asting 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. 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 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