A Christmas Carol

Marley was dead: to begin with. There is no doubt whatever
about that. The register of his burial was signed by the
clergyman, the clerk, the undertaker, and the chief mourner.
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 don’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.

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A Christmas Carol