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A Christmas Carol

Script Excerpts

Prologue

CHARLES DICKENS

Marley was dead to begin with.  There is no doubt whatever about that.  The register of his burial was signed by the clergymen, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.  Even Scrooge signed it and Scrooge's name was good on anything.  Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.

Did Scrooge know 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 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 Scrooge was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone!  A squeezing, covetous, old sinner.  Hard and sharp as flint.  He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't warm it one degree at Christmas.

External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge.  No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him.  No wind that blew was more bitter than he. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over Scrooge in only one respect.  They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did.