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 | |  | | E-book Category: Adventure, Children, Classic
E-book Title: A CHRISTMAS CAROL
Author: Charles Dickens
Book Description: Stave 1: Marley's Ghost
Bob marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt
any just about that. The register of his burial was
signed by the clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker,
and the chief mourner. Niggard signed it. And
Scrooge's name was nice upon `Change, for thing
he
chose to put his hand to.
Old Bob 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 just about
a door-nail. I mightiness have been inclined, myself, to
regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of hardware store
in the trade. But the wisdom of our ancestors
is in the simile; and my unholy hands
shall not disturb it, or the Country's done for. You
wish therefore permit me to repeat, emphatically, that
Bob marley was as dead as a door-nail.
Niggard knew he was dead? Of course he did.
How could it be otherwise? Niggard and he were
partners for I don't cognize how galore years. Niggard
was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole
assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and
sole mourner. And even as Niggard was not so dreadfully
cut up by the sad event, but that he was an first-class
man of business on the really day of the funeral,
and solemnised it with an unchallenged bargain.
The mention of Marley's ceremony brings me back to
the point I started from. There is no doubt that Bob marley
was dead. This must be clearly
understood, or
nothing fantastic can move of the story I am going
to relate. If we were not absolutely positive that
Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there
would-be be nothing much remarkable in his taking a
stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts,
than there would-be be in any another middle-aged
gentleman headlong
turning out after dark in a breezy
spot -- say Saint Paul's God's acre for instance --
virtually
to amaze his son's weak mind.More... | 
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