Not another word . That was their meeting , their conversation , and their parting . Scrooge was at first inclined to be surprised that the Spirit should attach importance to conversations apparently so trivial ; but , feeling assured that they must have some hidden purpose , he set himself to consider what it was likely to be . They could scarcely be supposed to have any bearing on the death of Jacob , his old partner , for that was Past , and this Ghost 's province was the Future . Nor could he think of any one immediately connected with himself , to whom he could apply them . But nothing doubting that , to whomsoever they applied , they had some latent moral for his own improvement , he resolved to treasure up every word he heard , and everything he saw ; and especially to observe the shadow of himself when it appeared . For he had an expectation that the conduct of his future self would give him the clue he missed , and would render the solution of these riddles easy . He looked about in that very place for his own image , but another man stood in his accustomed corner , and , though the clock pointed to his usual time of day for being there , he saw no likeness of himself among the multitudes that poured in through the Porch . It gave him little surprise , however ; for he had been revolving in his mind a change of life , and thought and hoped he saw his new-born resolutions carried out in this . Quiet and dark , beside him stood the Phantom , with its outstretched hand . When he roused himself from his thoughtful quest , he fancied , from the turn of the hand , and its situation in reference to himself , that the Unseen Eyes were looking at him keenly . It made him shudder , and feel very cold . They left the busy scene , and went into an obscure part of the town , where Scrooge had never penetrated before , although he recognised its situation and its bad repute . The ways were foul and narrow ; the shops and houses wretched ; the people half naked , drunken , slipshod , ugly . Alleys and archways , like so many cesspools , disgorged their offences of smell , and dirt , and life upon the straggling streets ; and the whole quarter reeked with crime , with filth and misery . Far in this den of infamous resort , there was a low-browed , beetling shop , below a pent-house roof , where iron , old rags , bottles , bones , and greasy offal were bought . 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 XXXXX them than they had been upon the recognition of each other .
Upon below beside for from in into of on though