Come Into the Parlour, Old Joe

Scrooge and the phantom came into the presence of this man just as a woman with a heavy bundle slunk into the shop. 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. The parlour was the space behind the screen of rags. Upon the floor, within were piled up heaps of rusty keys, nails, chains, hinges, files, scales, weights and refuse,. Secrets that few would like to scrutinize. Were bred and hidden in mountains of unseemly rags, masses of corrupted fat and sepulchres of bones.