1 Marley was dead, to begin with.
2 "Seven years dead," mused Scrooge.
3 Old Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
4 There is no doubt that Marley was dead.
5 "Mr. Marley has been dead these seven years," Scrooge replied.
6 You will, therefore, permit me to repeat, emphatically, that Marley was as dead as a door-nail.
7 The Ghost, on hearing this, set up another cry, and clanked its chain so hideously in the dead silence of the night, that the Ward would have been justified in indicting it for a nuisance.
8 There were Cains and Abels, Pharaoh's daughters, Queens of Sheba, Angelic messengers descending through the air on clouds like feather beds, Abrahams, Belshazzars, Apostles putting off to sea in butter-boats, hundreds of figures to attract his thoughts; and yet that face of Marley, seven years dead, came like the ancient Prophet's rod, and swallowed up the whole.