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 . Mind ! I do n't mean to say that I know , of my own knowledge , what there is particularly dead about a door-nail . I might have been inclined , myself , to regard a coffin-nail as the deadest piece of ironmongery in the trade . But the wisdom of our ancestors is in the simile ; and my unhallowed hands shall not disturb it , or the Country 's done for . You will , therefore , permit me to repeat , emphatically , that 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 do n't know how many years . Scrooge was his sole executor , his sole administrator , his sole assign , his sole residuary legatee , his sole friend , and sole mourner . And even Scrooge was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event , but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral , and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain . 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 . If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet 's Father died before the play began , there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night , in an easterly wind , upon his own ramparts , than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say St. Paul 's Church-yard , for instance -- literally to astonish his son 's weak mind . 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 XXXXX and Marley .
Church-yard Father Hamlet Marley Paul Scrooge coffin-nail ironmongery night years