You took the shirt off a dead body, and the blankets and curtains off his bed, while he was lying there! Well, well!" said Joe, shaking his head. "here's your money." And he counted out several shilling into the women's hands.
"Ha ha ha!" laughed the first woman. "He frightened everyone away when he was alive, and we've made money out of him now that he's dead! Ha ha ha!"
Scrooge felt sick and angry at the same time. "Spirit," he said, "I see now. I could be that unhappy man. Good Heavens, what's this?"
Joe and the women had disappeared, and Scrooge was standing in a dark room. Opposite him was a bed, with no blankets or curtains. A light shone down from above, on to the body of a dead man, covered with a sheet.
"How sad," thought Scrooge, "to die with no friends or family around him! To lie in an empty room, with no candles or flowers, and robbed of his clothes! To know that nobody loves him, because he loved nobody in his life! Money can't buy a happy life, or a peaceful death!" He looked at the spirit, whose hand was pointing at the man's covered head. It would be easy to lift the sheet, and see who the man was. But for some reason Scrooge could not do it.
"Spirit," he said, "this is a terrible place. Let's go!"
Still the ghost's unmoving finger pointed at the man's head.