They left the busy scene, and went into an
obscure part of the town, where Scrooge had never
penetrated before, although he recognised its
situation, and its bad repute. The ways were foul
and narrow; the shops and houses wretched; the
people half-naked, drunken, slipshod, ugly. Alleys
and archways, like so many cesspools, disgorged
their offences of smell, and dirt, and life, upon the
straggling streets; and the whole quarter reeked
with crime, with filth, and misery.
Far in this den of infamous resort, there was a
low-browed, beetling shop, below a pent-house
roof, where iron, old rags, bottles, bones, and
greasy offal, were bought. Upon the floor within,
were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains,
hinges, files, scales, weights, and refuse iron of all
kinds. Secrets that few would like to scrutinise were
bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags,
masses of corrupted fat, and sepulchres of bones.
Sitting in among the wares he dealt in, by a
charcoal stove, made of old bricks, was a
grey-haired rascal, nearly seventy years of age;
who had screened himself from the cold air without,
by a frousy curtaining of miscellaneous tatters, hung
upon a line; and smoked his pipe in all the luxury of
calm retirement.
Scrooge and the Phantom came into the
presence of this man, just as a woman with a heavy
bundle slunk into the shop. But she had scarcely
entered, when another woman, similarly laden, came
in too; and she was closely followed by a man in
faded black, who was no less startled by the sight
of them, than they had been upon the recognition of
each other. After a short period of blank
astonishment, in which the old man with the pipe
had joined them, they all three burst into a laugh.
"Let the charwoman alone to be the first!" cried
she who had entered first. "Let the laundress alone
to be the second; and let the undertaker's man
alone to be the third. Look here, old Joe, here's a
chance! If we haven't all three met here without
meaning it!"
"You couldn't have met in a better place," said
old Joe, removing his pipe from his mouth. "Come
into the parlour. You were made free of it long ago,
you know; and the other two an't strangers. Stop
till I shut the door of the shop. Ah! How it skreeks!
There an't such a rusty bit of metal in the place as
its own hinges, I believe; and I'm sure there's no
such old bones here, as mine. Ha, ha! We're all
suitable to our calling, we're well matched. Come
into the parlour. Come into the parlour."
The parlour was the space behind the screen of
rags. The old man raked the fire together with an
old stair-rod, and having trimmed his smoky lamp
(for it was night), with the stem of his pipe, put it in
his mouth again.
While he did this, the woman who had already
spoken threw her bundle on the floor, and sat down
in a flaunting manner on a stool; crossing her elbows
on her knees, and looking with a bold defiance at
the other two.
"What odds then! What odds, Mrs Dilber?" said
the woman. "Every person has a right to take care
of themselves. He always did!"
"That's true, indeed!" said the laundress. "No man
more so."
"Why then, don't stand staring as if you was
afraid, woman; who's the wiser? We're not going to
pick holes in each other's coats, I suppose?"
"No, indeed!" said Mrs Dilber and the man
together. "We should hope not."
"Very well, then!" cried the woman. "That's
enough. Who's the worse for the loss of a few
things like these? Not a dead man, I suppose."
"No, indeed!" said Mrs Dilber, laughing.
"If he wanted to keep 'em after he was dead, a
wicked old screw," pursued the woman, "why wasn't
he natural in his lifetime? If he had been, he'd have
had somebody to look after him when he was struck
with Death, instead of lying gasping out his last
there, alone by himself."
"It's the truest word that ever was spoke," said
Mrs Dilber. "It's a judgment on him."
"I wish it was a little heavier judgment," replied
the woman; "and it should have been, you may
depend upon it, if I could have laid my hands on
anything else. Open that bundle, old Joe, and let me
know the value of it. Speak out plain. I'm not afraid
to be the first, nor afraid for them to see it. We
know pretty well that we were helping ourselves,
before we met here, I believe. It's no sin. Open the
bundle, Joe."
But the gallantry of her friends would not allow of
this; and the man in faded black, mounting the
breach first, produced his plunder. It was not
extensive. A seal or two, a pencil-case, a pair of
sleeve-buttons, and a brooch of no great value,
were all. They were severally examined and
appraised by old Joe, who chalked the sums he was
disposed to give for each, upon the wall, and added
them up into a total when he found there was
nothing more to come.
"That's your account," said Joe, "and I wouldn't
give another sixpence, if I was to be boiled for not
doing it. Who's next?"
Mrs Dilber was next. Sheets and towels, a little
wearing apparel, two old-fashioned silver teaspoons,
a pair of sugar-tongs, and a few boots. Her account
was stated on the wall in the same manner.
"I always give too much to ladies. It's a
weakness of mine, and that's the way I ruin myself,"
said old Joe. "That's your account. If you asked me
for another penny, and made it an open question, I'd
repent of being so liberal and knock off
half-a-crown."
"And now undo my bundle, Joe," said the first
woman.
Joe went down on his knees for the greater
convenience of opening it, and having unfastened a
great many knots, dragged out a large and heavy
roll of some dark stuff.
"What do you call this." said Joe. "Bed-curtains!"
"Ah!" returned the woman, laughing and leaning
forward on her crossed arms. "Bed-curtains!"
"You don't mean to say you took them down,
rings and all, with him lying there?" said Joe.
"Yes I do," replied the woman. "Why not?"
"You were born to make your fortune," said Joe,
"and you'll certainly do it."
"I certainly shan't hold my hand, when I can get
anything in it by reaching it out, for the sake of
such a man as He was, I promise you, Joe," returned
the woman coolly. "don't drop that oil upon the
blankets, now."