The office was closed in a twinkling , and the clerk , with the long ends of his white comforter dangling below his waist -LRB- for he boasted no great-coat -RRB- , 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-years ' - 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 on its ghostly forehead . The hair was curiously stirred , as if by breath of 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 XXXXX on , so he said , `` Pooh , pooh ! ''
Cornhill London Scrooge afternoon comforter evening first knocker night seven-years