If each smooth tile had been a blank at first , with power to shape some picture on its surface from the disjointed fragments of his thoughts , there would have been a copy of old Marley 's head on every one . `` Humbug ! '' 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 , a disused bell , that hung in the room , and communicated , for some purpose now forgotten , with a chamber in the highest story of the building . It was with great astonishment , and with a strange , inexplicable dread , that , as he looked , he saw this bell begin to swing . It swung so softly in the outset that it scarcely made a sound ; but soon it rang out loudly , and so did every bell in the house . This might have lasted half a minute , or a minute , but it seemed an hour . The bells ceased , as they had begun , together . They were succeeded by a clanking noise , deep down below , as if some person were dragging a heavy chain over the casks in the wine merchant 's cellar . Scrooge then remembered to have heard that ghosts in haunted houses were described as dragging chains . The cellar door flew open with a booming sound , and then he heard the noise much louder on the floors below ; then coming up the stairs ; then coming straight towards his door . `` It 's humbug still ! '' said Scrooge . `` I wo n't believe it . '' His colour changed , though , when , without a pause , it came on through the heavy door , and passed into the room before his eyes . Upon its coming in , the dying flame leaped up , as though it cried , `` I know him ! Marley 's Ghost ! '' and fell again . The same face : the very same .
Marley in his pigtail , usual waistcoat , tights , and boots ; the tassels XXXXX the latter bristling , like his pigtail , and his coat-skirts , and the hair upon his head .
If across as at in on that to towards without