Não é explicitamente declarado no romance fonte , mas a implicação é que tal era o peso da corrente que ele ' Forjada, Marley demorou um tempo considerável (sete anos?) para passar da casa dos contadores para a casa de Scrooge, a fim de dar a ele o aviso de que estava cometendo os mesmos erros.
Pondering on what the Ghost had said, he did so now, but without lifting up his eyes, or getting off his knees. 'You must have been very slow about it, Jacob,' Scrooge observed, in a business-like manner, though with humility and deference. 'Slow!' the Ghost repeated. 'Seven years dead,' mused Scrooge. 'And travelling all the time!' 'The whole time,' said the Ghost. 'No rest, no peace. Incessant torture of remorse.' 'You travel fast?' said Scrooge. 'On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost. 'You might have got over a great quantity of ground in seven years,' said Scrooge. 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. 'Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed,' cried the phantom, 'not to know, that ages of incessant labour, by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunity misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!'
Além disso, há a sugestão de que Scrooge está envelhecendo (pode ser seu último ano na Terra) e deve-se dizer que tem sido um verdadeiro ano para ele ser um fanático de Natal; recusando-se a dar qualquer caridade aos seus visitantes, recusando um convite da festa de sua família e negando a seus empregados mais de um dia de folga.