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56 The Background of Ebenezer Scrooge

The Background of

Ebenezer Scrooge

Continues From Page 55

“You’ll 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 it, you’d think yourself ill-used, I’ll be
bound?”
The clerk smiled faintly and observed
that it was only once a year.
“A poor excuse! 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.
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 wall. coming straight towards his door. It came on
gloomy suite of rooms, in that was old enough Quite satisfied, he closed his door, and through the heavy door, and a specter passed
now, and dreary enough, for nobody lived in it locked himself in; double-locked himself in, into the room before his eyes. Upon its coming
but Scrooge, the other rooms being all let out as which was not his custom. Thus secured against in, the dying flame leaped up, as though it cried,
offices. surprise, he put on his dressing-gown and “I know him! Marley's Ghost!"
Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing slippers, and his nightcap; and sat down before The same face: the very same. Marley in
at all particular about the knocker on the door, the very low fire. his pigtail, usual waistcoat, tights and boots.
except that it was very large. Also, that Scrooge As he threw his head back in the chair, The chain he drew was clasped about his
had seen it, night and morning, during his whole his glance happened to rest upon a bell, a middle. It was long, and wound about him like a
residence in that place. And yet Scrooge, having disused bell, that hung in the room. It was with tail; and it was made (for Scrooge observed it
his key in the lock of the door, saw in the great astonishment, and with a strange, closely) of cash-boxes, keys, padlocks, ledgers,
knocker, without its undergoing any process of inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw deeds, and heavy purses wrought in steel.
change, not a knocker, but Marley’s face. this bell begin to swing. It swung so softly in the Though he looked the phantom through
Marley’s face. It was not angry or outset that it scarcely made a sound; but soon it and through, and saw it standing before him;
ferocious, but it looked at Scrooge as Marley rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the though he felt the chilling influence of its death-
used to look: with ghostly spectacles turned up house. cold eyes; he was still incredulous, and fought
on its ghostly forehead. This might have lasted half a minute, or against his senses.
As Scrooge looked fixedly at this a minute, but it seemed an hour. The bells “How now!” said Scrooge, caustic and
phenomenon, it was a knocker again. He said ceased as they had begun, together. They were cold as ever. “What do you want with me?”
“Pooh, pooh!” and closed the door with a bang. succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down “Much!” - Marley’s voice, no doubt
The sound resounded through the house below; as if some person were dragging a heavy about it.
like thunder. Every room above, and every cask chain over the casks in the wine-merchant’s “Who are you?”
in the wine-merchant’s cellars below, appeared cellar. Scrooge then remembered to have heard “Ask me who I was.”
to have a separate peal of echoes of its own. that ghosts in haunted houses were described as “Who were you then?” said Scrooge.
Scrooge was not a man to be frightened by dragging chains.
echoes. He fastened the door, and walked across (Continued On Page 57)
the hall, and up the stairs. Slowly, too, trimming Is Scrooge about to get a visit from a
his candle as he went. ghost?
You might have got a hearse up that As Christmas approaches, Ebenezer
staircase. There was plenty of width for that, Scrooge keeps to himself. He refuses to help
and room to spare; which is perhaps the reason those who are poor. He refuses to "make merry"
why Scrooge thought he saw a locomotive himself. He thinks it's all a "humbug" and has
hearse going on before him in the gloom. Half- even turned-down an invitation to celebrate the
a-dozen gas-lamps out of the street wouldn’t holiday with his only nephew.
have lighted the entry too well, so you may Alone, in the home once occupied by his
suppose that it was pretty dark with Scrooge’s now-dead partner Jacob Marley, Scrooge hears
dip. bells ringing. Then he hears another strange
Up Scrooge went, not caring a button for sound.
its being very dark: darkness is cheap, and He has a visitor. It's the ghost of Jacob
Scrooge liked it. But before he shut his heavy Marley who is noisily dragging chains.
door, he walked through his rooms to see that all Hereafter is an abridged version of the
was right. second part of "Stave One," from Charles
Sitting-room, bedroom, lumber-room. Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." To hear a
All as they should be. Nobody under the table, dramatization of the abridged "Marley's Ghost,"
nobody under the sofa, and a small fire in the click on the "Narration" for this chapter. THE JESSE KALSI RADIO SHOW
grate. Nobody under the bed; nobody in the THE POWER OF HOME NUMBERS
closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was Then he heard the noise much louder, on the COMING SOON TO
hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then WWW.XZBN.NET