To increase the jolly christmas feeling we will now supply you with the first chapter from the A christmas Carol story by Charles Dickens It s about the charity one should withold during his life or something Read the first chapter and see if it interests you! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens Chapter 1 - 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 Saint 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 ware-house 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 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 he no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose no pelting rain less open to entreaty Foul weather didn t know where to have him The heaviest rain and snow and hail and sleet could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect They often came down handsomely 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 Scrooge Even the blindmen 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 call nuts to Scrooge Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year on Christmas Eve -- old 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 breasts and stamping their feet upon the pavement stones to warm them The city clocks had only just gone three but it was quite dark already it had not been light all day and 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 You re poor enough Come then returned the nephew gaily What right have you to be dismal what reason have you to be morose You re rich enough Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment said Bah! again and followed it up with Humbug 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 this Merry 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 with Merry Christmas on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding and buried with a stake of holly through his heart He should! Uncle! pleaded the nephew Nephew! returned the uncle sternly keep Christmas in your own way and 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 round -- apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin if anything belonging to it can be apart from that -- as a good time a kind forgiving charitable 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 you ll keep your Christmas by losing your situation You re quite a powerful speaker sir he added turning to his nephew I wonder you don t go into Parliament Don t be angry uncle Come! Dine with us to-morrow Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes 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 greeting 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 out had let two other people in They were portly gentlemen pleasant to behold and now stood with 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 word liberality 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 warmth We 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 establishments I have mentioned they 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 Besides -- excuse 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 of a gothic window in the wall became invisible and struck the hours and quarters in the clouds with tremulous vibrations afterwards as if its teeth were chattering in its frozen head up there The 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 which a party 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 grocers trades 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 might Mansion House gave orders to his fifty cooks and butlers to keep Christmas as a Lord Mayor s household should and even the little tailor whom he had fined five shillings on the previous Monday for being drunk and bloodthirsty in the streets stirred up tomorrow s pudding in his garret while his lean wife and the baby sallied out to buy the beef Foggier yet and colder! Piercing searching biting 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 You ll want all day tomorrow 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 it you 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 have 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 fact that 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 including -- which is a bold word -- the 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-year s dead partner that afternoon And then let any man explain to me if he can how it happened that Scrooge having his key in the lock of the door saw in the knocker without its undergoing any intermediate process of change not 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 ferocious but looked at Scrooge as Marley used to look with ghostly spectacles turned up upon 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 horrible but 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 irresolution before 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 said Pooh 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 stairs slowly 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 that and 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 bed-room 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 has 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-baskets washing-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 night-cap and sat down before the fire to take his gruel It was a very low fire indeed nothing on such a bitter 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 Belshazzars Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts and 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 been a copy of old Marley s head on every one Humbug! said Scrooge and walked across the room After several turns he sat down again As 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 His colour changed though when without a pause it came on through the heavy door and passed into the room before his eyes Upon its coming in the dying flame leaped up as though it cried I know him! Marley s Ghost! and fell again The same face the very same Marley in his pigtail usual waistcoat tights and boots the tassels on the latter bristling like his pigtail and his coat-skirts and the hair upon his head The chain he drew was clasped about his middle It was long and wound about him like a tail and it was made (for Scrooge observed it closely) of cash-boxes keys padlocks ledgers deeds and heavy purses wrought in steel His body was transparent so that Scrooge observing him and looking through his waistcoat could see the two buttons on his coat behind Scrooge had often heard it said that Marley had no bowels but he had never believed it until now No nor did he believe it even now Though he looked the phantom through and through and saw it standing before him though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin which wrapper he had not observed before he was still incredulous and fought against his senses How now! said Scrooge caustic and cold as ever What do you want with me Much! -- Marley s voice no doubt about it Who are you Ask me who I was Who were you then said Scrooge raising his voice You re particular for a shade He was going to say to a shade but substituted this as more appropriate In life I was your partner Jacob Marley Can you -- can you sit down asked Scrooge looking doubtfully at him I can Do it then Scrooge asked the question because he didn t know whether a ghost so transparent might find himself in a condition to take a chair and felt that in the event of its being impossible it might involve the necessity of an embarrassing explanation But the ghost sat down on the opposite side of the fireplace as if he were quite used to it You don t believe in me observed the Ghost I don t said Scrooge What evidence would you have of my reality beyond that of your senses I don t know said Scrooge Why do you doubt your senses Because said Scrooge a little thing affects them A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheats You may be an undigested bit of beef a blot of mustard a crumb of cheese a fragment of an underdone potato There s more of gravy than of grave about you whatever you are! Scrooge was not much in the habit of cracking jokes nor did he feel in his heart by any means waggish then The truth is that he tried to be smart as a means of distracting his own attention and keeping down his terror for the spectre s voice disturbed the very marrow in his bones To sit staring at those fixed glazed eyes in silence for a moment would play Scrooge felt the very deuce with him There was something very awful too in the spectre s being provided with an infernal atmosphere of its own Scrooge could not feel it himself but this was clearly the case for though the Ghost sat perfectly motionless its hair and skirts and tassels were still agitated as by the hot vapour from an oven You see this toothpick said Scrooge returning quickly to the charge for the reason just assigned and wishing though it were only for a second to divert the vision s stony gaze from himself I do replied the Ghost You are not looking at it said Scrooge But I see it said the Ghost notwithstanding Well! returned Scrooge I have but to swallow this and be for the rest of my days persecuted by a legion of goblins all of my own creation Humbug I tell you humbug! At this the spirit raised a frightful cry and shook its chain with such a dismal and appalling noise that Scrooge held on tight to his chair to save himself from falling in a swoon But how much greater was his horror when the phantom taking off the bandage round its head as if it were too warm to wear in-doors its lower jaw dropped down upon its breast! Scrooge fell upon his knees and clasped his hands before his face Mercy! he said Dreadful apparition why do you trouble me Man of the worldly mind! replied the Ghost do you believe in me or not I do said Scrooge I must But why do spirits walk the earth and why do they come to me It is required of every man the Ghost returned that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men and travel far and wide and if that spirit goes not forth in life it is condemned to do so after death It is doomed to wander through the world -- oh woe is me! -- and witness what it cannot share but might have shared on earth and turned to happiness! Again the spectre raised a cry and shook its chain and wrung its shadowy hands You are fettered said Scrooge trembling Tell me why I wear the chain I forged in life replied the Ghost I made it link by link and yard by yard I girded it on of my own free will and of my own free will I wore it Is its pattern strange to you Scrooge trembled more and more Or would you know pursued the Ghost the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself It was full as heavy and as long as this seven Christmas Eves ago You have laboured on it since It is a ponderous chain! Scrooge glanced about him on the floor in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable but he could see nothing Jacob he said imploringly Old Jacob Marley tell me more Speak comfort to me Jacob I have none to give the Ghost replied It comes from other regions Ebenezer Scrooge and is conveyed by other ministers to other kinds of men Nor can I tell you what I would A very little more is all permitted to me I cannot rest I cannot stay I cannot linger anywhere My spirit never walked beyond our counting-house -- mark me! -- in life my spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money-changing hole and weary journeys lie before me! It was a habit with Scrooge whenever he became thoughtful to put his hands in his breeches pockets Pondering on what the Ghost had said he did so now but without lifting up his eyes or getting off his knees You must have been very slow about it Jacob Scrooge observed in a business-like manner though with humility and deference Slow! the Ghost repeated Seven years dead mused Scrooge And travelling all the time The whole time said the Ghost No rest no peace Incessant torture of remorse You travel fast said Scrooge On the wings of the wind replied the Ghost You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years said Scrooge The Ghost on hearing this set up another cry and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance Oh! captive bound and double-ironed cried the phantom not to know that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere whatever it may be will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life s opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I! But you were always a good man of business Jacob faultered Scrooge who now began to apply this to himself Business! cried the Ghost wringing its hands again Mankind was my business The common welfare was my business charity mercy forbearance and benevolence were all my business The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business! It held up its chain at arm s length as if that were the cause of all its unavailing grief and flung it heavily upon the ground again At this time of the rolling year the spectre said I suffer most Why did I walk through crowds of fellow-beings with my eyes turned down and never raise them to that blessed Star which led the Wise Men to a poor abode Were there no poor homes to which its light would have conducted me! Scrooge was very much dismayed to hear the spectre going on at this rate and began to quake exceedingly Hear me! cried the Ghost My time is nearly gone I will said Scrooge But don t be hard upon me! Don t be flowery Jacob! Pray! How it is that I appear before you in a shape that you can see I may not tell I have sat invisible beside you many and many a day It was not an agreeable idea Scrooge shivered and wiped the perspiration from his brow That is no light part of my penance pursued the Ghost I am here to-night to warn you that you have yet a chance and hope of escaping my fate A chance and hope of my procuring Ebenezer You were always a good friend to me said Scrooge Thank ee! You will be haunted resumed the Ghost by Three Spirits Scrooge s countenance fell almost as low as the Ghost s had done Is that the chance and hope you mentioned Jacob he demanded in a faltering voice It is I -- I think I d rather not said Scrooge Without their visits said the Ghost you cannot hope to shun the path I tread Expect the first to-morrow when the bell tolls One Couldn t I take em all at once and have it over Jacob hinted Scrooge Expect the second on the next night at the same hour The third upon the next night when the last stroke of Twelve has ceased to vibrate Look to see me no more and look that for your own sake you remember what has passed between us When it had said these words the spectre took its wrapper from the table and bound it round its head as before Scrooge knew this by the smart sound its teeth made when the jaws were brought together by the bandage He ventured to raise his eyes again and found his supernatural visitor confronting him in an erect attitude with its chain wound over and about its arm The apparition walked backward from him and at every step it took the window raised itself a little so that when the spectre reached it it was wide open It beckoned Scrooge to approach which he did When they were within two paces of each other Marley s Ghost held up its hand warning him to come no nearer Scrooge stopped Not so much in obedience as in surprise and fear for on the raising of the hand he became sensible of confused noises in the air incoherent sounds of lamentation and regret wailings inexpressibly sorrowful and self-accusatory The spectre after listening for a moment joined in the mournful dirge and floated out upon the bleak dark night Scrooge followed to the window desperate in his curiosity He looked out The air was filled with phantoms wandering hither and thither in restless haste and moaning as they went Every one of them wore chains like Marley s Ghost some few (they might be guilty governments) were linked together none were free Many had been personally known to Scrooge in their lives He had been quite familiar with one old ghost in a white waistcoat with a monstrous iron safe attached to its ankle who cried piteously at being unable to assist a wretched woman with an infant whom it saw below upon a door-step The misery with them all was clearly that they sought to interfere for good in human matters and had lost the power for ever Whether these creatures faded into mist or mist enshrouded them he could not tell But they and their spirit voices faded together and the night became as it had been when he walked home Scrooge closed the window and examined the door by which the Ghost had entered It was double-locked as he had locked it with his own hands and the bolts were undisturbed He tried to say Humbug! but stopped at the first syllable And being from the emotion he had undergone or the fatigues of the day or his glimpse of the Invisible World or the dull conversation of the Ghost or the lateness of the hour much in need of repose went straight to bed without undressing and fell asleep upon the instant