Narrator 1: 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. 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 friend and sole mourner. 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.

Narrator 2: Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grind- stone, 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. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dogdays; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas. Once upon a time -- of all the good days in the year, on Christmas Eve -- old Scrooge sat busy in his counting-house.

Nephew: A merry Christmas, uncle! God save you!

Scrooge: Bah! Humbug!

Nephew: Christmas a humbug, uncle! You don't mean that, I am sure.

Scrooge: I do, Merry Christmas! What right have you to be merry? What reason have you to be merry? You're poor enough.

Nephew: Come, then, what right have you to be dismal? What reason have you to be morose? You're rich enough.

Narrator 2: Scrooge having no better answer ready on the spur of the moment, said

Scrooge: Bah!

Narrator 1: again; and followed it up with

Scrooge: Humbug.

Nephew: Don't be cross, uncle!

Scrooge: What else can I be, 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; If I could work my will, 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.

Nephew: Uncle!

Scrooge: Niece! Keep Christmas in your own way, and let me keep it in mine.

Nephew: Keep it! But you don't keep it.

Scrooge: Let me leave it alone, then, much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!

Nephew: There are many things from which I might have derived good, by which I have not profited, I dare say, Christmas among the rest. But I am sure I have always thought of Christmas time, as a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time: the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women 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!

Scrooge: Let me hear another sound from you, and you'll keep your Christmas by losing your situation. 

Nephew: Don't be angry, uncle. Come! Dine with us tomorrow.

Narrator 2: Scrooge said that he would see him -- yes, indeed he did.

Narrator 1: He went the whole length of the expression, and said that he would see him in that extremity first.

Nephew: But why? Why?

Scrooge: Why did you get married?

Nephew: Because I fell in love.

Scrooge: Because you fell in love! Good afternoon!

Nephew: Nay, uncle, but you never came to see me before that happened. Why give it as a reason for not coming now?

Scrooge: Good afternoon nephew.

Nephew: I want nothing from you; I ask nothing of you; why cannot we be friends? 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!

Scrooge: Good afternoon.

Nephew: And A Happy New Year!

Scrooge: Good afternoon!

Narrator 3: At length, the hour of shutting up the counting house arrived. He lived in chambers which had once belonged to his deceased partner. They were a gloomy suite of rooms. 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 it’s every stone, was fain to grope with his hands.

Narrator 4: Now, it is a fact, that there was nothing strange 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. Let it also be known that Scrooge had not bestowed one thought on Marley, since his last mention that afternoon.

Narrator 5: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.

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.

Narrator 6: He fastened the door, and walked across the hall, and up the stairs; slowly too; 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.

Narrator 3: Sitting-room, bedroom, all as they should be. Nobody under the table, nobody under the sofa; nobody under the bed; nobody in the closet; nobody in his dressing-gown, which was hanging up in a suspicious attitude against the wall. 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.

Scrooge: Humbug!

Narrator 4: 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. It was with great astonishment, and with a strange, inexplicable dread, that as he looked, he saw this bell begin to swing and soon it rang out loudly, and so did every bell in the house.

Narrator 5: They were succeeded by a clanking noise, deep down below; as if some person were dragging a heavy chain, on the floors below; then coming up the stairs; then coming straight towards his door.

Scrooge: It's humbug still! I won't believe it.

Narrator 6: His colour changed though, when, without a pause, it came on through the heavy door, and passed into the room before his eyes. The same face: the very same, Marley. 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.

Scrooge: How now! What do you want with me?

Marley: Much!

Scrooge: Who are you?

Marley: Ask me who I was.

Scrooge: Who were you then? You're particular, for a shade.

Marley: In life I was your partner, Jacob Marley. You don't believe in me

Scrooge: I don't.

Marley: What evidence would you have of my reality, beyond that of your senses? Why do you doubt your senses?

Scrooge: Because, a little thing affects them. A slight disorder of the stomach makes them cheat. 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!

Narrator 3: 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. Scrooge fell upon his knees, and clasped his hands before his face.

Scrooge: Mercy! Dreadful apparition, why do you trouble me?

Marley: do you believe in me or not?

Scrooge: I do, I must. But why do spirits walk the earth, and why do they come to me?

Marley: It is required of every man, that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellowmen, 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 and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!

Scrooge: You are fettered, tell me why?

Marley: I wear the chain I forged in life, 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? Or would you know, 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: Jacob, Old Jacob Marley, tell me more. Speak comfort to me, Jacob!

Marley: I have none to give, 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!

Scrooge: But you were always a good man of business, Jacob.

Marley: Business! Mankind was my business.  The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. Hear me! My time is nearly gone.

Scrooge: I will, but don't be hard upon me! 

Marley: 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.

Scrooge: You were always a good friend to me.

Marley: You will r, by Three Spirits.

Scrooge: Is that the chance and hope you mentioned, Jacob? I -- I think I'd rather not.

Marley: Without their visits, you cannot hope to shun the path I tread.  Expect the first tomorrow, when the bell tolls one. Look to see me no more; and look that, for your own sake, you remember what has passed between us!

Narrator 5: 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. 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 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.