“Marley was dead, to begin with. There is no doubt about it. His burial register was signed by the clergy, clerk, undertaker and funeral director. Scrooge signed it. Scrooge's name was good on "Change" for anything he chose to put his hand to. Old Marley was as dead as a doornail. "The tail begins cold, dark, biting" specifically seven years after the death of Scrooge's business partner, Jacob Vocalize. Scrooge, former associate collector, is established among the main litter as "an ancient, covetous, tearing, grasping, scratching, grasping sinner!" He hates Christmas, calling it a “humbug”; he refuses his relative Fred's Christmas dinner invitation and rudely refuses the gentlemen from the United Nations agency who ask him for a donation to organize a Christmas dinner for the poor. His only "Christmas present" is to grant a quarter day of paid leave to his overworked and underpaid employee, Bob Cratchit - which he will do only to respect social customs, considering it "a bad excuse to win a man's pocket every December 25! At home that evening, S...