Eggert To Return To West Ham For Christmas!

Stave 1: Eggert's Ghost

Eggert 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. Duxbury signed it. And Duxbury's name was good upon 'Change, for anything he chose to put his hand to.

Old Eggert 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 Beano coffin-nail as the deadest piece of Ironsmongery 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 Eggert was as dead as a door-nail.

Duxbury knew he was dead? Of course he did. How could it be otherwise? Duxbury and he were partners for more than a year. Duxbury was his sole executor, his sole administrator, his sole assign, his sole residuary legatee, his sole friend, and sole mourner. And even Duxbury was not so dreadfully cut up by the sad event, but that he was an excellent man of business on the very day of the funeral, and solemnised it with an undoubted bargain - the signing of Behrami. The mention of Eggert's funeral brings me back to the point I started from. There is no doubt that Eggert was dead. This must be distinctly understood, or nothing wonderful can come of the story I am going to relate. If we were not perfectly convinced that Hamlet's Father died before the play began, there would be nothing more remarkable in his taking a stroll at night, in an easterly wind, upon his own ramparts, than there would be in any other middle-aged gentleman rashly turning out after dark in a breezy spot -- say Saint Paul's Churchyard for instance -- literally to astonish his son's weak mind.

Duxbury never painted out Old Eggert's name. There it stood, years afterwards, above the office door: Duxbury and Eggert.

Talk about the ghost of Christmas Past! All we need is for Turds to be reappointed! Turds and Egg for Christmas Dinner! Well let's face it, between them, BG, Turds, Egg and Duxbury have turned us into a well stuffed turkey!