The Lawyer and The Ghost by Charles Dickens

A short production with audio effects voice acting and stills by Vincent Bagnall from the story by Charles Dickens. The story begins in the 1790s with a poor lawyer taking up residence in a mouldering old apartment. The place is musty, dusty, and damp, and he attempts to tidy the place up and make it feel homier, but isn't successful. He sits down by a weak fire, drinking a glass of whiskey purchased on credit, and considers chopping up the old cabinet that came with the room for firewood. He considers this option out loud, and is met with a groan coming from the cabinet. He assumes it was the chimney, but soon the doors of the cabinet part, revealing a raggedy man inside. Taking him for an intruder, the lawyer attempts to attack him, but the specter interrupts him with a doleful description of his life: he is the ghost of a man who died in the apartment years ago, leaving his children without an inheritance, and cursed to spend eternity in the room where he watched his hopes dissolve into misery. He warns off the lawyer, claiming sole ownership of the room, but the lawyer is not put-off: he asks the ghost -- whom he assumes has no limitations of space or time -- why he spends his afterlife in a moldy apartment when he could travel to the world's sunniest, cheeriest places without a moment's notice. The ghost had never considered this, and is staggered by the idea, and before he disappears to find a better place to live, the lawyer asks him to spread the word: if ghosts would leave the world's saddest, grimmest living quarters, then the mortals who live there would have one less trouble. The spirit agrees to alert his compatriots to this option and is never seen again.
(8 minutes)

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