of Christmas time, when it has come roundapart  

  • from the veneration due to its sacred name and  origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart  

  • from thatas a good time; a kind, forgivingcharitable, pleasant time; the only time I know  

  • of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and  women seem by one consent to open their shut-up  

  • hearts freely, and to think of people below  them as if they really were fellow-passengers  

  • to the grave, and not another race of creatures  bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle,  

  • though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver  in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good,  

  • and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!” The clerk in the Tank involuntarily applauded.  

  • Becoming immediately sensible of  the impropriety, he poked the fire,  

  • and extinguished the last frail spark for ever. “Let me hear another sound from you,” said  

  • Scrooge, “and youll keep your Christmas by losing  your situation! Youre quite a powerful speaker,  

  • sir,” he added, turning to his nephew. “I  wonder you don’t go into Parliament.”  

  • Don’t be angry, uncle. ComeDine with us to-morrow.”  

  • Scrooge said that he would see himyes, indeed he  did. He went the whole length of the expression,  

  • and said that he would see him  in that extremity first.  

  • But why?” cried Scrooge’s nephew. “Why?” “Why did you get married?” said Scrooge.  

  • Because I fell in love.” “Because you fell in love!”  

  • growled Scrooge, as if that were the only  one thing in the world more ridiculous than  

  • a merry Christmas. “Good afternoon!” “Nay, uncle, but you never came to see  

  • me before that happened. Why give it  as a reason for not coming now?”  

  • Good afternoon,” said Scrooge. “I want nothing from you; I ask nothing  

  • of you; why cannot we be friends?” “Good afternoon,” said Scrooge.  

  • “I am sorry, with all my heart, to find you  so resolute. We have never had any quarrel,  

  • to which I have been a party. But I have  made the trial in homage to Christmas,  

  • and I’ll keep my Christmas humour to the  last. So A Merry Christmas, uncle!”  

  • Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. “And A Happy New Year!”  

  • Good afternoon!” said Scrooge. His nephew left the room without an angry word,  

  • notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to  bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk,  

  • who, cold as he was, was warmer than  Scrooge; for he returned them cordially.  

  • There’s another fellow,” muttered Scrooge; who  overheard him: “my clerk, with fifteen shillings  

  • a week, and a wife and family, talking about  a merry Christmas. I’ll retire to Bedlam.”  

  • This lunatic, in letting Scrooge’s nephew outhad let two other people in. They were portly  

  • gentlemen, pleasant to behold, and now stoodwith their hats off, in Scrooge’s office.  

  • They had books and papers in  their hands, and bowed to him.  

  • Scrooge and Marley’s, I believe,”  said one of the gentlemen,  

  • referring to his list. “Have I the pleasure  of addressing Mr. Scrooge, or Mr. Marley?”  

  • Mr. Marley has been dead these  seven years,” Scrooge replied. “He  

  • died seven years ago, this very night.” “We have no doubt his liberality is well  

  • represented by his surviving partner,” said  the gentleman, presenting his credentials.  

  • It certainly was; for they had been  two kindred spirits. At the ominous  

  • wordliberality,” Scrooge frowned, and shook  his head, and handed the credentials back.  

  • At this festive season of the year, Mr. Scrooge,”  said the gentleman, taking up a pen, “it is more  

  • than usually desirable that we should make some  slight provision for the Poor and destitute,  

  • who suffer greatly at the present time. Many  thousands are in want of common necessaries;  

  • hundreds of thousands are in  want of common comforts, sir.”  

  • Are there no prisons?” asked Scrooge. “Plenty of prisons,” said the gentleman,  

  • laying down the pen again. “And the Union workhouses?” demanded  

  • Scrooge. “Are they still in operation?” “They are. Still,” returned the gentleman,  

  • “I wish I could say they were not.” “The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full  

  • vigour, then?” said Scrooge. “Both very busy, sir.”  

  • Oh! I was afraid, from what you said  at first, that something had occurred  

  • to stop them in their useful course,” said  Scrooge. “I’m very glad to hear it.”  

  • Under the impression that they scarcely  furnish Christian cheer of mind or body to  

  • the multitude,” returned the gentleman, “a few  of us are endeavouring to raise a fund to buy  

  • the Poor some meat and drink, and means of warmthWe choose this time, because it is a time, of all  

  • others, when Want is keenly felt, and Abundance  rejoices. What shall I put you down for?”  

  • Nothing!” Scrooge replied. “You wish to be anonymous?”  

  • “I wish to be left alone,” said Scrooge.  “Since you ask me what I wish, gentlemen,  

  • that is my answer. I don’t make merry myself at  Christmas and I can’t afford to make idle people  

  • merry. I help to support the establishmentshave mentionedthey cost enough; and those who  

  • are badly off must go there.” “Many can’t go there;  

  • and many would rather die.” “If they would rather die,” said Scrooge,  

  • they had better do it, and decrease the  surplus population. Besidesexcuse me—I  

  • don’t know that.” “But you might know  

  • it,” observed the gentleman. “It’s not my business,” Scrooge  

  • returned. “It’s enough for a man to  understand his own business, and not  

  • to interfere with other people’s. Mine occupies  me constantly. Good afternoon, gentlemen!”  

  • Seeing clearly that it would be useless to  pursue their point, the gentlemen withdrew.  

  • Scrooge resumed his labours with an  improved opinion of himself, and in a  

  • more facetious temper than was usual with him. Meanwhile the fog and darkness thickened so, that  

  • people ran about with flaring links, proffering  their services to go before horses in carriages,  

  • and conduct them on their way. The ancient  tower of a church, whose gruff old bell was  

  • always peeping slily down at Scrooge out ofGothic window in the wall, became invisible,  

  • and struck the hours and quarters in the cloudswith tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its  

  • teeth were chattering in its frozen head up thereThe cold became intense. In the main street,  

  • at the corner of the court, some labourers  were repairing the gas-pipes, and had lighted  

  • a great fire in a brazier, round whichparty of ragged men and boys were gathered:  

  • warming their hands and winking their eyes before  the blaze in rapture. The water-plug being left  

  • in solitude, its overflowings sullenly  congealed, and turned to misanthropic ice.  

  • The brightness of the shops where holly sprigs and  berries crackled in the lamp heat of the windows,  

  • made pale faces ruddy as they passed. Poulterers’  and grocerstrades became a splendid joke:  

  • a glorious pageant, with which it  was next to impossible to believe  

  • that such dull principles as bargain and  sale had anything to do. The Lord Mayor,  

  • in the stronghold of the mighty Mansion Housegave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep  

  • Christmas as a Lord Mayor’s household shouldand even the little tailor, whom he had fined  

  • five shillings on the previous Monday for being  drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets, stirred up  

  • to-morrow’s pudding in his garret, while his lean  wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef.  

  • Foggier yet, and colder. Piercing, searchingbiting cold. If the good Saint Dunstan had but  

  • nipped the Evil Spirit’s nose with  a touch of such weather as that,  

  • instead of using his familiar weapons, then indeed  he would have roared to lusty purpose. The owner  

  • of one scant young nose, gnawed and mumbled by  the hungry cold as bones are gnawed by dogs,  

  • stooped down at Scrooge’s keyhole to regale him  with a Christmas carol: but at the first sound of  

  • God bless you, merry gentleman! May nothing you dismay!”  

  • Scrooge seized the ruler with such energy  of action, that the singer fled in terror,  

  • leaving the keyhole to the fog  and even more congenial frost.  

  • At length the hour of shutting up  the counting-house arrived. With  

  • an ill-will Scrooge dismounted from his  stool, and tacitly admitted the fact to  

  • the expectant clerk in the Tank, who instantly  snuffed his candle out, and put on his hat.  

  • Youll want all day to-morrow,  I suppose?” said Scrooge.  

  • If quite convenient, sir.” “It’s not convenient,” said Scrooge, “and it’s  

  • not fair. If I was to stop half-a-crown for ityou’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll be bound?”  

  • The clerk smiled faintly. “And yet,” said Scrooge,  

  • you don’t think me ill-used, when  I pay a day’s wages for no work.”  

  • The clerk observed that it  was only once a year.  

  • “A poor excuse for picking a man’s pocket  every twenty-fifth of December!” said Scrooge,  

  • buttoning his great-coat to the chin.  “But I suppose you must have the whole  

  • day. Be here all the earlier next morning.” The clerk promised that he would; and Scrooge  

  • walked out with a growl. The office was closed in  a twinkling, and the clerk, with the long ends of  

  • his white comforter dangling below his waist (for  he boasted no great-coat), went down a slide on  

  • Cornhill, at the end of a lane of boys, twenty  times, in honour of its being Christmas Eve,  

  • and then ran home to Camden Town as hard as  he could pelt, to play at blindman’s-buff.  

  • Scrooge took his melancholy dinner  in his usual melancholy tavern;  

  • and having read all the newspapers, and beguiled  the rest of the evening with his banker’s-book,  

  • went home to bed. He lived in chambers which had  once belonged to his deceased partner. They were  

  • a gloomy suite of rooms, in a lowering pile  of building up a yard, where it had so little  

  • business to be, that one could scarcely help  fancying it must have run there when it was a  

  • young house, playing at hide-and-seek with other  houses, and forgotten the way out again. It was  

  • old enough now, and dreary enough, for nobody  lived in it but Scrooge, the other rooms being  

  • all let out as offices. The yard was so dark that  even Scrooge, who knew its every stone, was fain  

  • to grope with his hands. The fog and frost so  hung about the black old gateway of the house,  

  • that it seemed as if the Genius of the Weather  sat in mournful meditation on the threshold.  

  • Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing at  all particular about the knocker on the door,  

  • except that it was very large. It is also a factthat Scrooge had seen it, night and morning,  

  • during his whole residence in that place; also  that Scrooge had as little of what is called fancy  

  • about him as any man in the city of London, even  includingwhich is a bold wordthe corporation,  

  • aldermen, and livery. Let it also be borne  in mind that Scrooge had not bestowed one  

  • thought on Marley, since his last mention of  his seven yearsdead partner that afternoon.  

  • And then let any man explain to me, if he canhow it happened that Scrooge, having his key  

  • in the lock of the door, saw in the knockerwithout its undergoing any intermediate process  

  • of changenot a knocker, but Marley’s face. Marley’s face. It was not in impenetrable shadow  

  • as the other objects in the yard were, but had  a dismal light about it, like a bad lobster in  

  • a dark cellar. It was not angry or ferociousbut looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look:  

  • with ghostly spectacles turned up on its ghostly  forehead. The hair was curiously stirred, as if  

  • by breath or hot air; and, though the eyes were  wide open, they were perfectly motionless. That,  

  • and its livid colour, made it horriblebut its horror seemed to be in spite of  

  • the face and beyond its control, rather  than a part of its own expression.  

  • As Scrooge looked fixedly at this  phenomenon, it was a knocker again.  

  • To say that he was not startled, or that  his blood was not conscious of a terrible  

  • sensation to which it had been a stranger from  infancy, would be untrue. But he put his hand  

  • upon the key he had relinquished, turned it  sturdily, walked in, and lighted his candle.  

  • He did pause, with a moment’s irresolutionbefore he shut the door; and he did look  

  • cautiously behind it first, as if he half expected  to be terrified with the sight of Marley’s pigtail  

  • sticking out into the hall. But there was  nothing on the back of the door, except the  

  • screws and nuts that held the knocker on, so he  saidPooh, pooh!” and closed it with a bang.  

  • The sound resounded through the  house like thunder. Every room above,  

  • and every cask in the wine-merchant’s cellars  below, appeared to have a separate peal of  

  • echoes of its own. Scrooge was not a man to  be frightened by echoes. He fastened the door,  

  • and walked across the hall, and up the stairsslowly too: trimming his candle as he went.  

  • You may talk vaguely about driving a coach-and-six  up a good old flight of stairs, or through a bad  

  • young Act of Parliament; but I mean to say you  might have got a hearse up that staircase, and  

  • taken it broadwise, with the splinter-bar towards  the wall and the door towards the balustrades: and  

  • done it easy. There was plenty of width for thatand room to spare; which is perhaps the reason  

  • why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive hearse  going on before him in the gloom. Half-a-dozen  

  • gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t have lighted  the entry too well, so you may suppose that it  

  • was pretty dark with Scrooge’s dip. Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for  

  • that. Darkness is cheap, and Scrooge liked  it. But before he shut his heavy door,  

  • he walked through his rooms to see that all  was right. He had just enough recollection  

  • of the face to desire to do that. Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. All  

  • as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody  under the sofa; a small fire in the grate; spoon  

  • and basin ready; and the little saucepan of gruel  (Scrooge had a cold in his head) upon the hob.  

  • Nobody under the bed; nobody in the  closet; nobody in his dressing-gown,  

  • which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude  against the wall. Lumber-room as usual. Old  

  • fire-guard, old shoes, two fish-basketswashing-stand on three legs, and a poker.  

  • Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and  locked himself in; double-locked himself in,  

  • which was not his custom. Thus secured against  surprise, he took off his cravat; put on his  

  • dressing-gown and slippers, and his nightcap; and  sat down before the fire to take his gruel.  

  • It was a very low fire indeed; nothing on suchbitter night. He was obliged to sit close to it,  

  • and brood over it, before he could extract the  least sensation of warmth from such a handful of  

  • fuel. The fireplace was an old one, built by some  Dutch merchant long ago, and paved all round with  

  • quaint Dutch tiles, designed to illustrate  the Scriptures. There were Cains and Abels,  

  • Pharaoh’s daughters; Queens of Sheba, Angelic  messengers descending through the air on clouds  

  • like feather-beds, Abrahams, BelshazzarsApostles putting off to sea in butter-boats,  

  • hundreds of figures to attract his thoughtsand yet that face of Marley, seven years dead,  

  • came like the ancient Prophet’s rod, and swallowed  up the whole. If each smooth tile had been a blank  

  • at first, with power to shape some picture  on its surface from the disjointed fragments  

  • of his thoughts, there would have beencopy of old Marley’s head on every one.  

  • Humbug!” said Scrooge; and  walked across the room.  

  • After several turns, he sat down againAs he threw his head back in the chair,  

  • his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a disused  bell, that hung in the room, and communicated for  

  • some purpose now forgotten with a chamber in the  highest story of the building. It was with great  

  • astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable  dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin  

  • to swing. It swung so softly in the outset that  it scarcely made a sound; but soon it rang out  

  • loudly, and so did every bell in the house. This might have lasted half a minute, or a minute,  

  • but it seemed an hour. The bells ceased as they  had begun, together. They were succeeded by a  

  • clanking noise, deep down below; as if some  person were dragging a heavy chain over the  

  • casks in the wine-merchant’s cellar. Scrooge then  remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted  

  • houses were described as dragging chains. The cellar-door flew open with a booming sound,  

  • and then he heard the noise much louder, on  the floors below; then coming up the stairs;  

  • then coming straight towards his door. “It’s humbug still!” said  

  • Scrooge. “I won’t believe it.”

This audio production of A CHRISTMAS CAROL IN  PROSE BEING A Ghost Story of Christmas BY CHARLES  

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