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A Christmas Carol

Script Excerpts

Act IV, Scene 3

(SCROOGE and the ANGEL are transported to another street where a PAWNBROKER has set up shop.  A CHARWOMAN, a LAUNDRESS and MRS. COBBLER enter quickly with baskets.)

Song 19—Pawnbroker Underscore

PAWNBROKER

We couldn’t have met in a better place to do our nasty deeds.  Come inside.  Shh!  You’re so noisy you could wake the dead!

MRS. COBBLER

Just so it ain’t ’em it wakes.

PAWNBROKER

No chance of that!  He’s cold as a kipper by now!

(ALL Laugh)

LAUNDRESS

We’re a fine lot, ain’t we?

PAWNBROKER

Come, come.  Let’s see what you got off the old miser.

(CHARWOMAN opens her bundle which is rather full.  The PAWNBROKER seems surprised to see so much.  It contains mostly knick-knacks etc.)

CHARWOMAN

Don’t look at me so strange.  I’ve a right to take care of meself!  He always did!

MRS. COBBLER

True indeed.  Him more than most men!

(ALL Laugh)

CHARWOMAN

Well, then stop staring as if you was afraid.  He was owing to me, as tight as he was.  Besides, who’s going to know?  What do you think we’ll do?  Tell on each other?

PAWNBROKER

No indeed!  I should say not!

MRS. COBBLER

Very well, then, that’s enough!  Who’s the worse for the loss of a few things like these?  Not a dead man, I suppose!

(ALL Laugh)

LAUNDRESS

No, indeed!  I suppose if he wanted to keep ‘em after he was dead, he’d have been better to people in his lifetime.  If he had been, he’d have had somebody to look after him when he was struck with death, instead of lying gasping out his last there, alone, by himself.

MRS. COBBLER

It’s the truest word that was ever spoken!  It’s a judgment on him!

CHARWOMAN

I wish it was a little heavier judgment and it would have been if I could have laid me hands on anything else, believe you me!  Now look it all over good, Joe, and let me know the value of it.  I’m not afraid to be first or for them to see it.  We all knew full well we were helping ourselves, before we met here, I believe.  It’s no sin!  Look at what I got, Joe!

(PAWNBROKER looks it over and gives her a couple of coins)

CHARWOMAN

Look, Joe!  I ain’t no fool.  Me time’s worth more than this.  Come across with the rest!

PAWNBROKER

All right, all right!  I always was kinder to the ladies!  It’s the ruin of me, but if you ask for another shilling I might repent of being kind and knock off half a crown.

LAUNDRESS

Now, look at my bundle.

(PAWNBROKER begins to go through her things.)

PAWNBROKER

What do you call these?  Bed curtains?

LAUNDRESS

Bed curtains they are.

PAWNBROKER

You don’t mean to say you took ’em down, rings and all, with him lying there...dead!

LAUNDRESS

Yes, I do...and why not!

PAWNBROKER

You were born to make a fortune, and you’ll do it, too.

LAUNDRESS

I certainly won’t stop me hand, not if I can get what I want by reaching it out.

MRS. COBBLER

Not for the sake of such a man as he was, I promise you.

LAUNDRESS

Now, be careful, Joe, don’t drop that oil on the blankets.

PAWNBROKER

His blankets?

LAUNDRESS

Whose else’s do you think?

CHARWOMAN

H’ain’t likely to take cold without ’em, I dare say...not where he’s going.

(ALL laugh)

PAWNBROKER

I don’t know about the blankets.  They wouldn’t be diseased, would they?  I hope he didn’t die of anything catching!

LAUNDRESS

Don’t be afraid of that.  I wasn’t so fond of his company that I loitered around for such things, if he did!  Now…

(pulling out a shirt)

…you may look through this shirt till your eyes ache, but you won’t find a hole in it, nor a threadbare place.  It’s the best he had, and a fine one, too.  They’d have wasted it, if not for me.

PAWNBROKER

What do you mean “wasted it”?

LAUNDRESS

Putting it on him to be buried in, can you believe it!  Somebody was fool enough to do it...but, I took it off him again.  If a calico shirt ain’t good enough to go six foot under, it ain’t good enough for anything.

MRS. COBBLER

It’s quite becomin’ to the body.  Besides, he can’t look any uglier than he did in this one.

(ALL Laugh.)

Song 20—Birds of a Camp

CHAROWOMAN

Some call us rogues,

MRS. COBBLER

Some call us scoundrels,

LAUNDRESS

Some call us villains

PAWNBROKER

or scamps.

ALL

Some call us vagrants, Some call us rascals,

What are we?  Birds of a camp.

CHARWOMAN

I’m gonna take care of meself.

I’m gonna sell stuff from his shelf.

He ain’t gonna catch me.

‘Cause I’m gonna fetch me

Some stuff to sell.

LAUNDRESS

Look at this bundle I’ve got to sell.

I took it from him but please don’t tell.

Stuff from his body.

Look. I’m so naughty.

I help meself.

MRS. COBBLER

The man was so stingy, He thought me scum.

I wanted some things, I got me some.

I think I deserve it.

I worked hard to earn it.

My money now.

ALL

Some call us rogues, Some call us scoundrels,

Some call us villains or scamps.

Some call us vagrants, Some call us rascals,

What are we?  Birds of a camp.

PAWNBROKER

They all just think I’m made of gold.

Most of this stuff...it’s junk, it’s old.

But I have to take it

So that I can make it.

It’s how life goes.

ALL

Some call us rogues, Some call us scoundrels,

Some call us villains or scamps.

Some call us vagrants, Some call us rascals,

What are we?  Birds of a camp.

(THREE WOMEN take PAWNBROKER’s money bag and play an innocent game of “Keep-Away” during the musical interlude.)

Some call us rogues, Some call us scoundrels,

Some call us villains or scamps.

Some call us vagrants, Some call us rascals,

What are we?  Birds of a camp.

PAWNBROKER

Well, that’s the end of it.

MRS. COBBLER

He wouldn’t help another soul when he was alive, but we profit from him at last, now that he’s dead!

(ALL nod, bid each other “good day”, curtsy and exit.  Lights out on the scene.)

SCROOGE

Ah, Angel show me no more of this grizzly scene!  I know what you mean to say, greedy men may come to this fate; but surely someone must have cared for him.