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 frouzy 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 have n't all three met here without meaning it ! '' `` You could n'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 a n't strangers . Stop till I shut the door of the shop . Ah ! How it skreeks ! There a n'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 XXXXX our calling , we 're well matched .
If by from into of than to upon with without