title: a-christmas-carol.txt.
 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 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 'em 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.'

'His blankets?' asked Joe.

'Whose else's do you think?' replied the woman. 'He isn't likely to take
cold without 'em, I dare say.'

'I hope he didn't die of anything catching? Eh?' said old Joe, stopping
in his work, and looking up.

'Don't you be afraid of that,' returned the woman. 'I an't so fond of
his company that I'd loiter about him for such things, if he did. Ah!
you may look through that shirt till your eyes ache, but you won't find
a hole in it, nor a threadbare place. It's the best he had, and a fine
one too. They'd have wasted it, if it hadn't been for me.'

'What do you call wasting of it?' asked old Joe.

'Putting it on him to be buried in, to be sure,' replied the woman, with
a laugh. 'Somebody was fool enough to do it, but I took it off again. If
calico an't good enough for such a purpose, it isn't good enough for
anything. It's quite as becoming to the body. He can't look uglier than
he did in that one.'

Scrooge listened to this dialogue in horror. As they sat grouped about
their spoil, in the scanty light afforded by the old man's lamp, he
viewed them with a detestation and disgust which could hardly have been
greater, though they had been obscene demons marketing the corpse
itself.

'Ha, ha!' laughed the same woman when old Joe producing a flannel bag
with money in it, told out their several gains upon the ground. 'This
is the end of it, you see! He frightened every one away from him when he
was alive, to profit us when he was dead! Ha, ha, ha!'

'Spirit!' said Scrooge, shuddering from head to foot. 'I see, I see. The
case of this unhappy man might be my own. My life tends that way now.
Merciful heaven, what is this?'

He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost
touched a bed--a bare, uncurtained bed--on which, beneath a ragged
sheet, there lay a something covered up, which, though it was dumb,
announced itself in awful language.

The room was very dark, too dark to be observed with any accuracy,
though Scrooge glanced round it in obedience to a secret impulse,
anxious to know what kind of room it was. A pale light, rising in the
outer air, fell straight upon the bed; and on it, plundered and bereft,
unwatched, unwept, uncared for, was the body of this man.

Scrooge glanced towards the Phantom. Its steady hand was pointed to the
head. The cover was so carelessly adjusted that the slightest raising of
it, the motion of a finger upon Scrooge's part, would have disclosed the
face. He thought of it, felt how easy it would be to do, and longed to
do it; but he had no more power to withdraw the veil than to dismiss the
spectre at his side.

Oh, cold, cold, rigid, dreadful Death, set up thine altar here, and
dress it with such terrors as thou hast at thy command; for this is thy
dominion! But of the loved, revered, and honoured head thou canst not
turn one hair to thy dread purposes, or make one feature odious. It is
not that the hand is heavy, and will fall down when released; it is not
that the heart and pulse are still; but that the hand was open,
generous, and true; the heart brave, warm, and tender, and the pulse a
man's. Strike, Shadow, strike! And see his good deeds springing from the
wound, to sow the world with life immortal!

No voice pronounced these words in Scrooge's ears, and yet he heard them
when he looked upon the bed. He thought, if this man could be raised up
now, what would be his foremost thoughts? Avarice, hard dealing, griping
cares? They have brought him to a rich end, truly!

He lay in the dark, empty house, with not