Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens

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Title: Oliver Twist

Author: Charles Dickens

Posting Date: October 10, 2008 [EBook #730]
Release Date: November, 1996

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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OLIVER TWIST

OR

THE PARISH BOY'S PROGRESS


BY

CHARLES DICKENS




CONTENTS

I TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE
CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH
II TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST'S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD
III RELATES HOW OLIVER TWIST WAS VERY NEAR GETTING A PLACE WHICH
WOULD NOT HAVE BEEN A SINECURE
IV OLIVER, BEING OFFERED ANOTHER PLACE, MAKES HIS FIRST ENTRY INTO
PUBLIC LIFE
V OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE
FIRST TIME, HE FORMS AN UNFAVOURABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER'S
BUSINESS
VI OLIVER, BEING GOADED BY THE TAUNTS OF NOAH, ROUSES INTO ACTION,
AND RATHER ASTONISHES HIM
VII OLIVER CONTINUES REFRACTORY
VIII OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE
SORT OF YOUNG GENTLEMAN
IX CONTAINING FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE PLEASANT OLD
GENTLEMAN, AND HIS HOPEFUL PUPILS
X OLIVER BECOMES BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE CHARACTERS OF HIS NEW
ASSOCIATES; AND PURCHASES EXPERIENCE AT A HIGH PRICE. BEING A
SHORT, BUT VERY IMPORTANT CHAPTER, IN THIS HISTORY
XI TREATS OF MR. FANG THE POLICE MAGISTRATE; AND FURNISHES A
SLIGHT SPECIMEN OF HIS MODE OF ADMINISTERING JUSTICE
XII IN WHICH OLIVER IS TAKEN BETTER CARE OF THAN HE EVER WAS
BEFORE. AND IN WHICH THE NARRATIVE REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD
GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL FRIENDS.
XIII SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES ARE INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT READER,
CONNECTED WITH WHOM VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS ARE RELATED,
APPERTAINING TO THIS HISTORY
XIV COMPRISING FURTHER PARTICULARS OF OLIVER'S STAY AT MR.
BROWNLOW'S, WITH THE REMARKABLE PREDICTION WHICH ONE MR. GRIMWIG
UTTERED CONCERNING HIM, WHEN HE WENT OUT ON AN ERRAND
XV SHOWING HOW VERY FOND OF OLIVER TWIST, THE MERRY OLD JEW AND
MISS NANCY WERE
XVI RELATES WHAT BECAME OF OLIVER TWIST, AFTER HE HAD BEEN CLAIMED
BY NANCY
XVII OLIVER'S DESTINY CONTINUING UNPROPITIOUS, BRINGS A GREAT MAN TO
LONDON TO INJURE HIS REPUTATION
XVIII HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS
REPUTABLE FRIENDS
XIX IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON
XX WHEREIN OLIVER IS DELIVERED OVER TO MR. WILLIAM SIKES
XXI THE EXPEDITION
XXII THE BURGLARY
XXIII WHICH CONTAINS THE SUBSTANCE OF A PLEASANT CONVERSATION BETWEEN
MR. BUMBLE AND A LADY; AND SHOWS THAT EVEN A BEADLE MAY BE
SUSCEPTIBLE ON SOME POINTS
XXIV TREATS ON A VERY POOR SUBJECT. BUT IS A SHORT ONE, AND MAY BE
FOUND OF IMPORTANCE IN THIS HISTORY
XXV WHEREIN THIS HISTORY REVERTS TO MR. FAGIN AND COMPANY
XXVI IN WHICH A MYSTERIOUS CHARACTER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE; AND MANY
THINGS, INSEPARABLE FROM THIS HISTORY, ARE DONE AND PERFORMED
XXVII ATONES FOR THE UNPOLITENESS OF A FORMER CHAPTER; WHICH DESERTED
A LADY, MOST UNCEREMONIOUSLY
XXVIII LOOKS AFTER OLIVER, AND PROCEEDS WITH HIS ADVENTURES
XXIX HAS AN INTRODUCTORY ACCOUNT OF THE INMATES OF THE HOUSE, TO
WHICH OLIVER RESORTED
XXX RELATES WHAT OLIVER'S NEW VISITORS THOUGHT OF HIM
XXXI INVOLVES A CRITICAL POSITION
XXXII OF THE HAPPY LIFE OLIVER BEGAN TO LEAD WITH HIS KIND FRIENDS
XXXIII WHEREIN THE HAPPINESS OF OLIVER AND HIS FRIENDS, EXPERIENCES A
SUDDEN CHECK
XXXIV CONTAINS SOME INTRODUCTORY PARTICULARS RELATIVE TO A YOUNG
GENTLEMAN WHO NOW ARRIVES UPON THE SCENE; AND A NEW ADVENTURE
WHICH HAPPENED TO OLIVER
XXXV CONTAINING THE UNSATISFACTORY RESULT OF OLIVER'S ADVENTURE; AND
A CONVERSATION OF SOME IMPORTANCE BETWEEN HARRY MAYLIE AND ROSE
XXXVI IS A VERY SHORT ONE, AND MAY APPEAR OF NO GREAT IMPORTANCE IN
ITS PLACE, BUT IT SHOULD BE READ NOTWITHSTANDING, AS A SEQUEL
TO THE LAST, AND A KEY TO ONE THAT WILL FOLLOW WHEN ITS TIME
ARRIVES
XXXVII IN WHICH THE READER MAY PERCEIVE A CONTRAST, NOT UNCOMMON IN
MATRIMONIAL CASES
XXXVIII CONTAINING AN ACCOUNT OF WHAT PASSED BETWEEN MR. AND MRS.
BUMBLE, AND MR. MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW
XXXIX INTRODUCES SOME RESPECTABLE CHARACTERS WITH WHOM THE READER IS
ALREADY ACQUAINTED, AND SHOWS HOW MONKS AND THE JEW LAID THEIR
WORTHY HEADS TOGETHER
XL A STRANGE INTERVIEW, WHICH IS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST CHAMBER
XLI CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES, AND SHOWING THAT SUPRISES, LIKE
MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE
XLII AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF OLIVER'S, EXHIBITING DECIDED MARKS OF
GENIUS, BECOMES A PUBLIC CHARACTER IN THE METROPOLIS
XLIII WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE
XLIV THE TIME ARRIVES FOR NANCY TO REDEEM HER PLEDGE TO ROSE MAYLIE.
SHE FAILS.
XLV NOAH CLAYPOLE IS EMPLOYED BY FAGIN ON A SECRET MISSION
XLVI THE APPOINTMENT KEPT
XLVII FATAL CONSEQUENCES
XLVIII THE FLIGHT OF SIKES
XLIX MONKS AND MR. BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR CONVERSATION,
AND THE INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT
L THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE
LI AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND
COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT
OR PIN-MONEY
LII FAGIN'S LAST NIGHT ALIVE
LIII AND LAST




CHAPTER I

TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE
CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons
it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will
assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns,
great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on
a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as
it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of
the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is
prefixed to the head of this chapter.

For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and
trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable
doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which
case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never
have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of
pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the
most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the
literature of any age or country.

Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a
workhouse, is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance
that can possibly befall a human being, I do mean to say that in this
particular instance, it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could
by possibility have occurred. The fact is, that there was considerable
difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of
respiration,--a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered
necessary to our easy existence; and for some time he lay gasping on a
little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and
the next: the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter. Now,
if, during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful
grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of
profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been
killed in no time. There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old
woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer;
and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract; Oliver and
Nature fought out the point between them. The result was, that, after
a few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise
to the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been
imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could
reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been
possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer
space of time than three minutes and a quarter.

As Oliver gave this first proof of the free and proper action of his
lungs, the patchwork coverlet which was carelessly flung over the iron
bedstead, rustled; the pale face of a young woman was raised feebly
from the pillow; and a faint voice imperfectly articulated the words,
'Let me see the child, and die.'

The surgeon had been sitting with his face turned towards the fire:
giving the palms of his hands a warm and a rub alternately. As the
young woman spoke, he rose, and advancing to the bed's head, said, with
more kindness than might have been expected of him:

'Oh, you must not talk about dying yet.'

'Lor bless her dear heart, no!' interposed the nurse, hastily
depositing in her pocket a green glass bottle, the contents of which
she had been tasting in a corner with evident satisfaction.

'Lor bless her dear heart, when she has lived as long as I have, sir,
and had thirteen children of her own, and all on 'em dead except two,
and them in the wurkus with me, she'll know better than to take on in
that way, bless her dear heart! Think what it is to be a mother,
there's a dear young lamb do.'

Apparently this consolatory perspective of a mother's prospects failed
in producing its due effect. The patient shook her head, and stretched
out her hand towards the child.

The surgeon deposited it in her arms. She imprinted her cold white
lips passionately on its forehead; passed her hands over her face;
gazed wildly round; shuddered; fell back--and died. They chafed her
breast, hands, and temples; but the blood had stopped forever. They
talked of hope and comfort. They had been strangers too long.

'It's all over, Mrs. Thingummy!' said the surgeon at last.

'Ah, poor dear, so it is!' said the nurse, picking up the cork of the
green bottle, which had fallen out on the pillow, as she stooped to
take up the child. 'Poor dear!'

'You needn't mind sending up to me, if the child cries, nurse,' said
the surgeon, putting on his gloves with great deliberation. 'It's very
likely it _will_ be troublesome. Give it a little gruel if it is.' He
put on his hat, and, pausing by the bed-side on his way to the door,
added, 'She was a good-looking girl, too; where did she come from?'

'She was brought here last night,' replied the old woman, 'by the
overseer's order. She was found lying in the street. She had walked
some distance, for her shoes were worn to pieces; but where she came
from, or where she was going to, nobody knows.'

The surgeon leaned over the body, and raised the left hand. 'The old
story,' he said, shaking his head: 'no wedding-ring, I see. Ah!
Good-night!'

The medical gentleman walked away to dinner; and the nurse, having once
more applied herself to the green bottle, sat down on a low chair
before the fire, and proceeded to dress the infant.

What an excellent example of the power of dress, young Oliver Twist
was! Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only
covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar; it
would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to have assigned him
his proper station in society. But now that he was enveloped in the
old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was
badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once--a parish
child--the orphan of a workhouse--the humble, half-starved drudge--to
be cuffed and buffeted through the world--despised by all, and pitied
by none.

Oliver cried lustily. If he could have known that he was an orphan,
left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps he
would have cried the louder.



CHAPTER II

TREATS OF OLIVER TWIST'S GROWTH, EDUCATION, AND BOARD

For the next eight or ten months, Oliver was the victim of a systematic
course of treachery and deception. He was brought up by hand. The
hungry and destitute situation of the infant orphan was duly reported
by the workhouse authorities to the parish authorities. The parish
authorities inquired with dignity of the workhouse authorities, whether
there was no female then domiciled in 'the house' who was in a
situation to impart to Oliver Twist, the consolation and nourishment of
which he stood in need. The workhouse authorities replied with
humility, that there was not. Upon this, the parish authorities
magnanimously and humanely resolved, that Oliver should be 'farmed,'
or, in other words, that he should be dispatched to a branch-workhouse
some three miles off, where twenty or thirty other juvenile offenders
against the poor-laws, rolled about the floor all day, without the
inconvenience of too much food or too much clothing, under the parental
superintendence of an elderly female, who received the culprits at and
for the consideration of sevenpence-halfpenny per small head per week.
Sevenpence-halfpenny's worth per week is a good round diet for a child;
a great deal may be got for sevenpence-halfpenny, quite enough to
overload its stomach, and make it uncomfortable. The elderly female was
a woman of wisdom and experience; she knew what was good for children;
and she had a very accurate perception of what was good for herself.
So, she appropriated the greater part of the weekly stipend to her own
use, and consigned the rising parochial generation to even a shorter
allowance than was originally provided for them. Thereby finding in
the lowest depth a deeper still; and proving herself a very great
experimental philosopher.

Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a
great theory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who
demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own horse down to a straw
a day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and
rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died,
four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable
bait of air. Unfortunately for, the experimental philosophy of the
female to whose protecting care Oliver Twist was delivered over, a
similar result usually attended the operation of _her_ system; for at
the very moment when the child had contrived to exist upon the smallest
possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen
in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want
and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by
accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was
usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers
it had never known in this.

Occasionally, when there was some more than usually interesting inquest
upon a parish child who had been overlooked in turning up a bedstead,
or inadvertently scalded to death when there happened to be a
washing--though the latter accident was very scarce, anything
approaching to a washing being of rare occurrence in the farm--the jury
would take it into their heads to ask troublesome questions, or the
parishioners would rebelliously affix their signatures to a
remonstrance. But these impertinences were speedily checked by the
evidence of the surgeon, and the testimony of the beadle; the former of
whom had always opened the body and found nothing inside (which was
very probable indeed), and the latter of whom invariably swore whatever
the parish wanted; which was very self-devotional. Besides, the board
made periodical pilgrimages to the farm, and always sent the beadle the
day before, to say they were going. The children were neat and clean
to behold, when _they_ went; and what more would the people have!

It cannot be expected that this system of farming would produce any
very extraordinary or luxuriant crop. Oliver Twist's ninth birthday
found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and
decidedly small in circumference. But nature or inheritance had
implanted a good sturdy spirit in Oliver's breast. It had had plenty
of room to expand, thanks to the spare diet of the establishment; and
perhaps to this circumstance may be attributed his having any ninth
birth-day at all. Be this as it may, however, it was his ninth
birthday; and he was keeping it in the coal-cellar with a select party
of two other young gentleman, who, after participating with him in a
sound thrashing, had been locked up for atrociously presuming to be
hungry, when Mrs. Mann, the good lady of the house, was unexpectedly
startled by the apparition of Mr. Bumble, the beadle, striving to undo
the wicket of the garden-gate.

'Goodness gracious! Is that you, Mr. Bumble, sir?' said Mrs. Mann,
thrusting her head out of the window in well-affected ecstasies of joy.
'(Susan, take Oliver and them two brats upstairs, and wash 'em
directly.)--My heart alive! Mr. Bumble, how glad I am to see you,
sure-ly!'

Now, Mr. Bumble was a fat man, and a choleric; so, instead of
responding to this open-hearted salutation in a kindred spirit, he gave
the little wicket a tremendous shake, and then bestowed upon it a kick
which could have emanated from no leg but a beadle's.

'Lor, only think,' said Mrs. Mann, running out,--for the three boys had
been removed by this time,--'only think of that! That I should have
forgotten that the gate was bolted on the inside, on account of them
dear children! Walk in sir; walk in, pray, Mr. Bumble, do, sir.'

Although this invitation was accompanied with a curtsey that might have
softened the heart of a church-warden, it by no means mollified the
beadle.

'Do you think this respectful or proper conduct, Mrs. Mann,' inquired
Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane, 'to keep the parish officers a waiting
at your garden-gate, when they come here upon porochial business with
the porochial orphans? Are you aweer, Mrs. Mann, that you are, as I
may say, a porochial delegate, and a stipendiary?'

'I'm sure Mr. Bumble, that I was only a telling one or two of the dear
children as is so fond of you, that it was you a coming,' replied Mrs.
Mann with great humility.

Mr. Bumble had a great idea of his oratorical powers and his
importance. He had displayed the one, and vindicated the other. He
relaxed.

'Well, well, Mrs. Mann,' he replied in a calmer tone; 'it may be as you
say; it may be. Lead the way in, Mrs. Mann, for I come on business,
and have something to say.'

Mrs. Mann ushered the beadle into a small parlour with a brick floor;
placed a seat for him; and officiously deposited his cocked hat and
cane on the table before him. Mr. Bumble wiped from his forehead the
perspiration which his walk had engendered, glanced complacently at the
cocked hat, and smiled. Yes, he smiled. Beadles are but men: and Mr.
Bumble smiled.

'Now don't you be offended at what I'm a going to say,' observed Mrs.
Mann, with captivating sweetness. 'You've had a long walk, you know,
or I wouldn't mention it. Now, will you take a little drop of
somethink, Mr. Bumble?'

'Not a drop. Nor a drop,' said Mr. Bumble, waving his right hand in a
dignified, but placid manner.

'I think you will,' said Mrs. Mann, who had noticed the tone of the
refusal, and the gesture that had accompanied it. 'Just a leetle drop,
with a little cold water, and a lump of sugar.'

Mr. Bumble coughed.

'Now, just a leetle drop,' said Mrs. Mann persuasively.

'What is it?' inquired the beadle.

'Why, it's what I'm obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put
into the blessed infants' Daffy, when they ain't well, Mr. Bumble,'
replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a
bottle and glass. 'It's gin. I'll not deceive you, Mr. B. It's gin.'

'Do you give the children Daffy, Mrs. Mann?' inquired Bumble, following
with his eyes the interesting process of mixing.

'Ah, bless 'em, that I do, dear as it is,' replied the nurse. 'I
couldn't see 'em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.'

'No'; said Mr. Bumble approvingly; 'no, you could not. You are a
humane woman, Mrs. Mann.' (Here she set down the glass.) 'I shall
take a early opportunity of mentioning it to the board, Mrs. Mann.'
(He drew it towards him.) 'You feel as a mother, Mrs. Mann.' (He
stirred the gin-and-water.) 'I--I drink your health with cheerfulness,
Mrs. Mann'; and he swallowed half of it.

'And now about business,' said the beadle, taking out a leathern
pocket-book. 'The child that was half-baptized Oliver Twist, is nine
year old to-day.'

'Bless him!' interposed Mrs. Mann, inflaming her left eye with the
corner of her apron.

'And notwithstanding a offered reward of ten pound, which was
afterwards increased to twenty pound. Notwithstanding the most
superlative, and, I may say, supernat'ral exertions on the part of this
parish,' said Bumble, 'we have never been able to discover who is his
father, or what was his mother's settlement, name, or condition.'

Mrs. Mann raised her hands in astonishment; but added, after a moment's
reflection, 'How comes he to have any name at all, then?'

The beadle drew himself up with great pride, and said, 'I inwented it.'

'You, Mr. Bumble!'

'I, Mrs. Mann. We name our fondlings in alphabetical order. The last
was a S,--Swubble, I named him. This was a T,--Twist, I named _him_.
The next one comes will be Unwin, and the next Vilkins. I have got
names ready made to the end of the alphabet, and all the way through it
again, when we come to Z.'

'Why, you're quite a literary character, sir!' said Mrs. Mann.

'Well, well,' said the beadle, evidently gratified with the compliment;
'perhaps I may be. Perhaps I may be, Mrs. Mann.' He finished the
gin-and-water, and added, 'Oliver being now too old to remain here, the
board have determined to have him back into the house. I have come out
myself to take him there. So let me see him at once.'

'I'll fetch him directly,' said Mrs. Mann, leaving the room for that
purpose. Oliver, having had by this time as much of the outer coat of
dirt which encrusted his face and hands, removed, as could be scrubbed
off in one washing, was led into the room by his benevolent protectress.

'Make a bow to the gentleman, Oliver,' said Mrs. Mann.

Oliver made a bow, which was divided between the beadle on the chair,
and the cocked hat on the table.

'Will you go along with me, Oliver?' said Mr. Bumble, in a majestic
voice.

Oliver was about to say that he would go along with anybody with great
readiness, when, glancing upward, he caught sight of Mrs. Mann, who had
got behind the beadle's chair, and was shaking her fist at him with a
furious countenance. He took the hint at once, for the fist had been
too often impressed upon his body not to be deeply impressed upon his
recollection.

'Will she go with me?' inquired poor Oliver.

'No, she can't,' replied Mr. Bumble. 'But she'll come and see you
sometimes.'

This was no very great consolation to the child. Young as he was,
however, he had sense enough to make a feint of feeling great regret at
going away. It was no very difficult matter for the boy to call tears
into his eyes. Hunger and recent ill-usage are great assistants if you
want to cry; and Oliver cried very naturally indeed. Mrs. Mann gave
him a thousand embraces, and what Oliver wanted a great deal more, a
piece of bread and butter, less he should seem too hungry when he got
to the workhouse. With the slice of bread in his hand, and the little
brown-cloth parish cap on his head, Oliver was then led away by Mr.
Bumble from the wretched home where one kind word or look had never
lighted the gloom of his infant years. And yet he burst into an agony
of childish grief, as the cottage-gate closed after him. Wretched as
were the little companions in misery he was leaving behind, they were
the only friends he had ever known; and a sense of his loneliness in
the great wide world, sank into the child's heart for the first time.

Mr. Bumble walked on with long strides; little Oliver, firmly grasping
his gold-laced cuff, trotted beside him, inquiring at the end of every
quarter of a mile whether they were 'nearly there.' To these
interrogations Mr. Bumble returned very brief and snappish replies; for
the temporary blandness which gin-and-water awakens in some bosoms had
by this time evaporated; and he was once again a beadle.

Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter of an
hour, and had scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of
bread, when Mr. Bumble, who had handed him over to the care of an old
woman, returned; and, telling him it was a board night, informed him
that the board had said he was to appear before it forthwith.

Not having a very clearly defined notion of what a live board was,
Oliver was rather astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite
certain whether he ought to laugh or cry. He had no time to think
about the matter, however; for Mr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head,
with his cane, to wake him up: and another on the back to make him
lively: and bidding him to follow, conducted him into a large
white-washed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen were sitting round
a table. At the top of the table, seated in an arm-chair rather higher
than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, red
face.

'Bow to the board,' said Bumble. Oliver brushed away two or three
tears that were lingering in his eyes; and seeing no board but the
table, fortunately bowed to that.

'What's your name, boy?' said the gentleman in the high chair.

Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made him
tremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind, which made him
cry. These two causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating
voice; whereupon a gentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool.
Which was a capital way of raising his spirits, and putting him quite
at his ease.

'Boy,' said the gentleman in the high chair, 'listen to me. You know
you're an orphan, I suppose?'

'What's that, sir?' inquired poor Oliver.

'The boy _is_ a fool--I thought he was,' said the gentleman in the
white waistcoat.

'Hush!' said the gentleman who had spoken first. 'You know you've got
no father or mother, and that you were brought up by the parish, don't
you?'

'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, weeping bitterly.

'What are you crying for?' inquired the gentleman in the white
waistcoat. And to be sure it was very extraordinary. What _could_ the
boy be crying for?

'I hope you say your prayers every night,' said another gentleman in a
gruff voice; 'and pray for the people who feed you, and take care of
you--like a Christian.'

'Yes, sir,' stammered the boy. The gentleman who spoke last was
unconsciously right. It would have been very like a Christian, and a
marvellously good Christian too, if Oliver had prayed for the people
who fed and took care of _him_. But he hadn't, because nobody had
taught him.

'Well! You have come here to be educated, and taught a useful trade,'
said the red-faced gentleman in the high chair.

'So you'll begin to pick oakum to-morrow morning at six o'clock,' added
the surly one in the white waistcoat.

For the combination of both these blessings in the one simple process
of picking oakum, Oliver bowed low by the direction of the beadle, and
was then hurried away to a large ward; where, on a rough, hard bed, he
sobbed himself to sleep. What a novel illustration of the tender laws
of England! They let the paupers go to sleep!

Poor Oliver! He little thought, as he lay sleeping in happy
unconsciousness of all around him, that the board had that very day
arrived at a decision which would exercise the most material influence
over all his future fortunes. But they had. And this was it:

The members of this board were very sage, deep, philosophical men; and
when they came to turn their attention to the workhouse, they found out
at once, what ordinary folks would never have discovered--the poor
people liked it! It was a regular place of public entertainment for
the poorer classes; a tavern where there was nothing to pay; a public
breakfast, dinner, tea, and supper all the year round; a brick and
mortar elysium, where it was all play and no work. 'Oho!' said the
board, looking very knowing; 'we are the fellows to set this to rights;
we'll stop it all, in no time.' So, they established the rule, that
all poor people should have the alternative (for they would compel
nobody, not they), of being starved by a gradual process in the house,
or by a quick one out of it. With this view, they contracted with the
water-works to lay on an unlimited supply of water; and with a
corn-factor to supply periodically small quantities of oatmeal; and
issued three meals of thin gruel a day, with an onion twice a week, and
half a roll of Sundays. They made a great many other wise and humane
regulations, having reference to the ladies, which it is not necessary
to repeat; kindly undertook to divorce poor married people, in
consequence of the great expense of a suit in Doctors' Commons; and,
instead of compelling a man to support his family, as they had
theretofore done, took his family away from him, and made him a
bachelor! There is no saying how many applicants for relief, under
these last two heads, might have started up in all classes of society,
if it had not been coupled with the workhouse; but the board were
long-headed men, and had provided for this difficulty. The relief was
inseparable from the workhouse and the gruel; and that frightened
people.

For the first six months after Oliver Twist was removed, the system was
in full operation. It was rather expensive at first, in consequence of
the increase in the undertaker's bill, and the necessity of taking in
the clothes of all the paupers, which fluttered loosely on their
wasted, shrunken forms, after a week or two's gruel. But the number of
workhouse inmates got thin as well as the paupers; and the board were
in ecstasies.

The room in which the boys were fed, was a large stone hall, with a
copper at one end: out of which the master, dressed in an apron for the
purpose, and assisted by one or two women, ladled the gruel at
mealtimes. Of this festive composition each boy had one porringer, and
no more--except on occasions of great public rejoicing, when he had two
ounces and a quarter of bread besides.

The bowls never wanted washing. The boys polished them with their
spoons till they shone again; and when they had performed this
operation (which never took very long, the spoons being nearly as large
as the bowls), they would sit staring at the copper, with such eager
eyes, as if they could have devoured the very bricks of which it was
composed; employing themselves, meanwhile, in sucking their fingers
most assiduously, with the view of catching up any stray splashes of
gruel that might have been cast thereon. Boys have generally excellent
appetites. Oliver Twist and his companions suffered the tortures of
slow starvation for three months: at last they got so voracious and
wild with hunger, that one boy, who was tall for his age, and hadn't
been used to that sort of thing (for his father had kept a small
cook-shop), hinted darkly to his companions, that unless he had another
basin of gruel per diem, he was afraid he might some night happen to
eat the boy who slept next him, who happened to be a weakly youth of
tender age. He had a wild, hungry eye; and they implicitly believed
him. A council was held; lots were cast who should walk up to the
master after supper that evening, and ask for more; and it fell to
Oliver Twist.

The evening arrived; the boys took their places. The master, in his
cook's uniform, stationed himself at the copper; his pauper assistants
ranged themselves behind him; the gruel was served out; and a long
grace was said over the short commons. The gruel disappeared; the boys
whispered each other, and winked at Oliver; while his next neighbors
nudged him. Child as he was, he was desperate with hunger, and
reckless with misery. He rose from the table; and advancing to the
master, basin and spoon in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own
temerity:

'Please, sir, I want some more.'

The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in
stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then
clung for support to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with
wonder; the boys with fear.

'What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice.

'Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.'

The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle; pinioned him
in his arm; and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

The board were sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into
the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high
chair, said,

'Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for
more!'

There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.

'For _more_!' said Mr. Limbkins. 'Compose yourself, Bumble, and answer
me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had
eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'

'He did, sir,' replied Bumble.

'That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. 'I
know that boy will be hung.'

Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An animated
discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement;
and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering
a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the
hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were
offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade,
business, or calling.

'I never was more convinced of anything in my life,' said the gentleman
in the white waistcoat, as he knocked at the gate and read the bill
next morning: 'I never was more convinced of anything in my life, than
I am that that boy will come to be hung.'

As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated
gentleman was right or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of this
narrative (supposing it to possess any at all), if I ventured to hint
just yet, whether the life of Oliver Twist had this violent termination
or no.



CHAPTER III

RELATES HOW OLIVER TWIST WAS VERY NEAR GETTING A PLACE WHICH WOULD NOT
HAVE BEEN A SINECURE

For a week after the commission of the impious and profane offence of
asking for more, Oliver remained a close prisoner in the dark and
solitary room to which he had been consigned by the wisdom and mercy of
the board. It appears, at first sight not unreasonable to suppose,
that, if he had entertained a becoming feeling of respect for the
prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat, he would have
established that sage individual's prophetic character, once and for
ever, by tying one end of his pocket-handkerchief to a hook in the
wall, and attaching himself to the other. To the performance of this
feat, however, there was one obstacle: namely, that
pocket-handkerchiefs being decided articles of luxury, had been, for
all future times and ages, removed from the noses of paupers by the
express order of the board, in council assembled: solemnly given and
pronounced under their hands and seals. There was a still greater
obstacle in Oliver's youth and childishness. He only cried bitterly
all day; and, when the long, dismal night came on, spread his little
hands before his eyes to shut out the darkness, and crouching in the
corner, tried to sleep: ever and anon waking with a start and tremble,
and drawing himself closer and closer to the wall, as if to feel even
its cold hard surface were a protection in the gloom and loneliness
which surrounded him.

Let it not be supposed by the enemies of 'the system,' that, during the
period of his solitary incarceration, Oliver was denied the benefit of
exercise, the pleasure of society, or the advantages of religious
consolation. As for exercise, it was nice cold weather, and he was
allowed to perform his ablutions every morning under the pump, in a
stone yard, in the presence of Mr. Bumble, who prevented his catching
cold, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated
applications of the cane. As for society, he was carried every other
day into the hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a
public warning and example. And so for from being denied the
advantages of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same
apartment every evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen
to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys,
containing a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the
board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented,
and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver
Twist: whom the supplication distinctly set forth to be under the
exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an
article direct from the manufactory of the very Devil himself.

It chanced one morning, while Oliver's affairs were in this auspicious
and comfortable state, that Mr. Gamfield, chimney-sweep, went his way
down the High Street, deeply cogitating in his mind his ways and means
of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become
rather pressing. Mr. Gamfield's most sanguine estimate of his finances
could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount;
and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately
cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when passing the workhouse, his
eyes encountered the bill on the gate.

'Wo--o!' said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey.

The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction: wondering, probably,
whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two when
he had disposed of the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was
laden; so, without noticing the word of command, he jogged onward.

Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but
more particularly on his eyes; and, running after him, bestowed a blow
on his head, which would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a
donkey's. Then, catching hold of the bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp
wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master; and
by these means turned him round. He then gave him another blow on the
head, just to stun him till he came back again. Having completed these
arrangements, he walked up to the gate, to read the bill.

The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with
his hands behind him, after having delivered himself of some profound
sentiments in the board-room. Having witnessed the little dispute
between Mr. Gamfield and the donkey, he smiled joyously when that
person came up to read the bill, for he saw at once that Mr. Gamfield
was exactly the sort of master Oliver Twist wanted. Mr. Gamfield
smiled, too, as he perused the document; for five pounds was just the
sum he had been wishing for; and, as to the boy with which it was
encumbered, Mr. Gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the workhouse
was, well knew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing
for register stoves. So, he spelt the bill through again, from
beginning to end; and then, touching his fur cap in token of humility,
accosted the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

'This here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to 'prentis,' said Mr.
Gamfield.

'Ay, my man,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, with a
condescending smile. 'What of him?'

'If the parish vould like him to learn a right pleasant trade, in a
good 'spectable chimbley-sweepin' bisness,' said Mr. Gamfield, 'I wants
a 'prentis, and I am ready to take him.'

'Walk in,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. Mr. Gamfield
having lingered behind, to give the donkey another blow on the head,
and another wrench of the jaw, as a caution not to run away in his
absence, followed the gentleman with the white waistcoat into the room
where Oliver had first seen him.

'It's a nasty trade,' said Mr. Limbkins, when Gamfield had again stated
his wish.

'Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now,' said another
gentleman.

'That's acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley
to make 'em come down again,' said Gamfield; 'that's all smoke, and no
blaze; vereas smoke ain't o' no use at all in making a boy come down,
for it only sinds him to sleep, and that's wot he likes. Boys is wery
obstinit, and wery lazy, Gen'l'men, and there's nothink like a good hot
blaze to make 'em come down vith a run. It's humane too, gen'l'men,
acause, even if they've stuck in the chimbley, roasting their feet
makes 'em struggle to hextricate theirselves.'

The gentleman in the white waistcoat appeared very much amused by this
explanation; but his mirth was speedily checked by a look from Mr.
Limbkins. The board then proceeded to converse among themselves for a
few minutes, but in so low a tone, that the words 'saving of
expenditure,' 'looked well in the accounts,' 'have a printed report
published,' were alone audible. These only chanced to be heard,
indeed, or account of their being very frequently repeated with great
emphasis.

At length the whispering ceased; and the members of the board, having
resumed their seats and their solemnity, Mr. Limbkins said:

'We have considered your proposition, and we don't approve of it.'

'Not at all,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

'Decidedly not,' added the other members.

As Mr. Gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation of
having bruised three or four boys to death already, it occurred to him
that the board had, perhaps, in some unaccountable freak, taken it into
their heads that this extraneous circumstance ought to influence their
proceedings. It was very unlike their general mode of doing business,
if they had; but still, as he had no particular wish to revive the
rumour, he twisted his cap in his hands, and walked slowly from the
table.

'So you won't let me have him, gen'l'men?' said Mr. Gamfield, pausing
near the door.

'No,' replied Mr. Limbkins; 'at least, as it's a nasty business, we
think you ought to take something less than the premium we offered.'

Mr. Gamfield's countenance brightened, as, with a quick step, he
returned to the table, and said,

'What'll you give, gen'l'men? Come! Don't be too hard on a poor man.
What'll you give?'

'I should say, three pound ten was plenty,' said Mr. Limbkins.

'Ten shillings too much,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.

'Come!' said Gamfield; 'say four pound, gen'l'men. Say four pound, and
you've got rid of him for good and all. There!'

'Three pound ten,' repeated Mr. Limbkins, firmly.

'Come! I'll split the diff'erence, gen'l'men,' urged Gamfield. 'Three
pound fifteen.'

'Not a farthing more,' was the firm reply of Mr. Limbkins.

'You're desperate hard upon me, gen'l'men,' said Gamfield, wavering.

'Pooh! pooh! nonsense!' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat.
'He'd be cheap with nothing at all, as a premium. Take him, you silly
fellow! He's just the boy for you. He wants the stick, now and then:
it'll do him good; and his board needn't come very expensive, for he
hasn't been overfed since he was born. Ha! ha! ha!'

Mr. Gamfield gave an arch look at the faces round the table, and,
observing a smile on all of them, gradually broke into a smile himself.
The bargain was made. Mr. Bumble, was at once instructed that Oliver
Twist and his indentures were to be conveyed before the magistrate, for
signature and approval, that very afternoon.

In pursuance of this determination, little Oliver, to his excessive
astonishment, was released from bondage, and ordered to put himself
into a clean shirt. He had hardly achieved this very unusual gymnastic
performance, when Mr. Bumble brought him, with his own hands, a basin
of gruel, and the holiday allowance of two ounces and a quarter of
bread. At this tremendous sight, Oliver began to cry very piteously:
thinking, not unnaturally, that the board must have determined to kill
him for some useful purpose, or they never would have begun to fatten
him up in that way.

'Don't make your eyes red, Oliver, but eat your food and be thankful,'
said Mr. Bumble, in a tone of impressive pomposity. 'You're a going to
be made a 'prentice of, Oliver.'

'A prentice, sir!' said the child, trembling.

'Yes, Oliver,' said Mr. Bumble. 'The kind and blessed gentleman which
is so many parents to you, Oliver, when you have none of your own: are
a going to 'prentice' you: and to set you up in life, and make a man of
you: although the expense to the parish is three pound ten!--three
pound ten, Oliver!--seventy shillins--one hundred and forty
sixpences!--and all for a naughty orphan which nobody can't love.'

As Mr. Bumble paused to take breath, after delivering this address in
an awful voice, the tears rolled down the poor child's face, and he
sobbed bitterly.

'Come,' said Mr. Bumble, somewhat less pompously, for it was gratifying
to his feelings to observe the effect his eloquence had produced;
'Come, Oliver! Wipe your eyes with the cuffs of your jacket, and don't
cry into your gruel; that's a very foolish action, Oliver.' It
certainly was, for there was quite enough water in it already.

On their way to the magistrate, Mr. Bumble instructed Oliver that all
he would have to do, would be to look very happy, and say, when the
gentleman asked him if he wanted to be apprenticed, that he should like
it very much indeed; both of which injunctions Oliver promised to obey:
the rather as Mr. Bumble threw in a gentle hint, that if he failed in
either particular, there was no telling what would be done to him. When
they arrived at the office, he was shut up in a little room by himself,
and admonished by Mr. Bumble to stay there, until he came back to fetch
him.

There the boy remained, with a palpitating heart, for half an hour. At
the expiration of which time Mr. Bumble thrust in his head, unadorned
with the cocked hat, and said aloud:

'Now, Oliver, my dear, come to the gentleman.' As Mr. Bumble said
this, he put on a grim and threatening look, and added, in a low voice,
'Mind what I told you, you young rascal!'

Oliver stared innocently in Mr. Bumble's face at this somewhat
contradictory style of address; but that gentleman prevented his
offering any remark thereupon, by leading him at once into an adjoining
room: the door of which was open. It was a large room, with a great
window. Behind a desk, sat two old gentleman with powdered heads: one
of whom was reading the newspaper; while the other was perusing, with
the aid of a pair of tortoise-shell spectacles, a small piece of
parchment which lay before him. Mr. Limbkins was standing in front of
the desk on one side; and Mr. Gamfield, with a partially washed face,
on the other; while two or three bluff-looking men, in top-boots, were
lounging about.

The old gentleman with the spectacles gradually dozed off, over the
little bit of parchment; and there was a short pause, after Oliver had
been stationed by Mr. Bumble in front of the desk.

'This is the boy, your worship,' said Mr. Bumble.

The old gentleman who was reading the newspaper raised his head for a
moment, and pulled the other old gentleman by the sleeve; whereupon,
the last-mentioned old gentleman woke up.

'Oh, is this the boy?' said the old gentleman.

'This is him, sir,' replied Mr. Bumble. 'Bow to the magistrate, my
dear.'

Oliver roused himself, and made his best obeisance. He had been
wondering, with his eyes fixed on the magistrates' powder, whether all
boards were born with that white stuff on their heads, and were boards
from thenceforth on that account.

'Well,' said the old gentleman, 'I suppose he's fond of
chimney-sweeping?'

'He doats on it, your worship,' replied Bumble; giving Oliver a sly
pinch, to intimate that he had better not say he didn't.

'And he _will_ be a sweep, will he?' inquired the old gentleman.

'If we was to bind him to any other trade to-morrow, he'd run away
simultaneous, your worship,' replied Bumble.

'And this man that's to be his master--you, sir--you'll treat him well,
and feed him, and do all that sort of thing, will you?' said the old
gentleman.

'When I says I will, I means I will,' replied Mr. Gamfield doggedly.

'You're a rough speaker, my friend, but you look an honest,
open-hearted man,' said the old gentleman: turning his spectacles in
the direction of the candidate for Oliver's premium, whose villainous
countenance was a regular stamped receipt for cruelty. But the
magistrate was half blind and half childish, so he couldn't reasonably
be expected to discern what other people did.

'I hope I am, sir,' said Mr. Gamfield, with an ugly leer.

'I have no doubt you are, my friend,' replied the old gentleman: fixing
his spectacles more firmly on his nose, and looking about him for the
inkstand.

It was the critical moment of Oliver's fate. If the inkstand had been
where the old gentleman thought it was, he would have dipped his pen
into it, and signed the indentures, and Oliver would have been
straightway hurried off. But, as it chanced to be immediately under
his nose, it followed, as a matter of course, that he looked all over
his desk for it, without finding it; and happening in the course of his
search to look straight before him, his gaze encountered the pale and
terrified face of Oliver Twist: who, despite all the admonitory looks
and pinches of Bumble, was regarding the repulsive countenance of his
future master, with a mingled expression of horror and fear, too
palpable to be mistaken, even by a half-blind magistrate.

The old gentleman stopped, laid down his pen, and looked from Oliver to
Mr. Limbkins; who attempted to take snuff with a cheerful and
unconcerned aspect.

'My boy!' said the old gentleman, 'you look pale and alarmed. What is
the matter?'

'Stand a little away from him, Beadle,' said the other magistrate:
laying aside the paper, and leaning forward with an expression of
interest. 'Now, boy, tell us what's the matter: don't be afraid.'

Oliver fell on his knees, and clasping his hands together, prayed that
they would order him back to the dark room--that they would starve
him--beat him--kill him if they pleased--rather than send him away with
that dreadful man.

'Well!' said Mr. Bumble, raising his hands and eyes with most
impressive solemnity. 'Well! of all the artful and designing orphans
that ever I see, Oliver, you are one of the most bare-facedest.'

'Hold your tongue, Beadle,' said the second old gentleman, when Mr.
Bumble had given vent to this compound adjective.

'I beg your worship's pardon,' said Mr. Bumble, incredulous of having
heard aright. 'Did your worship speak to me?'

'Yes. Hold your tongue.'

Mr. Bumble was stupefied with astonishment. A beadle ordered to hold
his tongue! A moral revolution!

The old gentleman in the tortoise-shell spectacles looked at his
companion, he nodded significantly.

'We refuse to sanction these indentures,' said the old gentleman:
tossing aside the piece of parchment as he spoke.

'I hope,' stammered Mr. Limbkins: 'I hope the magistrates will not
form the opinion that the authorities have been guilty of any improper
conduct, on the unsupported testimony of a child.'

'The magistrates are not called upon to pronounce any opinion on the
matter,' said the second old gentleman sharply. 'Take the boy back to
the workhouse, and treat him kindly. He seems to want it.'

That same evening, the gentleman in the white waistcoat most positively
and decidedly affirmed, not only that Oliver would be hung, but that he
would be drawn and quartered into the bargain. Mr. Bumble shook his
head with gloomy mystery, and said he wished he might come to good;
whereunto Mr. Gamfield replied, that he wished he might come to him;
which, although he agreed with the beadle in most matters, would seem
to be a wish of a totally opposite description.

The next morning, the public were once informed that Oliver Twist was
again To Let, and that five pounds would be paid to anybody who would
take possession of him.



CHAPTER IV

OLIVER, BEING OFFERED ANOTHER PLACE, MAKES HIS FIRST ENTRY INTO PUBLIC
LIFE

In great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained,
either in possession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the
young man who is growing up, it is a very general custom to send him to
sea. The board, in imitation of so wise and salutary an example, took
counsel together on the expediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in
some small trading vessel bound to a good unhealthy port. This
suggested itself as the very best thing that could possibly be done
with him: the probability being, that the skipper would flog him to
death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock his
brains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty
generally known, very favourite and common recreations among gentleman
of that class. The more the case presented itself to the board, in
this point of view, the more manifold the advantages of the step
appeared; so, they came to the conclusion that the only way of
providing for Oliver effectually, was to send him to sea without delay.

Mr. Bumble had been despatched to make various preliminary inquiries,
with the view of finding out some captain or other who wanted a
cabin-boy without any friends; and was returning to the workhouse to
communicate the result of his mission; when he encountered at the gate,
no less a person than Mr. Sowerberry, the parochial undertaker.

Mr. Sowerberry was a tall gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit
of threadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour,
and shoes to answer. His features were not naturally intended to wear
a smiling aspect, but he was in general rather given to professional
jocosity. His step was elastic, and his face betokened inward
pleasantry, as he advanced to Mr. Bumble, and shook him cordially by
the hand.

'I have taken the measure of the two women that died last night, Mr.
Bumble,' said the undertaker.

'You'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' said the beadle, as he
thrust his thumb and forefinger into the proffered snuff-box of the
undertaker: which was an ingenious little model of a patent coffin. 'I
say you'll make your fortune, Mr. Sowerberry,' repeated Mr. Bumble,
tapping the undertaker on the shoulder, in a friendly manner, with his
cane.

'Think so?' said the undertaker in a tone which half admitted and half
disputed the probability of the event. 'The prices allowed by the
board are very small, Mr. Bumble.'

'So are the coffins,' replied the beadle: with precisely as near an
approach to a laugh as a great official ought to indulge in.

Mr. Sowerberry was much tickled at this: as of course he ought to be;
and laughed a long time without cessation. 'Well, well, Mr. Bumble,'
he said at length, 'there's no denying that, since the new system of
feeding has come in, the coffins are something narrower and more
shallow than they used to be; but we must have some profit, Mr. Bumble.
Well-seasoned timber is an expensive article, sir; and all the iron
handles come, by canal, from Birmingham.'

'Well, well,' said Mr. Bumble, 'every trade has its drawbacks. A fair
profit is, of course, allowable.'

'Of course, of course,' replied the undertaker; 'and if I don't get a
profit upon this or that particular article, why, I make it up in the
long-run, you see--he! he! he!'

'Just so,' said Mr. Bumble.

'Though I must say,' continued the undertaker, resuming the current of
observations which the beadle had interrupted: 'though I must say, Mr.
Bumble, that I have to contend against one very great disadvantage:
which is, that all the stout people go off the quickest. The people
who have been better off, and have paid rates for many years, are the
first to sink when they come into the house; and let me tell you, Mr.
Bumble, that three or four inches over one's calculation makes a great
hole in one's profits: especially when one has a family to provide for,
sir.'

As Mr. Sowerberry said this, with the becoming indignation of an
ill-used man; and as Mr. Bumble felt that it rather tended to convey a
reflection on the honour of the parish; the latter gentleman thought it
advisable to change the subject. Oliver Twist being uppermost in his
mind, he made him his theme.

'By the bye,' said Mr. Bumble, 'you don't know anybody who wants a boy,
do you? A porochial 'prentis, who is at present a dead-weight; a
millstone, as I may say, round the porochial throat? Liberal terms,
Mr. Sowerberry, liberal terms?' As Mr. Bumble spoke, he raised his
cane to the bill above him, and gave three distinct raps upon the words
'five pounds': which were printed thereon in Roman capitals of
gigantic size.

'Gadso!' said the undertaker: taking Mr. Bumble by the gilt-edged
lappel of his official coat; 'that's just the very thing I wanted to
speak to you about. You know--dear me, what a very elegant button this
is, Mr. Bumble! I never noticed it before.'

'Yes, I think it rather pretty,' said the beadle, glancing proudly
downwards at the large brass buttons which embellished his coat. 'The
die is the same as the porochial seal--the Good Samaritan healing the
sick and bruised man. The board presented it to me on Newyear's
morning, Mr. Sowerberry. I put it on, I remember, for the first time,
to attend the inquest on that reduced tradesman, who died in a doorway
at midnight.'

'I recollect,' said the undertaker. 'The jury brought it in, "Died from
exposure to the cold, and want of the common necessaries of life,"
didn't they?'

Mr. Bumble nodded.

'And they made it a special verdict, I think,' said the undertaker, 'by
adding some words to the effect, that if the relieving officer had--'

'Tush! Foolery!' interposed the beadle. 'If the board attended to all
the nonsense that ignorant jurymen talk, they'd have enough to do.'

'Very true,' said the undertaker; 'they would indeed.'

'Juries,' said Mr. Bumble, grasping his cane tightly, as was his wont
when working into a passion: 'juries is ineddicated, vulgar, grovelling
wretches.'

'So they are,' said the undertaker.

'They haven't no more philosophy nor political economy about 'em than
that,' said the beadle, snapping his fingers contemptuously.

'No more they have,' acquiesced the undertaker.

'I despise 'em,' said the beadle, growing very red in the face.

'So do I,' rejoined the undertaker.

'And I only wish we'd a jury of the independent sort, in the house for
a week or two,' said the beadle; 'the rules and regulations of the
board would soon bring their spirit down for 'em.'

'Let 'em alone for that,' replied the undertaker. So saying, he
smiled, approvingly: to calm the rising wrath of the indignant parish
officer.

Mr Bumble lifted off his cocked hat; took a handkerchief from the
inside of the crown; wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his
rage had engendered; fixed the cocked hat on again; and, turning to the
undertaker, said in a calmer voice:

'Well; what about the boy?'

'Oh!' replied the undertaker; 'why, you know, Mr. Bumble, I pay a good
deal towards the poor's rates.'

'Hem!' said Mr. Bumble. 'Well?'

'Well,' replied the undertaker, 'I was thinking that if I pay so much
towards 'em, I've a right to get as much out of 'em as I can, Mr.
Bumble; and so--I think I'll take the boy myself.'

Mr. Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led him into the
building. Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes;
and it was arranged that Oliver should go to him that evening 'upon
liking'--a phrase which means, in the case of a parish apprentice, that
if the master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work out
of a boy without putting too much food into him, he shall have him for
a term of years, to do what he likes with.

When little Oliver was taken before 'the gentlemen' that evening; and
informed that he was to go, that night, as general house-lad to a
coffin-maker's; and that if he complained of his situation, or ever
came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be
drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so
little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened
young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith.

Now, although it was very natural that the board, of all people in the
world, should feel in a great state of virtuous astonishment and horror
at the smallest tokens of want of feeling on the part of anybody, they
were rather out, in this particular instance. The simple fact was,
that Oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather
too much; and was in a fair way of being reduced, for life, to a state
of brutal stupidity and sullenness by the ill usage he had received.
He heard the news of his destination, in perfect silence; and, having
had his luggage put into his hand--which was not very difficult to
carry, inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown
paper parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep--he pulled
his cap over his eyes; and once more attaching himself to Mr. Bumble's
coat cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering.

For some time, Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark;
for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a beadle always should:
and, it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by
the skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open, and disclosed to
great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches. As
they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it
expedient to look down, and see that the boy was in good order for
inspection by his new master: which he accordingly did, with a fit and
becoming air of gracious patronage.

'Oliver!' said Mr. Bumble.

'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice.

'Pull that cap off your eyes, and hold up your head, sir.'

Although Oliver did as he was desired, at once; and passed the back of
his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them
when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon
him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another.
The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one.
Withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's he covered his face with
both; and wept until the tears sprung out from between his chin and
bony fingers.

'Well!' exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little
charge a look of intense malignity. 'Well! Of _all_ the
ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are
the--'

'No, no, sir,' sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the
well-known cane; 'no, no, sir; I will be good indeed; indeed, indeed I
will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so--so--'

'So what?' inquired Mr. Bumble in amazement.

'So lonely, sir! So very lonely!' cried the child. 'Everybody hates
me. Oh! sir, don't, don't pray be cross to me!' The child beat his
hand upon his heart; and looked in his companion's face, with tears of
real agony.

Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver's piteous and helpless look, with some
astonishment, for a few seconds; hemmed three or four times in a husky
manner; and after muttering something about 'that troublesome cough,'
bade Oliver dry his eyes and be a good boy. Then once more taking his
hand, he walked on with him in silence.

The undertaker, who had just put up the shutters of his shop, was
making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriate
dismal candle, when Mr. Bumble entered.

'Aha!' said the undertaker; looking up from the book, and pausing in
the middle of a word; 'is that you, Bumble?'

'No one else, Mr. Sowerberry,' replied the beadle. 'Here! I've brought
the boy.' Oliver made a bow.

'Oh! that's the boy, is it?' said the undertaker: raising the candle
above his head, to get a better view of Oliver. 'Mrs. Sowerberry, will
you have the goodness to come here a moment, my dear?'

Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and
presented the form of a short, then, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish
countenance.

'My dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, 'this is the boy from
the workhouse that I told you of.' Oliver bowed again.

'Dear me!' said the undertaker's wife, 'he's very small.'

'Why, he _is_ rather small,' replied Mr. Bumble: looking at Oliver as
if it were his fault that he was no bigger; 'he is small. There's no
denying it. But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry--he'll grow.'

'Ah! I dare say he will,' replied the lady pettishly, 'on our victuals
and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they
always cost more to keep, than they're worth. However, men always think
they know best. There! Get downstairs, little bag o' bones.' With
this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down
a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark: forming the
ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated 'kitchen'; wherein sat a
slatternly girl, in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very
much out of repair.

'Here, Charlotte,' said Mr. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down,
'give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip. He
hasn't come home since the morning, so he may go without 'em. I dare
say the boy isn't too dainty to eat 'em--are you, boy?'

Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was
trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a
plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him.

I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall
within him; whose blood is ice, whose heart is iron; could have seen
Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected.
I wish he could have witnessed the horrible avidity with which Oliver
tore the bits asunder with all the ferocity of famine. There is only
one thing I should like better; and that would be to see the
Philosopher making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish.

'Well,' said the undertaker's wife, when Oliver had finished his
supper: which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful
auguries of his future appetite: 'have you done?'

There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the
affirmative.

'Then come with me,' said Mrs. Sowerberry: taking up a dim and dirty
lamp, and leading the way upstairs; 'your bed's under the counter. You
don't mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose? But it doesn't much
matter whether you do or don't, for you can't sleep anywhere else.
Come; don't keep me here all night!'

Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress.



CHAPTER V

OLIVER MINGLES WITH NEW ASSOCIATES. GOING TO A FUNERAL FOR THE FIRST
TIME, HE FORMS AN UNFAVOURABLE NOTION OF HIS MASTER'S BUSINESS

Oliver, being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp
down on a workman's bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling
of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than he will be
at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels,
which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like
that a cold tremble came over him, every time his eyes wandered in the
direction of the dismal object: from which he almost expected to see
some frightful form slowly rear its head, to drive him mad with terror.
Against the wall were ranged, in regular array, a long row of elm
boards cut in the same shape: looking in the dim light, like
high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches pockets.
Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black
cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall behind the counter was
ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stiff
neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by
four black steeds, approaching in the distance. The shop was close and
hot. The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. The
recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust,
looked like a grave.

Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver. He was
alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the
best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. The boy had no
friends to care for, or to care for him. The regret of no recent
separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and
well-remembered face sank heavily into his heart.

But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept
into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be
lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the
tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep
bell to soothe him in his sleep.

Oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of
the shop-door: which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was
repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times.
When he began to undo the chain, the legs desisted, and a voice began.

'Open the door, will yer?' cried the voice which belonged to the legs
which had kicked at the door.

'I will, directly, sir,' replied Oliver: undoing the chain, and turning
the key.

'I suppose yer the new boy, ain't yer?' said the voice through the
key-hole.

'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver.

'How old are yer?' inquired the voice.

'Ten, sir,' replied Oliver.

'Then I'll whop yer when I get in,' said the voice; 'you just see if I
don't, that's all, my work'us brat!' and having made this obliging
promise, the voice began to whistle.

Oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very
expressive monosyllable just recorded bears reference, to entertain the
smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be, would
redeem his pledge, most honourably. He drew back the bolts with a
trembling hand, and opened the door.

For a second or two, Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street,
and over the way: impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had
addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off, to warm
himself; for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post
in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut
into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp-knife, and then
consumed with great dexterity.

'I beg your pardon, sir,' said Oliver at length: seeing that no other
visitor made his appearance; 'did you knock?'

'I kicked,' replied the charity-boy.

'Did you want a coffin, sir?' inquired Oliver, innocently.

At this, the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce; and said that Oliver
would want one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that
way.

'Yer don't know who I am, I suppose, Work'us?' said the charity-boy, in
continuation: descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with
edifying gravity.

'No, sir,' rejoined Oliver.

'I'm Mister Noah Claypole,' said the charity-boy, 'and you're under me.
Take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian!' With this, Mr.
Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop with a
dignified air, which did him great credit. It is difficult for a
large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy
countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more
especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red
nose and yellow smalls.

Oliver, having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of glass in
his effort to stagger away beneath the weight of the first one to a
small court at the side of the house in which they were kept during the
day, was graciously assisted by Noah: who having consoled him with the
assurance that 'he'd catch it,' condescended to help him. Mr.
Sowerberry came down soon after. Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Sowerberry
appeared. Oliver having 'caught it,' in fulfilment of Noah's
prediction, followed that young gentleman down the stairs to breakfast.

'Come near the fire, Noah,' said Charlotte. 'I saved a nice little bit
of bacon for you from master's breakfast. Oliver, shut that door at
Mister Noah's back, and take them bits that I've put out on the cover
of the bread-pan. There's your tea; take it away to that box, and
drink it there, and make haste, for they'll want you to mind the shop.
D'ye hear?'

'D'ye hear, Work'us?' said Noah Claypole.

'Lor, Noah!' said Charlotte, 'what a rum creature you are! Why don't
you let the boy alone?'

'Let him alone!' said Noah. 'Why everybody lets him alone enough, for
the matter of that. Neither his father nor his mother will ever
interfere with him. All his relations let him have his own way pretty
well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!'

'Oh, you queer soul!' said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in
which she was joined by Noah; after which they both looked scornfully
at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering on the box in the coldest
corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially
reserved for him.

Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child
was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his
parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his
father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg, and a diurnal
pension of twopence-halfpenny and an unstateable fraction. The
shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding
Noah in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of
'leathers,' 'charity,' and the like; and Noah had bourne them without
reply. But, now that fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at
whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on
him with interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It
shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how
impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord
and the dirtiest charity-boy.

Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker's some three weeks or a
month. Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry--the shop being shut up--were taking
their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr. Sowerberry, after
several deferential glances at his wife, said,

'My dear--' He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up,
with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short.

'Well,' said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply.

'Nothing, my dear, nothing,' said Mr. Sowerberry.

'Ugh, you brute!' said Mrs. Sowerberry.

'Not at all, my dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry humbly. 'I thought you
didn't want to hear, my dear. I was only going to say--'

'Oh, don't tell me what you were going to say,' interposed Mrs.
Sowerberry. 'I am nobody; don't consult me, pray. _I_ don't want to
intrude upon your secrets.' As Mrs. Sowerberry said this, she gave an
hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences.

'But, my dear,' said Sowerberry, 'I want to ask your advice.'

'No, no, don't ask mine,' replied Mrs. Sowerberry, in an affecting
manner: 'ask somebody else's.' Here, there was another hysterical
laugh, which frightened Mr. Sowerberry very much. This is a very
common and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is
often very effective. It at once reduced Mr. Sowerberry to begging, as
a special favour, to be allowed to say what Mrs. Sowerberry was most
curious to hear. After a short duration, the permission was most
graciously conceded.

'It's only about young Twist, my dear,' said Mr. Sowerberry. 'A very
good-looking boy, that, my dear.'

'He need be, for he eats enough,' observed the lady.

'There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear,' resumed Mr.
Sowerberry, 'which is very interesting. He would make a delightful
mute, my love.'

Mrs. Sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable
wonderment. Mr. Sowerberry remarked it and, without allowing time for
any observation on the good lady's part, proceeded.

'I don't mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but
only for children's practice. It would be very new to have a mute in
proportion, my dear. You may depend upon it, it would have a superb
effect.'

Mrs. Sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way,
was much struck by the novelty of this idea; but, as it would have been
compromising her dignity to have said so, under existing circumstances,
she merely inquired, with much sharpness, why such an obvious
suggestion had not presented itself to her husband's mind before? Mr.
Sowerberry rightly construed this, as an acquiescence in his
proposition; it was speedily determined, therefore, that Oliver should
be at once initiated into the mysteries of the trade; and, with this
view, that he should accompany his master on the very next occasion of
his services being required.

The occasion was not long in coming. Half an hour after breakfast next
morning, Mr. Bumble entered the shop; and supporting his cane against
the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book: from which he
selected a small scrap of paper, which he handed over to Sowerberry.

'Aha!' said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance;
'an order for a coffin, eh?'

'For a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards,' replied Mr.
Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book: which, like
himself, was very corpulent.

'Bayton,' said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to Mr.
Bumble. 'I never heard the name before.'

Bumble shook his head, as he replied, 'Obstinate people, Mr.
Sowerberry; very obstinate. Proud, too, I'm afraid, sir.'

'Proud, eh?' exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer. 'Come, that's too
much.'

'Oh, it's sickening,' replied the beadle. 'Antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry!'

'So it is,' acquiesced the undertaker.

'We only heard of the family the night before last,' said the beadle;
'and we shouldn't have known anything about them, then, only a woman
who lodges in the same house made an application to the porochial
committee for them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was
very bad. He had gone out to dinner; but his 'prentice (which is a
very clever lad) sent 'em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, offhand.'

'Ah, there's promptness,' said the undertaker.

'Promptness, indeed!' replied the beadle. 'But what's the consequence;
what's the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband
sends back word that the medicine won't suit his wife's complaint, and
so she shan't take it--says she shan't take it, sir! Good, strong,
wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish
labourers and a coal-heaver, only a week before--sent 'em for nothing,
with a blackin'-bottle in,--and he sends back word that she shan't take
it, sir!'

As the atrocity presented itself to Mr. Bumble's mind in full force, he
struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed with
indignation.

'Well,' said the undertaker, 'I ne--ver--did--'

'Never did, sir!' ejaculated the beadle. 'No, nor nobody never did;
but now she's dead, we've got to bury her; and that's the direction;
and the sooner it's done, the better.'

Thus saying, Mr. Bumble put on his cocked hat wrong side first, in a
fever of parochial excitement; and flounced out of the shop.

'Why, he was so angry, Oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you!'
said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the
street.

'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of
sight, during the interview; and who was shaking from head to foot at
the mere recollection of the sound of Mr. Bumble's voice.

He needn't haven taken the trouble to shrink from Mr. Bumble's glance,
however; for that functionary, on whom the prediction of the gentleman
in the white waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that
now the undertaker had got Oliver upon trial the subject was better
avoided, until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years,
and all danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish
should be thus effectually and legally overcome.

'Well,' said Mr. Sowerberry, taking up his hat, 'the sooner this job is
done, the better. Noah, look after the shop. Oliver, put on your cap,
and come with me.' Oliver obeyed, and followed his master on his
professional mission.

They walked on, for some time, through the most crowded and densely
inhabited part of the town; and then, striking down a narrow street
more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused
to look for the house which was the object of their search. The houses
on either side were high and large, but very old, and tenanted by
people of the poorest class: as their neglected appearance would have
sufficiently denoted, without the concurrent testimony afforded by the
squalid looks of the few men and women who, with folded arms and bodies
half doubled, occasionally skulked along. A great many of the
tenements had shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering
away; only the upper rooms being inhabited. Some houses which had
become insecure from age and decay, were prevented from falling into
the street, by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly
planted in the road; but even these crazy dens seemed to have been
selected as the nightly haunts of some houseless wretches, for many of
the rough boards which supplied the place of door and window, were
wrenched from their positions, to afford an aperture wide enough for
the passage of a human body. The kennel was stagnant and filthy. The
very rats, which here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were
hideous with famine.

There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver
and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark
passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid the
undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs. Stumbling
against a door on the landing, he rapped at it with his knuckles.

It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen. The undertaker
at once saw enough of what the room contained, to know it was the
apartment to which he had been directed. He stepped in; Oliver
followed him.

There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching, mechanically,
over the empty stove. An old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the
cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged
children in another corner; and in a small recess, opposite the door,
there lay upon the ground, something covered with an old blanket.
Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes toward the place, and crept
involuntarily closer to his master; for though it was covered up, the
boy felt that it was a corpse.

The man's face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly;
his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman's face was wrinkled; her two
remaining teeth protruded over her under lip; and her eyes were bright
and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man.
They seemed so like the rats he had seen outside.

'Nobody shall go near her,' said the man, starting fiercely up, as the
undertaker approached the recess. 'Keep back! Damn you, keep back, if
you've a life to lose!'

'Nonsense, my good man,' said the undertaker, who was pretty well used
to misery in all its shapes. 'Nonsense!'

'I tell you,' said the man: clenching his hands, and stamping
furiously on the floor,--'I tell you I won't have her put into the
ground. She couldn't rest there. The worms would worry her--not eat
her--she is so worn away.'

The undertaker offered no reply to this raving; but producing a tape
from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body.

'Ah!' said the man: bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at
the feet of the dead woman; 'kneel down, kneel down--kneel round her,
every one of you, and mark my words! I say she was starved to death.
I never knew how bad she was, till the fever came upon her; and then
her bones were starting through the skin. There was neither fire nor
candle; she died in the dark--in the dark! She couldn't even see her
children's faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged
for her in the streets: and they sent me to prison. When I came back,
she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they
starved her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it! They
starved her!' He twined his hands in his hair; and, with a loud
scream, rolled grovelling upon the floor: his eyes fixed, and the foam
covering his lips.

The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had
hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that
passed, menaced them into silence. Having unloosened the cravat of the
man who still remained extended on the ground, she tottered towards the
undertaker.

'She was my daughter,' said the old woman, nodding her head in the
direction of the corpse; and speaking with an idiotic leer, more
ghastly than even the presence of death in such a place. 'Lord, Lord!
Well, it _is_ strange that I who gave birth to her, and was a woman
then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there: so cold and
stiff! Lord, Lord!--to think of it; it's as good as a play--as good as
a play!'

As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment,
the undertaker turned to go away.

'Stop, stop!' said the old woman in a loud whisper. 'Will she be
buried to-morrow, or next day, or to-night? I laid her out; and I must
walk, you know. Send me a large cloak: a good warm one: for it is
bitter cold. We should have cake and wine, too, before we go! Never
mind; send some bread--only a loaf of bread and a cup of water. Shall
we have some bread, dear?' she said eagerly: catching at the
undertaker's coat, as he once more moved towards the door.

'Yes, yes,' said the undertaker,'of course. Anything you like!' He
disengaged himself from the old woman's grasp; and, drawing Oliver
after him, hurried away.

The next day, (the family having been meanwhile relieved with a
half-quartern loaf and a piece of cheese, left with them by Mr. Bumble
himself,) Oliver and his master returned to the miserable abode; where
Mr. Bumble had already arrived, accompanied by four men from the
workhouse, who were to act as bearers. An old black cloak had been
thrown over the rags of the old woman and the man; and the bare coffin
having been screwed down, was hoisted on the shoulders of the bearers,
and carried into the street.

'Now, you must put your best leg foremost, old lady!' whispered
Sowerberry in the old woman's ear; 'we are rather late; and it won't
do, to keep the clergyman waiting. Move on, my men,--as quick as you
like!'

Thus directed, the bearers trotted on under their light burden; and the
two mourners kept as near them, as they could. Mr. Bumble and
Sowerberry walked at a good smart pace in front; and Oliver, whose legs
were not so long as his master's, ran by the side.

There was not so great a necessity for hurrying as Mr. Sowerberry had
anticipated, however; for when they reached the obscure corner of the
churchyard in which the nettles grew, and where the parish graves were
made, the clergyman had not arrived; and the clerk, who was sitting by
the vestry-room fire, seemed to think it by no means improbable that it
might be an hour or so, before he came. So, they put the bier on the
brink of the grave; and the two mourners waited patiently in the damp
clay, with a cold rain drizzling down, while the ragged boys whom the
spectacle had attracted into the churchyard played a noisy game at
hide-and-seek among the tombstones, or varied their amusements by
jumping backwards and forwards over the coffin. Mr. Sowerberry and
Bumble, being personal friends of the clerk, sat by the fire with him,
and read the paper.

At length, after a lapse of something more than an hour, Mr. Bumble,
and Sowerberry, and the clerk, were seen running towards the grave.
Immediately afterwards, the clergyman appeared: putting on his surplice
as he came along. Mr. Bumble then thrashed a boy or two, to keep up
appearances; and the reverend gentleman, having read as much of the
burial service as could be compressed into four minutes, gave his
surplice to the clerk, and walked away again.

'Now, Bill!' said Sowerberry to the grave-digger. 'Fill up!'

It was no very difficult task, for the grave was so full, that the
uppermost coffin was within a few feet of the surface. The
grave-digger shovelled in the earth; stamped it loosely down with his
feet: shouldered his spade; and walked off, followed by the boys, who
murmured very loud complaints at the fun being over so soon.

'Come, my good fellow!' said Bumble, tapping the man on the back. 'They
want to shut up the yard.'

The man who had never once moved, since he had taken his station by the
grave side, started, raised his head, stared at the person who had
addressed him, walked forward for a few paces; and fell down in a
swoon. The crazy old woman was too much occupied in bewailing the loss
of her cloak (which the undertaker had taken off), to pay him any
attention; so they threw a can of cold water over him; and when he came
to, saw him safely out of the churchyard, locked the gate, and departed
on their different ways.

'Well, Oliver,' said Sowerberry, as they walked home, 'how do you like
it?'

'Pretty well, thank you, sir' replied Oliver, with considerable
hesitation. 'Not very much, sir.'

'Ah, you'll get used to it in time, Oliver,' said Sowerberry. 'Nothing
when you _are_ used to it, my boy.'

Oliver wondered, in his own mind, whether it had taken a very long time
to get Mr. Sowerberry used to it. But he thought it better not to ask
the question; and walked back to the shop: thinking over all he had
seen and heard.



CHAPTER VI

OLIVER, BEING GOADED BY THE TAUNTS OF NOAH, ROUSES INTO ACTION, AND
RATHER ASTONISHES HIM

The month's trial over, Oliver was formally apprenticed. It was a nice
sickly season just at this time. In commercial phrase, coffins were
looking up; and, in the course of a few weeks, Oliver acquired a great
deal of experience. The success of Mr. Sowerberry's ingenious
speculation, exceeded even his most sanguine hopes. The oldest
inhabitants recollected no period at which measles had been so
prevalent, or so fatal to infant existence; and many were the mournful
processions which little Oliver headed, in a hat-band reaching down to
his knees, to the indescribable admiration and emotion of all the
mothers in the town. As Oliver accompanied his master in most of his
adult expeditions too, in order that he might acquire that equanimity
of demeanour and full command of nerve which was essential to a
finished undertaker, he had many opportunities of observing the
beautiful resignation and fortitude with which some strong-minded
people bear their trials and losses.

For instance; when Sowerberry had an order for the burial of some rich
old lady or gentleman, who was surrounded by a great number of nephews
and nieces, who had been perfectly inconsolable during the previous
illness, and whose grief had been wholly irrepressible even on the most
public occasions, they would be as happy among themselves as need
be--quite cheerful and contented--conversing together with as much
freedom and gaiety, as if nothing whatever had happened to disturb
them. Husbands, too, bore the loss of their wives with the most heroic
calmness. Wives, again, put on weeds for their husbands, as if, so far
from grieving in the garb of sorrow, they had made up their minds to
render it as becoming and attractive as possible. It was observable,
too, that ladies and gentlemen who were in passions of anguish during
the ceremony of interment, recovered almost as soon as they reached
home, and became quite composed before the tea-drinking was over. All
this was very pleasant and improving to see; and Oliver beheld it with
great admiration.

That Oliver Twist was moved to resignation by the example of these good
people, I cannot, although I am his biographer, undertake to affirm
with any degree of confidence; but I can most distinctly say, that for
many months he continued meekly to submit to the domination and
ill-treatment of Noah Claypole: who used him far worse than before, now
that his jealousy was roused by seeing the new boy promoted to the
black stick and hatband, while he, the old one, remained stationary in
the muffin-cap and leathers. Charlotte treated him ill, because Noah
did; and Mrs. Sowerberry was his decided enemy, because Mr. Sowerberry
was disposed to be his friend; so, between these three on one side, and
a glut of funerals on the other, Oliver was not altogether as
comfortable as the hungry pig was, when he was shut up, by mistake, in
the grain department of a brewery.

And now, I come to a very important passage in Oliver's history; for I
have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance,
but which indirectly produced a material change in all his future
prospects and proceedings.

One day, Oliver and Noah had descended into the kitchen at the usual
dinner-hour, to banquet upon a small joint of mutton--a pound and a
half of the worst end of the neck--when Charlotte being called out of
the way, there ensued a brief interval of time, which Noah Claypole,
being hungry and vicious, considered he could not possibly devote to a
worthier purpose than aggravating and tantalising young Oliver Twist.

Intent upon this innocent amusement, Noah put his feet on the
table-cloth; and pulled Oliver's hair; and twitched his ears; and
expressed his opinion that he was a 'sneak'; and furthermore announced
his intention of coming to see him hanged, whenever that desirable
event should take place; and entered upon various topics of petty
annoyance, like a malicious and ill-conditioned charity-boy as he was.
But, making Oliver cry, Noah attempted to be more facetious still; and
in his attempt, did what many sometimes do to this day, when they want
to be funny. He got rather personal.

'Work'us,' said Noah, 'how's your mother?'

'She's dead,' replied Oliver; 'don't you say anything about her to me!'

Oliver's colour rose as he said this; he breathed quickly; and there
was a curious working of the mouth and nostrils, which Mr. Claypole
thought must be the immediate precursor of a violent fit of crying.
Under this impression he returned to the charge.

'What did she die of, Work'us?' said Noah.

'Of a broken heart, some of our old nurses told me,' replied Oliver:
more as if he were talking to himself, than answering Noah. 'I think I
know what it must be to die of that!'

'Tol de rol lol lol, right fol lairy, Work'us,' said Noah, as a tear
rolled down Oliver's cheek. 'What's set you a snivelling now?'

'Not _you_,' replied Oliver, sharply. 'There; that's enough. Don't say
anything more to me about her; you'd better not!'

'Better not!' exclaimed Noah. 'Well! Better not! Work'us, don't be
impudent. _Your_ mother, too! She was a nice 'un she was. Oh, Lor!'
And here, Noah nodded his head expressively; and curled up as much of
his small red nose as muscular action could collect together, for the
occasion.

'Yer know, Work'us,' continued Noah, emboldened by Oliver's silence,
and speaking in a jeering tone of affected pity: of all tones the most
annoying: 'Yer know, Work'us, it can't be helped now; and of course yer
couldn't help it then; and I am very sorry for it; and I'm sure we all
are, and pity yer very much. But yer must know, Work'us, yer mother
was a regular right-down bad 'un.'

'What did you say?' inquired Oliver, looking up very quickly.

'A regular right-down bad 'un, Work'us,' replied Noah, coolly. 'And
it's a great deal better, Work'us, that she died when she did, or else
she'd have been hard labouring in Bridewell, or transported, or hung;
which is more likely than either, isn't it?'

Crimson with fury, Oliver started up; overthrew the chair and table;
seized Noah by the throat; shook him, in the violence of his rage, till
his teeth chattered in his head; and collecting his whole force into
one heavy blow, felled him to the ground.

A minute ago, the boy had looked the quiet child, mild, dejected
creature that harsh treatment had made him. But his spirit was roused
at last; the cruel insult to his dead mother had set his blood on fire.
His breast heaved; his attitude was erect; his eye bright and vivid;
his whole person changed, as he stood glaring over the cowardly
tormentor who now lay crouching at his feet; and defied him with an
energy he had never known before.

'He'll murder me!' blubbered Noah. 'Charlotte! missis! Here's the
new boy a murdering of me! Help! help! Oliver's gone mad!
Char--lotte!'

Noah's shouts were responded to, by a loud scream from Charlotte, and a
louder from Mrs. Sowerberry; the former of whom rushed into the kitchen
by a side-door, while the latter paused on the staircase till she was
quite certain that it was consistent with the preservation of human
life, to come further down.

'Oh, you little wretch!' screamed Charlotte: seizing Oliver with her
utmost force, which was about equal to that of a moderately strong man
in particularly good training. 'Oh, you little un-grate-ful,
mur-de-rous, hor-rid villain!' And between every syllable, Charlotte
gave Oliver a blow with all her might: accompanying it with a scream,
for the benefit of society.

Charlotte's fist was by no means a light one; but, lest it should not
be effectual in calming Oliver's wrath, Mrs. Sowerberry plunged into
the kitchen, and assisted to hold him with one hand, while she
scratched his face with the other. In this favourable position of
affairs, Noah rose from the ground, and pommelled him behind.

This was rather too violent exercise to last long. When they were all
wearied out, and could tear and beat no longer, they dragged Oliver,
struggling and shouting, but nothing daunted, into the dust-cellar, and
there locked him up. This being done, Mrs. Sowerberry sunk into a
chair, and burst into tears.

'Bless her, she's going off!' said Charlotte. 'A glass of water, Noah,
dear. Make haste!'

'Oh! Charlotte,' said Mrs. Sowerberry: speaking as well as she could,
through a deficiency of breath, and a sufficiency of cold water, which
Noah had poured over her head and shoulders. 'Oh! Charlotte, what a
mercy we have not all been murdered in our beds!'

'Ah! mercy indeed, ma'am,' was the reply. I only hope this'll teach
master not to have any more of these dreadful creatures, that are born
to be murderers and robbers from their very cradle. Poor Noah! He was
all but killed, ma'am, when I come in.'

'Poor fellow!' said Mrs. Sowerberry: looking piteously on the
charity-boy.

Noah, whose top waistcoat-button might have been somewhere on a level
with the crown of Oliver's head, rubbed his eyes with the inside of his
wrists while this commiseration was bestowed upon him, and performed
some affecting tears and sniffs.

'What's to be done!' exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry. 'Your master's not at
home; there's not a man in the house, and he'll kick that door down in
ten minutes.' Oliver's vigorous plunges against the bit of timber in
question, rendered this occurance highly probable.

'Dear, dear! I don't know, ma'am,' said Charlotte, 'unless we send for
the police-officers.'

'Or the millingtary,' suggested Mr. Claypole.

'No, no,' said Mrs. Sowerberry: bethinking herself of Oliver's old
friend. 'Run to Mr. Bumble, Noah, and tell him to come here directly,
and not to lose a minute; never mind your cap! Make haste! You can
hold a knife to that black eye, as you run along. It'll keep the
swelling down.'

Noah stopped to make no reply, but started off at his fullest speed;
and very much it astonished the people who were out walking, to see a
charity-boy tearing through the streets pell-mell, with no cap on his
head, and a clasp-knife at his eye.



CHAPTER VII

OLIVER CONTINUES REFRACTORY

Noah Claypole ran along the streets at his swiftest pace, and paused
not once for breath, until he reached the workhouse-gate. Having rested
here, for a minute or so, to collect a good burst of sobs and an
imposing show of tears and terror, he knocked loudly at the wicket; and
presented such a rueful face to the aged pauper who opened it, that
even he, who saw nothing but rueful faces about him at the best of
times, started back in astonishment.

'Why, what's the matter with the boy!' said the old pauper.

'Mr. Bumble! Mr. Bumble!' cried Noah, with well-affected dismay: and
in tones so loud and agitated, that they not only caught the ear of Mr.
Bumble himself, who happened to be hard by, but alarmed him so much
that he rushed into the yard without his cocked hat,--which is a very
curious and remarkable circumstance: as showing that even a beadle,
acted upon a sudden and powerful impulse, may be afflicted with a
momentary visitation of loss of self-possession, and forgetfulness of
personal dignity.

'Oh, Mr. Bumble, sir!' said Noah: 'Oliver, sir,--Oliver has--'

'What? What?' interposed Mr. Bumble: with a gleam of pleasure in his
metallic eyes. 'Not run away; he hasn't run away, has he, Noah?'

'No, sir, no. Not run away, sir, but he's turned wicious,' replied
Noah. 'He tried to murder me, sir; and then he tried to murder
Charlotte; and then missis. Oh! what dreadful pain it is!

Such agony, please, sir!' And here, Noah writhed and twisted his body
into an extensive variety of eel-like positions; thereby giving Mr.
Bumble to understand that, from the violent and sanguinary onset of
Oliver Twist, he had sustained severe internal injury and damage, from
which he was at that moment suffering the acutest torture.

When Noah saw that the intelligence he communicated perfectly paralysed
Mr. Bumble, he imparted additional effect thereunto, by bewailing his
dreadful wounds ten times louder than before; and when he observed a
gentleman in a white waistcoat crossing the yard, he was more tragic in
his lamentations than ever: rightly conceiving it highly expedient to
attract the notice, and rouse the indignation, of the gentleman
aforesaid.

The gentleman's notice was very soon attracted; for he had not walked
three paces, when he turned angrily round, and inquired what that young
cur was howling for, and why Mr. Bumble did not favour him with
something which would render the series of vocular exclamations so
designated, an involuntary process?

'It's a poor boy from the free-school, sir,' replied Mr. Bumble, 'who
has been nearly murdered--all but murdered, sir,--by young Twist.'

'By Jove!' exclaimed the gentleman in the white waistcoat, stopping
short. 'I knew it! I felt a strange presentiment from the very first,
that that audacious young savage would come to be hung!'

'He has likewise attempted, sir, to murder the female servant,' said
Mr. Bumble, with a face of ashy paleness.

'And his missis,' interposed Mr. Claypole.

'And his master, too, I think you said, Noah?' added Mr. Bumble.

'No! he's out, or he would have murdered him,' replied Noah. 'He said
he wanted to.'

'Ah! Said he wanted to, did he, my boy?' inquired the gentleman in the
white waistcoat.

'Yes, sir,' replied Noah. 'And please, sir, missis wants to know
whether Mr. Bumble can spare time to step up there, directly, and flog
him--'cause master's out.'

'Certainly, my boy; certainly,' said the gentleman in the white
waistcoat: smiling benignly, and patting Noah's head, which was about
three inches higher than his own. 'You're a good boy--a very good boy.
Here's a penny for you. Bumble, just step up to Sowerberry's with your
cane, and see what's best to be done. Don't spare him, Bumble.'

'No, I will not, sir,' replied the beadle. And the cocked hat and cane
having been, by this time, adjusted to their owner's satisfaction, Mr.
Bumble and Noah Claypole betook themselves with all speed to the
undertaker's shop.

Here the position of affairs had not at all improved. Sowerberry had
not yet returned, and Oliver continued to kick, with undiminished
vigour, at the cellar-door. The accounts of his ferocity as related by
Mrs. Sowerberry and Charlotte, were of so startling a nature, that Mr.
Bumble judged it prudent to parley, before opening the door. With this
view he gave a kick at the outside, by way of prelude; and, then,
applying his mouth to the keyhole, said, in a deep and impressive tone:

'Oliver!'

'Come; you let me out!' replied Oliver, from the inside.

'Do you know this here voice, Oliver?' said Mr. Bumble.

'Yes,' replied Oliver.

'Ain't you afraid of it, sir? Ain't you a-trembling while I speak,
sir?' said Mr. Bumble.

'No!' replied Oliver, boldly.

An answer so different from the one he had expected to elicit, and was
in the habit of receiving, staggered Mr. Bumble not a little. He
stepped back from the keyhole; drew himself up to his full height; and
looked from one to another of the three bystanders, in mute
astonishment.

'Oh, you know, Mr. Bumble, he must be mad,' said Mrs. Sowerberry.

'No boy in half his senses could venture to speak so to you.'

'It's not Madness, ma'am,' replied Mr. Bumble, after a few moments of
deep meditation. 'It's Meat.'

'What?' exclaimed Mrs. Sowerberry.

'Meat, ma'am, meat,' replied Bumble, with stern emphasis. 'You've
over-fed him, ma'am. You've raised a artificial soul and spirit in
him, ma'am unbecoming a person of his condition: as the board, Mrs.
Sowerberry, who are practical philosophers, will tell you. What have
paupers to do with soul or spirit? It's quite enough that we let 'em
have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would
never have happened.'

'Dear, dear!' ejaculated Mrs. Sowerberry, piously raising her eyes to
the kitchen ceiling: 'this comes of being liberal!'

The liberality of Mrs. Sowerberry to Oliver, had consisted of a profuse
bestowal upon him of all the dirty odds and ends which nobody else
would eat; so there was a great deal of meekness and self-devotion in
her voluntarily remaining under Mr. Bumble's heavy accusation. Of
which, to do her justice, she was wholly innocent, in thought, word, or
deed.

'Ah!' said Mr. Bumble, when the lady brought her eyes down to earth
again; 'the only thing that can be done now, that I know of, is to
leave him in the cellar for a day or so, till he's a little starved
down; and then to take him out, and keep him on gruel all through the
apprenticeship. He comes of a bad family. Excitable natures, Mrs.
Sowerberry! Both the nurse and doctor said, that that mother of his
made her way here, against difficulties and pain that would have killed
any well-disposed woman, weeks before.'

At this point of Mr. Bumble's discourse, Oliver, just hearing enough to
know that some allusion was being made to his mother, recommenced
kicking, with a violence that rendered every other sound inaudible.
Sowerberry returned at this juncture. Oliver's offence having been
explained to him, with such exaggerations as the ladies thought best
calculated to rouse his ire, he unlocked the cellar-door in a
twinkling, and dragged his rebellious apprentice out, by the collar.

Oliver's clothes had been torn in the beating he had received; his face
was bruised and scratched; and his hair scattered over his forehead.
The angry flush had not disappeared, however; and when he was pulled
out of his prison, he scowled boldly on Noah, and looked quite
undismayed.

'Now, you are a nice young fellow, ain't you?' said Sowerberry; giving
Oliver a shake, and a box on the ear.

'He called my mother names,' replied Oliver.

'Well, and what if he did, you little ungrateful wretch?' said Mrs.
Sowerberry. 'She deserved what he said, and worse.'

'She didn't' said Oliver.

'She did,' said Mrs. Sowerberry.

'It's a lie!' said Oliver.

Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears.

This flood of tears left Mr. Sowerberry no alternative. If he had
hesitated for one instant to punish Oliver most severely, it must be
quite clear to every experienced reader that he would have been,
according to all precedents in disputes of matrimony established, a
brute, an unnatural husband, an insulting creature, a base imitation of
a man, and various other agreeable characters too numerous for recital
within the limits of this chapter. To do him justice, he was, as far
as his power went--it was not very extensive--kindly disposed towards
the boy; perhaps, because it was his interest to be so; perhaps,
because his wife disliked him. The flood of tears, however, left him no
resource; so he at once gave him a drubbing, which satisfied even Mrs.
Sowerberry herself, and rendered Mr. Bumble's subsequent application of
the parochial cane, rather unnecessary. For the rest of the day, he
was shut up in the back kitchen, in company with a pump and a slice of
bread; and at night, Mrs. Sowerberry, after making various remarks
outside the door, by no means complimentary to the memory of his
mother, looked into the room, and, amidst the jeers and pointings of
Noah and Charlotte, ordered him upstairs to his dismal bed.

It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the
gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way to the feelings
which the day's treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a
mere child. He had listened to their taunts with a look of contempt;
he had borne the lash without a cry: for he felt that pride swelling in
his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, though they
had roasted him alive. But now, when there were none to see or hear
him, he fell upon his knees on the floor; and, hiding his face in his
hands, wept such tears as, God send for the credit of our nature, few
so young may ever have cause to pour out before him!

For a long time, Oliver remained motionless in this attitude. The
candle was burning low in the socket when he rose to his feet. Having
gazed cautiously round him, and listened intently, he gently undid the
fastenings of the door, and looked abroad.

It was a cold, dark night. The stars seemed, to the boy's eyes,
farther from the earth than he had ever seen them before; there was no
wind; and the sombre shadows thrown by the trees upon the ground,
looked sepulchral and death-like, from being so still. He softly
reclosed the door. Having availed himself of the expiring light of the
candle to tie up in a handkerchief the few articles of wearing apparel
he had, sat himself down upon a bench, to wait for morning.

With the first ray of light that struggled through the crevices in the
shutters, Oliver arose, and again unbarred the door. One timid look
around--one moment's pause of hesitation--he had closed it behind him,
and was in the open street.

He looked to the right and to the left, uncertain whither to fly.

He remembered to have seen the waggons, as they went out, toiling up
the hill. He took the same route; and arriving at a footpath across
the fields: which he knew, after some distance, led out again into the
road; struck into it, and walked quickly on.

Along this same footpath, Oliver well-remembered he had trotted beside
Mr. Bumble, when he first carried him to the workhouse from the farm.
His way lay directly in front of the cottage. His heart beat quickly
when he bethought himself of this; and he half resolved to turn back.
He had come a long way though, and should lose a great deal of time by
doing so. Besides, it was so early that there was very little fear of
his being seen; so he walked on.

He reached the house. There was no appearance of its inmates stirring
at that early hour. Oliver stopped, and peeped into the garden. A
child was weeding one of the little beds; as he stopped, he raised his
pale face and disclosed the features of one of his former companions.
Oliver felt glad to see him, before he went; for, though younger than
himself, he had been his little friend and playmate. They had been
beaten, and starved, and shut up together, many and many a time.

'Hush, Dick!' said Oliver, as the boy ran to the gate, and thrust his
thin arm between the rails to greet him. 'Is any one up?'

'Nobody but me,' replied the child.

'You musn't say you saw me, Dick,' said Oliver. 'I am running away.
They beat and ill-use me, Dick; and I am going to seek my fortune, some
long way off. I don't know where. How pale you are!'

'I heard the doctor tell them I was dying,' replied the child with a
faint smile. 'I am very glad to see you, dear; but don't stop, don't
stop!'

'Yes, yes, I will, to say good-b'ye to you,' replied Oliver. 'I shall
see you again, Dick. I know I shall! You will be well and happy!'

'I hope so,' replied the child. 'After I am dead, but not before. I
know the doctor must be right, Oliver, because I dream so much of
Heaven, and Angels, and kind faces that I never see when I am awake.
Kiss me,' said the child, climbing up the low gate, and flinging his
little arms round Oliver's neck. 'Good-b'ye, dear! God bless you!'

The blessing was from a young child's lips, but it was the first that
Oliver had ever heard invoked upon his head; and through the struggles
and sufferings, and troubles and changes, of his after life, he never
once forgot it.



CHAPTER VIII

OLIVER WALKS TO LONDON. HE ENCOUNTERS ON THE ROAD A STRANGE SORT OF
YOUNG GENTLEMAN

Oliver reached the stile at which the by-path terminated; and once more
gained the high-road. It was eight o'clock now. Though he was nearly
five miles away from the town, he ran, and hid behind the hedges, by
turns, till noon: fearing that he might be pursued and overtaken. Then
he sat down to rest by the side of the milestone, and began to think,
for the first time, where he had better go and try to live.

The stone by which he was seated, bore, in large characters, an
intimation that it was just seventy miles from that spot to London. The
name awakened a new train of ideas in the boy's mind.

London!--that great place!--nobody--not even Mr. Bumble--could ever
find him there! He had often heard the old men in the workhouse, too,
say that no lad of spirit need want in London; and that there were ways
of living in that vast city, which those who had been bred up in
country parts had no idea of. It was the very place for a homeless
boy, who must die in the streets unless some one helped him. As these
things passed through his thoughts, he jumped upon his feet, and again
walked forward.

He had diminished the distance between himself and London by full four
miles more, before he recollected how much he must undergo ere he could
hope to reach his place of destination. As this consideration forced
itself upon him, he slackened his pace a little, and meditated upon his
means of getting there. He had a crust of bread, a coarse shirt, and
two pairs of stockings, in his bundle. He had a penny too--a gift of
Sowerberry's after some funeral in which he had acquitted himself more
than ordinarily well--in his pocket. 'A clean shirt,' thought Oliver,
'is a very comfortable thing; and so are two pairs of darned stockings;
and so is a penny; but they are small helps to a sixty-five miles' walk
in winter time.' But Oliver's thoughts, like those of most other
people, although they were extremely ready and active to point out his
difficulties, were wholly at a loss to suggest any feasible mode of
surmounting them; so, after a good deal of thinking to no particular
purpose, he changed his little bundle over to the other shoulder, and
trudged on.

Oliver walked twenty miles that day; and all that time tasted nothing
but the crust of dry bread, and a few draughts of water, which he
begged at the cottage-doors by the road-side. When the night came, he
turned into a meadow; and, creeping close under a hay-rick, determined
to lie there, till morning. He felt frightened at first, for the wind
moaned dismally over the empty fields: and he was cold and hungry, and
more alone than he had ever felt before. Being very tired with his
walk, however, he soon fell asleep and forgot his troubles.

He felt cold and stiff, when he got up next morning, and so hungry that
he was obliged to exchange the penny for a small loaf, in the very
first village through which he passed. He had walked no more than
twelve miles, when night closed in again. His feet were sore, and his
legs so weak that they trembled beneath him. Another night passed in
the bleak damp air, made him worse; when he set forward on his journey
next morning he could hardly crawl along.

He waited at the bottom of a steep hill till a stage-coach came up, and
then begged of the outside passengers; but there were very few who took
any notice of him: and even those told him to wait till they got to the
top of the hill, and then let them see how far he could run for a
halfpenny. Poor Oliver tried to keep up with the coach a little way,
but was unable to do it, by reason of his fatigue and sore feet. When
the outsides saw this, they put their halfpence back into their pockets
again, declaring that he was an idle young dog, and didn't deserve
anything; and the coach rattled away and left only a cloud of dust
behind.

In some villages, large painted boards were fixed up: warning all
persons who begged within the district, that they would be sent to
jail. This frightened Oliver very much, and made him glad to get out
of those villages with all possible expedition. In others, he would
stand about the inn-yards, and look mournfully at every one who passed:
a proceeding which generally terminated in the landlady's ordering one
of the post-boys who were lounging about, to drive that strange boy out
of the place, for she was sure he had come to steal something. If he
begged at a farmer's house, ten to one but they threatened to set the
dog on him; and when he showed his nose in a shop, they talked about
the beadle--which brought Oliver's heart into his mouth,--very often
the only thing he had there, for many hours together.

In fact, if it had not been for a good-hearted turnpike-man, and a
benevolent old lady, Oliver's troubles would have been shortened by the
very same process which had put an end to his mother's; in other words,
he would most assuredly have fallen dead upon the king's highway. But
the turnpike-man gave him a meal of bread and cheese; and the old lady,
who had a shipwrecked grandson wandering barefoot in some distant part
of the earth, took pity upon the poor orphan, and gave him what little
she could afford--and more--with such kind and gentle words, and such
tears of sympathy and compassion, that they sank deeper into Oliver's
soul, than all the sufferings he had ever undergone.

Early on the seventh morning after he had left his native place, Oliver
limped slowly into the little town of Barnet. The window-shutters were
closed; the street was empty; not a soul had awakened to the business
of the day. The sun was rising in all its splendid beauty; but the
light only served to show the boy his own lonesomeness and desolation,
as he sat, with bleeding feet and covered with dust, upon a door-step.

By degrees, the shutters were opened; the window-blinds were drawn up;
and people began passing to and fro. Some few stopped to gaze at
Oliver for a moment or two, or turned round to stare at him as they
hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubled themselves to inquire
how he came there. He had no heart to beg. And there he sat.

He had been crouching on the step for some time: wondering at the great
number of public-houses (every other house in Barnet was a tavern,
large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed
through, and thinking how strange it seemed that they could do, with
ease, in a few hours, what it had taken him a whole week of courage and
determination beyond his years to accomplish: when he was roused by
observing that a boy, who had passed him carelessly some minutes
before, had returned, and was now surveying him most earnestly from the
opposite side of the way. He took little heed of this at first; but
the boy remained in the same attitude of close observation so long,
that Oliver raised his head, and returned his steady look. Upon this,
the boy crossed over; and walking close up to Oliver, said,

'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?'

The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, was about his
own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that Oliver had even
seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and
as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all
the airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age: with rather
bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top
of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every
moment--and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a
knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which
brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man's coat, which
reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up
his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the
ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy
trousers; for there he kept them. He was, altogether, as roystering
and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or
something less, in the bluchers.

'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?' said this strange young gentleman
to Oliver.

'I am very hungry and tired,' replied Oliver: the tears standing in his
eyes as he spoke. 'I have walked a long way. I have been walking these
seven days.'

'Walking for sivin days!' said the young gentleman. 'Oh, I see. Beak's
order, eh? But,' he added, noticing Oliver's look of surprise, 'I
suppose you don't know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on.'

Oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird's mouth
described by the term in question.

'My eyes, how green!' exclaimed the young gentleman. 'Why, a beak's a
madgst'rate; and when you walk by a beak's order, it's not straight
forerd, but always agoing up, and niver a coming down agin. Was you
never on the mill?'

'What mill?' inquired Oliver.

'What mill! Why, _the_ mill--the mill as takes up so little room that
it'll work inside a Stone Jug; and always goes better when the wind's
low with people, than when it's high; acos then they can't get workmen.
But come,' said the young gentleman; 'you want grub, and you shall have
it. I'm at low-water-mark myself--only one bob and a magpie; but, as
far as it goes, I'll fork out and stump. Up with you on your pins.
There! Now then! 'Morrice!'

Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an adjacent
chandler's shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of ready-dressed ham
and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, 'a fourpenny
bran!' the ham being kept clean and preserved from dust, by the
ingenious expedient of making a hole in the loaf by pulling out a
portion of the crumb, and stuffing it therein. Taking the bread under
his arm, the young gentlman turned into a small public-house, and led
the way to a tap-room in the rear of the premises. Here, a pot of beer
was brought in, by direction of the mysterious youth; and Oliver,
falling to, at his new friend's bidding, made a long and hearty meal,
during the progress of which the strange boy eyed him from time to time
with great attention.

'Going to London?' said the strange boy, when Oliver had at length
concluded.

'Yes.'

'Got any lodgings?'

'No.'

'Money?'

'No.'

The strange boy whistled; and put his arms into his pockets, as far as
the big coat-sleeves would let them go.

'Do you live in London?' inquired Oliver.

'Yes. I do, when I'm at home,' replied the boy. 'I suppose you want
some place to sleep in to-night, don't you?'

'I do, indeed,' answered Oliver. 'I have not slept under a roof since I
left the country.'

'Don't fret your eyelids on that score,' said the young gentleman.
'I've got to be in London to-night; and I know a 'spectable old
gentleman as lives there, wot'll give you lodgings for nothink, and
never ask for the change--that is, if any genelman he knows interduces
you. And don't he know me? Oh, no! Not in the least! By no means.
Certainly not!'

The young gentleman smiled, as if to intimate that the latter fragments
of discourse were playfully ironical; and finished the beer as he did
so.

This unexpected offer of shelter was too tempting to be resisted;
especially as it was immediately followed up, by the assurance that the
old gentleman referred to, would doubtless provide Oliver with a
comfortable place, without loss of time. This led to a more friendly
and confidential dialogue; from which Oliver discovered that his
friend's name was Jack Dawkins, and that he was a peculiar pet and
protege of the elderly gentleman before mentioned.

Mr. Dawkin's appearance did not say a vast deal in favour of the
comforts which his patron's interest obtained for those whom he took
under his protection; but, as he had a rather flightly and dissolute
mode of conversing, and furthermore avowed that among his intimate
friends he was better known by the sobriquet of 'The Artful Dodger,'
Oliver concluded that, being of a dissipated and careless turn, the
moral precepts of his benefactor had hitherto been thrown away upon
him. Under this impression, he secretly resolved to cultivate the good
opinion of the old gentleman as quickly as possible; and, if he found
the Dodger incorrigible, as he more than half suspected he should, to
decline the honour of his farther acquaintance.

As John Dawkins objected to their entering London before nightfall, it
was nearly eleven o'clock when they reached the turnpike at Islington.
They crossed from the Angel into St. John's Road; struck down the small
street which terminates at Sadler's Wells Theatre; through Exmouth
Street and Coppice Row; down the little court by the side of the
workhouse; across the classic ground which once bore the name of
Hockley-in-the-Hole; thence into Little Saffron Hill; and so into
Saffron Hill the Great: along which the Dodger scudded at a rapid pace,
directing Oliver to follow close at his heels.

Although Oliver had enough to occupy his attention in keeping sight of
his leader, he could not help bestowing a few hasty glances on either
side of the way, as he passed along. A dirtier or more wretched place
he had never seen. The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air
was impregnated with filthy odours.

There were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade
appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of night, were
crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from the inside. The
sole places that seemed to prosper amid the general blight of the
place, were the public-houses; and in them, the lowest orders of Irish
were wrangling with might and main. Covered ways and yards, which here
and there diverged from the main street, disclosed little knots of
houses, where drunken men and women were positively wallowing in filth;
and from several of the door-ways, great ill-looking fellows were
cautiously emerging, bound, to all appearance, on no very well-disposed
or harmless errands.

Oliver was just considering whether he hadn't better run away, when
they reached the bottom of the hill. His conductor, catching him by
the arm, pushed open the door of a house near Field Lane; and drawing
him into the passage, closed it behind them.

'Now, then!' cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from the
Dodger.

'Plummy and slam!' was the reply.

This seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right; for the
light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the remote end of the
passage; and a man's face peeped out, from where a balustrade of the
old kitchen staircase had been broken away.

'There's two on you,' said the man, thrusting the candle farther out,
and shielding his eyes with his hand. 'Who's the t'other one?'

'A new pal,' replied Jack Dawkins, pulling Oliver forward.

'Where did he come from?'

'Greenland. Is Fagin upstairs?'

'Yes, he's a sortin' the wipes. Up with you!' The candle was drawn
back, and the face disappeared.

Oliver, groping his way with one hand, and having the other firmly
grasped by his companion, ascended with much difficulty the dark and
broken stairs: which his conductor mounted with an ease and expedition
that showed he was well acquainted with them.

He threw open the door of a back-room, and drew Oliver in after him.

The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and
dirt. There was a deal table before the fire: upon which were a
candle, stuck in a ginger-beer bottle, two or three pewter pots, a loaf
and butter, and a plate. In a frying-pan, which was on the fire, and
which was secured to the mantelshelf by a string, some sausages were
cooking; and standing over them, with a toasting-fork in his hand, was
a very old shrivelled Jew, whose villainous-looking and repulsive face
was obscured by a quantity of matted red hair. He was dressed in a
greasy flannel gown, with his throat bare; and seemed to be dividing
his attention between the frying-pan and the clothes-horse, over which
a great number of silk handkerchiefs were hanging. Several rough beds
made of old sacks, were huddled side by side on the floor. Seated round
the table were four or five boys, none older than the Dodger, smoking
long clay pipes, and drinking spirits with the air of middle-aged men.
These all crowded about their associate as he whispered a few words to
the Jew; and then turned round and grinned at Oliver. So did the Jew
himself, toasting-fork in hand.

'This is him, Fagin,' said Jack Dawkins;'my friend Oliver Twist.'

The Jew grinned; and, making a low obeisance to Oliver, took him by the
hand, and hoped he should have the honour of his intimate acquaintance.
Upon this, the young gentleman with the pipes came round him, and shook
both his hands very hard--especially the one in which he held his
little bundle. One young gentleman was very anxious to hang up his cap
for him; and another was so obliging as to put his hands in his
pockets, in order that, as he was very tired, he might not have the
trouble of emptying them, himself, when he went to bed. These
civilities would probably be extended much farther, but for a liberal
exercise of the Jew's toasting-fork on the heads and shoulders of the
affectionate youths who offered them.

'We are very glad to see you, Oliver, very,' said the Jew. 'Dodger,
take off the sausages; and draw a tub near the fire for Oliver. Ah,
you're a-staring at the pocket-handkerchiefs! eh, my dear. There are a
good many of 'em, ain't there? We've just looked 'em out, ready for the
wash; that's all, Oliver; that's all. Ha! ha! ha!'

The latter part of this speech, was hailed by a boisterous shout from
all the hopeful pupils of the merry old gentleman. In the midst of
which they went to supper.

Oliver ate his share, and the Jew then mixed him a glass of hot
gin-and-water: telling him he must drink it off directly, because
another gentleman wanted the tumbler. Oliver did as he was desired.
Immediately afterwards he felt himself gently lifted on to one of the
sacks; and then he sunk into a deep sleep.



CHAPTER IX

CONTAINING FURTHER PARTICULARS CONCERNING THE PLEASANT OLD GENTLEMAN,
AND HIS HOPEFUL PUPILS

It was late next morning when Oliver awoke, from a sound, long sleep.
There was no other person in the room but the old Jew, who was boiling
some coffee in a saucepan for breakfast, and whistling softly to
himself as he stirred it round and round, with an iron spoon. He would
stop every now and then to listen when there was the least noise below:
and when he had satisfied himself, he would go on whistling and
stirring again, as before.

Although Oliver had roused himself from sleep, he was not thoroughly
awake. There is a drowsy state, between sleeping and waking, when you
dream more in five minutes with your eyes half open, and yourself half
conscious of everything that is passing around you, than you would in
five nights with your eyes fast closed, and your senses wrapt in
perfect unconsciousness. At such time, a mortal knows just enough of
what his mind is doing, to form some glimmering conception of its
mighty powers, its bounding from earth and spurning time and space,
when freed from the restraint of its corporeal associate.

Oliver was precisely in this condition. He saw the Jew with his
half-closed eyes; heard his low whistling; and recognised the sound of
the spoon grating against the saucepan's sides: and yet the self-same
senses were mentally engaged, at the same time, in busy action with
almost everybody he had ever known.

When the coffee was done, the Jew drew the saucepan to the hob.
Standing, then in an irresolute attitude for a few minutes, as if he
did not well know how to employ himself, he turned round and looked at
Oliver, and called him by his name. He did not answer, and was to all
appearances asleep.

After satisfying himself upon this head, the Jew stepped gently to the
door: which he fastened. He then drew forth: as it seemed to Oliver,
from some trap in the floor: a small box, which he placed carefully on
the table. His eyes glistened as he raised the lid, and looked in.
Dragging an old chair to the table, he sat down; and took from it a
magnificent gold watch, sparkling with jewels.

'Aha!' said the Jew, shrugging up his shoulders, and distorting every
feature with a hideous grin. 'Clever dogs! Clever dogs! Staunch to the
last! Never told the old parson where they were. Never poached upon old
Fagin! And why should they? It wouldn't have loosened the knot, or kept
the drop up, a minute longer. No, no, no! Fine fellows! Fine fellows!'

With these, and other muttered reflections of the like nature, the Jew
once more deposited the watch in its place of safety. At least half a
dozen more were severally drawn forth from the same box, and surveyed
with equal pleasure; besides rings, brooches, bracelets, and other
articles of jewellery, of such magnificent materials, and costly
workmanship, that Oliver had no idea, even of their names.

Having replaced these trinkets, the Jew took out another: so small that
it lay in the palm of his hand. There seemed to be some very minute
inscription on it; for the Jew laid it flat upon the table, and shading
it with his hand, pored over it, long and earnestly. At length he put
it down, as if despairing of success; and, leaning back in his chair,
muttered:

'What a fine thing capital punishment is! Dead men never repent; dead
men never bring awkward stories to light. Ah, it's a fine thing for the
trade! Five of 'em strung up in a row, and none left to play booty, or
turn white-livered!'

As the Jew uttered these words, his bright dark eyes, which had been
staring vacantly before him, fell on Oliver's face; the boy's eyes were
fixed on his in mute curiousity; and although the recognition was only
for an instant--for the briefest space of time that can possibly be
conceived--it was enough to show the old man that he had been observed.

He closed the lid of the box with a loud crash; and, laying his hand on
a bread knife which was on the table, started furiously up. He trembled
very much though; for, even in his terror, Oliver could see that the
knife quivered in the air.

'What's that?' said the Jew. 'What do you watch me for? Why are you
awake? What have you seen? Speak out, boy! Quick--quick! for your life.

'I wasn't able to sleep any longer, sir,' replied Oliver, meekly. 'I am
very sorry if I have disturbed you, sir.'

'You were not awake an hour ago?' said the Jew, scowling fiercely on
the boy.

'No! No, indeed!' replied Oliver.

'Are you sure?' cried the Jew: with a still fiercer look than before:
and a threatening attitude.

'Upon my word I was not, sir,' replied Oliver, earnestly. 'I was not,
indeed, sir.'

'Tush, tush, my dear!' said the Jew, abruptly resuming his old manner,
and playing with the knife a little, before he laid it down; as if to
induce the belief that he had caught it up, in mere sport. 'Of course I
know that, my dear. I only tried to frighten you. You're a brave boy.
Ha! ha! you're a brave boy, Oliver.' The Jew rubbed his hands with a
chuckle, but glanced uneasily at the box, notwithstanding.

'Did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?' said the Jew, laying
his hand upon it after a short pause.

'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver.

'Ah!' said the Jew, turning rather pale. 'They--they're mine, Oliver;
my little property. All I have to live upon, in my old age. The folks
call me a miser, my dear. Only a miser; that's all.'

Oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in
such a dirty place, with so many watches; but, thinking that perhaps
his fondness for the Dodger and the other boys, cost him a good deal of
money, he only cast a deferential look at the Jew, and asked if he
might get up.

'Certainly, my dear, certainly,' replied the old gentleman. 'Stay.
There's a pitcher of water in the corner by the door. Bring it here;
and I'll give you a basin to wash in, my dear.'

Oliver got up; walked across the room; and stooped for an instant to
raise the pitcher. When he turned his head, the box was gone.

He had scarcely washed himself, and made everything tidy, by emptying
the basin out of the window, agreeably to the Jew's directions, when
the Dodger returned: accompanied by a very sprightly young friend, whom
Oliver had seen smoking on the previous night, and who was now formally
introduced to him as Charley Bates. The four sat down, to breakfast, on
the coffee, and some hot rolls and ham which the Dodger had brought
home in the crown of his hat.

'Well,' said the Jew, glancing slyly at Oliver, and addressing himself
to the Dodger, 'I hope you've been at work this morning, my dears?'

'Hard,' replied the Dodger.

'As nails,' added Charley Bates.

'Good boys, good boys!' said the Jew. 'What have you got, Dodger?'

'A couple of pocket-books,' replied that young gentlman.

'Lined?' inquired the Jew, with eagerness.

'Pretty well,' replied the Dodger, producing two pocket-books; one
green, and the other red.

'Not so heavy as they might be,' said the Jew, after looking at the
insides carefully; 'but very neat and nicely made. Ingenious workman,
ain't he, Oliver?'

'Very indeed, sir,' said Oliver. At which Mr. Charles Bates laughed
uproariously; very much to the amazement of Oliver, who saw nothing to
laugh at, in anything that had passed.

'And what have you got, my dear?' said Fagin to Charley Bates.

'Wipes,' replied Master Bates; at the same time producing four
pocket-handkerchiefs.

'Well,' said the Jew, inspecting them closely; 'they're very good ones,
very. You haven't marked them well, though, Charley; so the marks shall
be picked out with a needle, and we'll teach Oliver how to do it. Shall
us, Oliver, eh? Ha! ha! ha!'

'If you please, sir,' said Oliver.

'You'd like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as Charley
Bates, wouldn't you, my dear?' said the Jew.

'Very much, indeed, if you'll teach me, sir,' replied Oliver.

Master Bates saw something so exquisitely ludicrous in this reply, that
he burst into another laugh; which laugh, meeting the coffee he was
drinking, and carrying it down some wrong channel, very nearly
terminated in his premature suffocation.

'He is so jolly green!' said Charley when he recovered, as an apology
to the company for his unpolite behaviour.

The Dodger said nothing, but he smoothed Oliver's hair over his eyes,
and said he'd know better, by and by; upon which the old gentleman,
observing Oliver's colour mounting, changed the subject by asking
whether there had been much of a crowd at the execution that morning?
This made him wonder more and more; for it was plain from the replies
of the two boys that they had both been there; and Oliver naturally
wondered how they could possibly have found time to be so very
industrious.

When the breakfast was cleared away; the merry old gentlman and the two
boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in
this way. The merry old gentleman, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of
his trousers, a note-case in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat
pocket, with a guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a mock diamond
pin in his shirt: buttoned his coat tight round him, and putting his
spectacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, trotted up and down the
room with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen
walk about the streets any hour in the day. Sometimes he stopped at
the fire-place, and sometimes at the door, making believe that he was
staring with all his might into shop-windows. At such times, he would
look constantly round him, for fear of thieves, and would keep slapping
all his pockets in turn, to see that he hadn't lost anything, in such a
very funny and natural manner, that Oliver laughed till the tears ran
down his face. All this time, the two boys followed him closely about:
getting out of his sight, so nimbly, every time he turned round, that
it was impossible to follow their motions. At last, the Dodger trod
upon his toes, or ran upon his boot accidently, while Charley Bates
stumbled up against him behind; and in that one moment they took from
him, with the most extraordinary rapidity, snuff-box, note-case,
watch-guard, chain, shirt-pin, pocket-handkerchief, even the
spectacle-case. If the old gentlman felt a hand in any one of his
pockets, he cried out where it was; and then the game began all over
again.

When this game had been played a great many times, a couple of young
ladies called to see the young gentleman; one of whom was named Bet,
and the other Nancy. They wore a good deal of hair, not very neatly
turned up behind, and were rather untidy about the shoes and stockings.
They were not exactly pretty, perhaps; but they had a great deal of
colour in their faces, and looked quite stout and hearty. Being
remarkably free and agreeable in their manners, Oliver thought them
very nice girls indeed. As there is no doubt they were.

The visitors stopped a long time. Spirits were produced, in consequence
of one of the young ladies complaining of a coldness in her inside; and
the conversation took a very convivial and improving turn. At length,
Charley Bates expressed his opinion that it was time to pad the hoof.
This, it occurred to Oliver, must be French for going out; for directly
afterwards, the Dodger, and Charley, and the two young ladies, went
away together, having been kindly furnished by the amiable old Jew with
money to spend.

'There, my dear,' said Fagin. 'That's a pleasant life, isn't it? They
have gone out for the day.'

'Have they done work, sir?' inquired Oliver.

'Yes,' said the Jew; 'that is, unless they should unexpectedly come
across any, when they are out; and they won't neglect it, if they do,
my dear, depend upon it. Make 'em your models, my dear. Make 'em your
models,' tapping the fire-shovel on the hearth to add force to his
words; 'do everything they bid you, and take their advice in all
matters--especially the Dodger's, my dear. He'll be a great man
himself, and will make you one too, if you take pattern by him.--Is my
handkerchief hanging out of my pocket, my dear?' said the Jew, stopping
short.

'Yes, sir,' said Oliver.

'See if you can take it out, without my feeling it; as you saw them do,
when we were at play this morning.'

Oliver held up the bottom of the pocket with one hand, as he had seen
the Dodger hold it, and drew the handkerchief lightly out of it with
the other.

'Is it gone?' cried the Jew.

'Here it is, sir,' said Oliver, showing it in his hand.

'You're a clever boy, my dear,' said the playful old gentleman, patting
Oliver on the head approvingly. 'I never saw a sharper lad. Here's a
shilling for you. If you go on, in this way, you'll be the greatest man
of the time. And now come here, and I'll show you how to take the marks
out of the handkerchiefs.'

Oliver wondered what picking the old gentleman's pocket in play, had to
do with his chances of being a great man. But, thinking that the Jew,
being so much his senior, must know best, he followed him quietly to
the table, and was soon deeply involved in his new study.



CHAPTER X

OLIVER BECOMES BETTER ACQUAINTED WITH THE CHARACTERS OF HIS NEW
ASSOCIATES; AND PURCHASES EXPERIENCE AT A HIGH PRICE. BEING A SHORT,
BUT VERY IMPORTANT CHAPTER, IN THIS HISTORY

For many days, Oliver remained in the Jew's room, picking the marks out
of the pocket-handkerchief, (of which a great number were brought
home,) and sometimes taking part in the game already described: which
the two boys and the Jew played, regularly, every morning. At length,
he began to languish for fresh air, and took many occasions of
earnestly entreating the old gentleman to allow him to go out to work
with his two companions.

Oliver was rendered the more anxious to be actively employed, by what
he had seen of the stern morality of the old gentleman's character.
Whenever the Dodger or Charley Bates came home at night, empty-handed,
he would expatiate with great vehemence on the misery of idle and lazy
habits; and would enforce upon them the necessity of an active life, by
sending them supperless to bed. On one occasion, indeed, he even went
so far as to knock them both down a flight of stairs; but this was
carrying out his virtuous precepts to an unusual extent.

At length, one morning, Oliver obtained the permission he had so
eagerly sought. There had been no handkerchiefs to work upon, for two
or three days, and the dinners had been rather meagre. Perhaps these
were reasons for the old gentleman's giving his assent; but, whether
they were or no, he told Oliver he might go, and placed him under the
joint guardianship of Charley Bates, and his friend the Dodger.

The three boys sallied out; the Dodger with his coat-sleeves tucked up,
and his hat cocked, as usual; Master Bates sauntering along with his
hands in his pockets; and Oliver between them, wondering where they
were going, and what branch of manufacture he would be instructed in,
first.

The pace at which they went, was such a very lazy, ill-looking saunter,
that Oliver soon began to think his companions were going to deceive
the old gentleman, by not going to work at all. The Dodger had a
vicious propensity, too, of pulling the caps from the heads of small
boys and tossing them down areas; while Charley Bates exhibited some
very loose notions concerning the rights of property, by pilfering
divers apples and onions from the stalls at the kennel sides, and
thrusting them into pockets which were so surprisingly capacious, that
they seemed to undermine his whole suit of clothes in every direction.
These things looked so bad, that Oliver was on the point of declaring
his intention of seeking his way back, in the best way he could; when
his thoughts were suddenly directed into another channel, by a very
mysterious change of behaviour on the part of the Dodger.

They were just emerging from a narrow court not far from the open
square in Clerkenwell, which is yet called, by some strange perversion
of terms, 'The Green': when the Dodger made a sudden stop; and, laying
his finger on his lip, drew his companions back again, with the
greatest caution and circumspection.

'What's the matter?' demanded Oliver.

'Hush!' replied the Dodger. 'Do you see that old cove at the
book-stall?'

'The old gentleman over the way?' said Oliver. 'Yes, I see him.'

'He'll do,' said the Doger.

'A prime plant,' observed Master Charley Bates.

Oliver looked from one to the other, with the greatest surprise; but he
was not permitted to make any inquiries; for the two boys walked
stealthily across the road, and slunk close behind the old gentleman
towards whom his attention had been directed. Oliver walked a few paces
after them; and, not knowing whether to advance or retire, stood
looking on in silent amazement.

The old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a
powdered head and gold spectacles. He was dressed in a bottle-green
coat with a black velvet collar; wore white trousers; and carried a
smart bamboo cane under his arm. He had taken up a book from the stall,
and there he stood, reading away, as hard as if he were in his
elbow-chair, in his own study. It is very possible that he fancied
himself there, indeed; for it was plain, from his abstraction, that he
saw not the book-stall, nor the street, nor the boys, nor, in short,
anything but the book itself: which he was reading straight through:
turning over the leaf when he got to the bottom of a page, beginning at
the top line of the next one, and going regularly on, with the greatest
interest and eagerness.

What was Oliver's horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking
on with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the
Dodger plunge his hand into the old gentleman's pocket, and draw from
thence a handkerchief! To see him hand the same to Charley Bates; and
finally to behold them, both running away round the corner at full
speed!

In an instant the whole mystery of the hankerchiefs, and the watches,
and the jewels, and the Jew, rushed upon the boy's mind.

He stood, for a moment, with the blood so tingling through all his
veins from terror, that he felt as if he were in a burning fire; then,
confused and frightened, he took to his heels; and, not knowing what he
did, made off as fast as he could lay his feet to the ground.

This was all done in a minute's space. In the very instant when Oliver
began to run, the old gentleman, putting his hand to his pocket, and
missing his handkerchief, turned sharp round. Seeing the boy scudding
away at such a rapid pace, he very naturally concluded him to be the
depredator; and shouting 'Stop thief!' with all his might, made off
after him, book in hand.

But the old gentleman was not the only person who raised the
hue-and-cry. The Dodger and Master Bates, unwilling to attract public
attention by running down the open street, had merely retired into the
very first doorway round the corner. They no sooner heard the cry, and
saw Oliver running, than, guessing exactly how the matter stood, they
issued forth with great promptitude; and, shouting 'Stop thief!' too,
joined in the pursuit like good citizens.

Although Oliver had been brought up by philosophers, he was not
theoretically acquainted with the beautiful axiom that
self-preservation is the first law of nature. If he had been, perhaps
he would have been prepared for this. Not being prepared, however, it
alarmed him the more; so away he went like the wind, with the old
gentleman and the two boys roaring and shouting behind him.

'Stop thief! Stop thief!' There is a magic in the sound. The tradesman
leaves his counter, and the car-man his waggon; the butcher throws down
his tray; the baker his basket; the milkman his pail; the errand-boy
his parcels; the school-boy his marbles; the paviour his pickaxe; the
child his battledore. Away they run, pell-mell, helter-skelter,
slap-dash: tearing, yelling, screaming, knocking down the passengers as
they turn the corners, rousing up the dogs, and astonishing the fowls:
and streets, squares, and courts, re-echo with the sound.

'Stop thief! Stop thief!' The cry is taken up by a hundred voices, and
the crowd accumulate at every turning. Away they fly, splashing through
the mud, and rattling along the pavements: up go the windows, out run
the people, onward bear the mob, a whole audience desert Punch in the
very thickest of the plot, and, joining the rushing throng, swell the
shout, and lend fresh vigour to the cry, 'Stop thief! Stop thief!'

'Stop thief! Stop thief!' There is a passion FOR _hunting_ _something_
deeply implanted in the human breast. One wretched breathless child,
panting with exhaustion; terror in his looks; agony in his eyes; large
drops of perspiration streaming down his face; strains every nerve to
make head upon his pursuers; and as they follow on his track, and gain
upon him every instant, they hail his decreasing strength with joy.
'Stop thief!' Ay, stop him for God's sake, were it only in mercy!

Stopped at last! A clever blow. He is down upon the pavement; and the
crowd eagerly gather round him: each new comer, jostling and
struggling with the others to catch a glimpse. 'Stand aside!' 'Give
him a little air!' 'Nonsense! he don't deserve it.' 'Where's the
gentleman?' 'Here his is, coming down the street.' 'Make room there
for the gentleman!' 'Is this the boy, sir!' 'Yes.'

Oliver lay, covered with mud and dust, and bleeding from the mouth,
looking wildly round upon the heap of faces that surrounded him, when
the old gentleman was officiously dragged and pushed into the circle by
the foremost of the pursuers.

'Yes,' said the gentleman, 'I am afraid it is the boy.'

'Afraid!' murmured the crowd. 'That's a good 'un!'

'Poor fellow!' said the gentleman, 'he has hurt himself.'

'_I_ did that, sir,' said a great lubberly fellow, stepping forward;
'and preciously I cut my knuckle agin' his mouth. I stopped him, sir.'

The follow touched his hat with a grin, expecting something for his
pains; but, the old gentleman, eyeing him with an expression of
dislike, look anxiously round, as if he contemplated running away
himself: which it is very possible he might have attempted to do, and
thus have afforded another chase, had not a police officer (who is
generally the last person to arrive in such cases) at that moment made
his way through the crowd, and seized Oliver by the collar.

'Come, get up,' said the man, roughly.

'It wasn't me indeed, sir. Indeed, indeed, it was two other boys,'
said Oliver, clasping his hands passionately, and looking round. 'They
are here somewhere.'

'Oh no, they ain't,' said the officer. He meant this to be ironical,
but it was true besides; for the Dodger and Charley Bates had filed off
down the first convenient court they came to.

'Come, get up!'

'Don't hurt him,' said the old gentleman, compassionately.

'Oh no, I won't hurt him,' replied the officer, tearing his jacket half
off his back, in proof thereof. 'Come, I know you; it won't do. Will
you stand upon your legs, you young devil?'

Oliver, who could hardly stand, made a shift to raise himself on his
feet, and was at once lugged along the streets by the jacket-collar, at
a rapid pace. The gentleman walked on with them by the officer's side;
and as many of the crowd as could achieve the feat, got a little ahead,
and stared back at Oliver from time to time. The boys shouted in
triumph; and on they went.



CHAPTER XI

TREATS OF MR. FANG THE POLICE MAGISTRATE; AND FURNISHES A SLIGHT
SPECIMEN OF HIS MODE OF ADMINISTERING JUSTICE

The offence had been committed within the district, and indeed in the
immediate neighborhood of, a very notorious metropolitan police office.
The crowd had only the satisfaction of accompanying Oliver through two
or three streets, and down a place called Mutton Hill, when he was led
beneath a low archway, and up a dirty court, into this dispensary of
summary justice, by the back way. It was a small paved yard into which
they turned; and here they encountered a stout man with a bunch of
whiskers on his face, and a bunch of keys in his hand.

'What's the matter now?' said the man carelessly.

'A young fogle-hunter,' replied the man who had Oliver in charge.

'Are you the party that's been robbed, sir?' inquired the man with the
keys.

'Yes, I am,' replied the old gentleman; 'but I am not sure that this
boy actually took the handkerchief. I--I would rather not press the
case.'

'Must go before the magistrate now, sir,' replied the man. 'His worship
will be disengaged in half a minute. Now, young gallows!'

This was an invitation for Oliver to enter through a door which he
unlocked as he spoke, and which led into a stone cell. Here he was
searched; and nothing being found upon him, locked up.

This cell was in shape and size something like an area cellar, only not
so light. It was most intolerably dirty; for it was Monday morning;
and it had been tenanted by six drunken people, who had been locked up,
elsewhere, since Saturday night. But this is little. In our
station-houses, men and women are every night confined on the most
trivial charges--the word is worth noting--in dungeons, compared with
which, those in Newgate, occupied by the most atrocious felons, tried,
found guilty, and under sentence of death, are palaces. Let any one who
doubts this, compare the two.

The old gentleman looked almost as rueful as Oliver when the key grated
in the lock. He turned with a sigh to the book, which had been the
innocent cause of all this disturbance.

'There is something in that boy's face,' said the old gentleman to
himself as he walked slowly away, tapping his chin with the cover of
the book, in a thoughtful manner; 'something that touches and interests
me. _Can_ he be innocent? He looked like--Bye the bye,' exclaimed the
old gentleman, halting very abruptly, and staring up into the sky,
'Bless my soul!--where have I seen something like that look before?'

After musing for some minutes, the old gentleman walked, with the same
meditative face, into a back anteroom opening from the yard; and there,
retiring into a corner, called up before his mind's eye a vast
amphitheatre of faces over which a dusky curtain had hung for many
years. 'No,' said the old gentleman, shaking his head; 'it must be
imagination.

He wandered over them again. He had called them into view, and it was
not easy to replace the shroud that had so long concealed them. There
were the faces of friends, and foes, and of many that had been almost
strangers peering intrusively from the crowd; there were the faces of
young and blooming girls that were now old women; there were faces that
the grave had changed and closed upon, but which the mind, superior to
its power, still dressed in their old freshness and beauty, calling
back the lustre of the eyes, the brightness of the smile, the beaming
of the soul through its mask of clay, and whispering of beauty beyond
the tomb, changed but to be heightened, and taken from earth only to be
set up as a light, to shed a soft and gentle glow upon the path to
Heaven.

But the old gentleman could recall no one countenance of which Oliver's
features bore a trace. So, he heaved a sigh over the recollections he
awakened; and being, happily for himself, an absent old gentleman,
buried them again in the pages of the musty book.

He was roused by a touch on the shoulder, and a request from the man
with the keys to follow him into the office. He closed his book
hastily; and was at once ushered into the imposing presence of the
renowned Mr. Fang.

The office was a front parlour, with a panelled wall. Mr. Fang sat
behind a bar, at the upper end; and on one side the door was a sort of
wooden pen in which poor little Oliver was already deposited; trembling
very much at the awfulness of the scene.

Mr. Fang was a lean, long-backed, stiff-necked, middle-sized man, with
no great quantity of hair, and what he had, growing on the back and
sides of his head. His face was stern, and much flushed. If he were
really not in the habit of drinking rather more than was exactly good
for him, he might have brought action against his countenance for
libel, and have recovered heavy damages.

The old gentleman bowed respectfully; and advancing to the magistrate's
desk, said, suiting the action to the word, 'That is my name and
address, sir.' He then withdrew a pace or two; and, with another
polite and gentlemanly inclination of the head, waited to be questioned.

Now, it so happened that Mr. Fang was at that moment perusing a leading
article in a newspaper of the morning, adverting to some recent
decision of his, and commending him, for the three hundred and fiftieth
time, to the special and particular notice of the Secretary of State
for the Home Department. He was out of temper; and he looked up with
an angry scowl.

'Who are you?' said Mr. Fang.

The old gentleman pointed, with some surprise, to his card.

'Officer!' said Mr. Fang, tossing the card contemptuously away with the
newspaper. 'Who is this fellow?'

'My name, sir,' said the old gentleman, speaking _like_ a gentleman,
'my name, sir, is Brownlow. Permit me to inquire the name of the
magistrate who offers a gratuitous and unprovoked insult to a
respectable person, under the protection of the bench.' Saying this,
Mr. Brownlow looked around the office as if in search of some person
who would afford him the required information.

'Officer!' said Mr. Fang, throwing the paper on one side, 'what's this
fellow charged with?'

'He's not charged at all, your worship,' replied the officer. 'He
appears against this boy, your worship.'

His worship knew this perfectly well; but it was a good annoyance, and
a safe one.

'Appears against the boy, does he?' said Mr. Fang, surveying Mr.
Brownlow contemptuously from head to foot. 'Swear him!'

'Before I am sworn, I must beg to say one word,' said Mr. Brownlow;
'and that is, that I really never, without actual experience, could
have believed--'

'Hold your tongue, sir!' said Mr. Fang, peremptorily.

'I will not, sir!' replied the old gentleman.

'Hold your tongue this instant, or I'll have you turned out of the
office!' said Mr. Fang. 'You're an insolent impertinent fellow. How
dare you bully a magistrate!'

'What!' exclaimed the old gentleman, reddening.

'Swear this person!' said Fang to the clerk. 'I'll not hear another
word. Swear him.'

Mr. Brownlow's indignation was greatly roused; but reflecting perhaps,
that he might only injure the boy by giving vent to it, he suppressed
his feelings and submitted to be sworn at once.

'Now,' said Fang, 'what's the charge against this boy? What have you
got to say, sir?'

'I was standing at a bookstall--' Mr. Brownlow began.

'Hold your tongue, sir,' said Mr. Fang. 'Policeman! Where's the
policeman? Here, swear this policeman. Now, policeman, what is this?'

The policeman, with becoming humility, related how he had taken the
charge; how he had searched Oliver, and found nothing on his person;
and how that was all he knew about it.

'Are there any witnesses?' inquired Mr. Fang.

'None, your worship,' replied the policeman.

Mr. Fang sat silent for some minutes, and then, turning round to the
prosecutor, said in a towering passion.

'Do you mean to state what your complaint against this boy is, man, or
do you not? You have been sworn. Now, if you stand there, refusing to
give evidence, I'll punish you for disrespect to the bench; I will,
by--'

By what, or by whom, nobody knows, for the clerk and jailor coughed
very loud, just at the right moment; and the former dropped a heavy
book upon the floor, thus preventing the word from being
heard--accidently, of course.

With many interruptions, and repeated insults, Mr. Brownlow contrived
to state his case; observing that, in the surprise of the moment, he
had run after the boy because he had saw him running away; and
expressing his hope that, if the magistrate should believe him,
although not actually the thief, to be connected with the thieves, he
would deal as leniently with him as justice would allow.

'He has been hurt already,' said the old gentleman in conclusion. 'And
I fear,' he added, with great energy, looking towards the bar, 'I
really fear that he is ill.'

'Oh! yes, I dare say!' said Mr. Fang, with a sneer. 'Come, none of
your tricks here, you young vagabond; they won't do. What's your name?'

Oliver tried to reply but his tongue failed him. He was deadly pale;
and the whole place seemed turning round and round.

'What's your name, you hardened scoundrel?' demanded Mr. Fang.
'Officer, what's his name?'

This was addressed to a bluff old fellow, in a striped waistcoat, who
was standing by the bar. He bent over Oliver, and repeated the
inquiry; but finding him really incapable of understanding the
question; and knowing that his not replying would only infuriate the
magistrate the more, and add to the severity of his sentence; he
hazarded a guess.

'He says his name's Tom White, your worship,' said the kind-hearted
thief-taker.

'Oh, he won't speak out, won't he?' said Fang. 'Very well, very well.
Where does he live?'

'Where he can, your worship,' replied the officer; again pretending to
receive Oliver's answer.

'Has he any parents?' inquired Mr. Fang.

'He says they died in his infancy, your worship,' replied the officer:
hazarding the usual reply.

At this point of the inquiry, Oliver raised his head; and, looking
round with imploring eyes, murmured a feeble prayer for a draught of
water.

'Stuff and nonsense!' said Mr. Fang: 'don't try to make a fool of me.'

'I think he really is ill, your worship,' remonstrated the officer.

'I know better,' said Mr. Fang.

'Take care of him, officer,' said the old gentleman, raising his hands
instinctively; 'he'll fall down.'

'Stand away, officer,' cried Fang; 'let him, if he likes.'

Oliver availed himself of the kind permission, and fell to the floor in
a fainting fit. The men in the office looked at each other, but no one
dared to stir.

'I knew he was shamming,' said Fang, as if this were incontestable
proof of the fact. 'Let him lie there; he'll soon be tired of that.'

'How do you propose to deal with the case, sir?' inquired the clerk in
a low voice.

'Summarily,' replied Mr. Fang. 'He stands committed for three
months--hard labour of course. Clear the office.'

The door was opened for this purpose, and a couple of men were
preparing to carry the insensible boy to his cell; when an elderly man
of decent but poor appearance, clad in an old suit of black, rushed
hastily into the office, and advanced towards the bench.

'Stop, stop! don't take him away! For Heaven's sake stop a moment!'
cried the new comer, breathless with haste.

Although the presiding Genii in such an office as this, exercise a
summary and arbitrary power over the liberties, the good name, the
character, almost the lives, of Her Majesty's subjects, expecially of
the poorer class; and although, within such walls, enough fantastic
tricks are daily played to make the angels blind with weeping; they are
closed to the public, save through the medium of the daily
press.[Footnote: Or were virtually, then.] Mr. Fang was consequently
not a little indignant to see an unbidden guest enter in such
irreverent disorder.

'What is this? Who is this? Turn this man out. Clear the office!'
cried Mr. Fang.

'I _will_ speak,' cried the man; 'I will not be turned out. I saw it
all. I keep the book-stall. I demand to be sworn. I will not be put
down. Mr. Fang, you must hear me. You must not refuse, sir.'

The man was right. His manner was determined; and the matter was
growing rather too serious to be hushed up.

'Swear the man,' growled Mr. Fang, with a very ill grace. 'Now, man,
what have you got to say?'

'This,' said the man: 'I saw three boys: two others and the prisoner
here: loitering on the opposite side of the way, when this gentleman
was reading. The robbery was committed by another boy. I saw it done;
and I saw that this boy was perfectly amazed and stupified by it.'
Having by this time recovered a little breath, the worthy book-stall
keeper proceeded to relate, in a more coherent manner the exact
circumstances of the robbery.

'Why didn't you come here before?' said Fang, after a pause.

'I hadn't a soul to mind the shop,' replied the man. 'Everybody who
could have helped me, had joined in the pursuit. I could get nobody
till five minutes ago; and I've run here all the way.'

'The prosecutor was reading, was he?' inquired Fang, after another
pause.

'Yes,' replied the man. 'The very book he has in his hand.'

'Oh, that book, eh?' said Fang. 'Is it paid for?'

'No, it is not,' replied the man, with a smile.

'Dear me, I forgot all about it!' exclaimed the absent old gentleman,
innocently.

'A nice person to prefer a charge against a poor boy!' said Fang, with
a comical effort to look humane. 'I consider, sir, that you have
obtained possession of that book, under very suspicious and
disreputable circumstances; and you may think yourself very fortunate
that the owner of the property declines to prosecute. Let this be a
lesson to you, my man, or the law will overtake you yet. The boy is
discharged. Clear the office!'

'D--n me!' cried the old gentleman, bursting out with the rage he had
kept down so long, 'd--n me! I'll--'

'Clear the office!' said the magistrate. 'Officers, do you hear? Clear
the office!'

The mandate was obeyed; and the indignant Mr. Brownlow was conveyed
out, with the book in one hand, and the bamboo cane in the other: in a
perfect phrenzy of rage and defiance. He reached the yard; and his
passion vanished in a moment. Little Oliver Twist lay on his back on
the pavement, with his shirt unbuttoned, and his temples bathed with
water; his face a deadly white; and a cold tremble convulsing his whole
frame.

'Poor boy, poor boy!' said Mr. Brownlow, bending over him. 'Call a
coach, somebody, pray. Directly!'

A coach was obtained, and Oliver having been carefully laid on the
seat, the old gentleman got in and sat himself on the other.

'May I accompany you?' said the book-stall keeper, looking in.

'Bless me, yes, my dear sir,' said Mr. Brownlow quickly. 'I forgot
you. Dear, dear! I have this unhappy book still! Jump in. Poor
fellow! There's no time to lose.'

The book-stall keeper got into the coach; and away they drove.



CHAPTER XII

IN WHICH OLIVER IS TAKEN BETTER CARE OF THAN HE EVER WAS BEFORE. AND IN
WHICH THE NARRATIVE REVERTS TO THE MERRY OLD GENTLEMAN AND HIS YOUTHFUL
FRIENDS.

The coach rattled away, over nearly the same ground as that which
Oliver had traversed when he first entered London in company with the
Dodger; and, turning a different way when it reached the Angel at
Islington, stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady
street near Pentonville. Here, a bed was prepared, without loss of
time, in which Mr. Brownlow saw his young charge carefully and
comfortably deposited; and here, he was tended with a kindness and
solicitude that knew no bounds.

But, for many days, Oliver remained insensible to all the goodness of
his new friends. The sun rose and sank, and rose and sank again, and
many times after that; and still the boy lay stretched on his uneasy
bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever. The
worm does not work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow
creeping fire upon the living frame.

Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have
been a long and troubled dream. Feebly raising himself in the bed,
with his head resting on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously around.

'What room is this? Where have I been brought to?' said Oliver. 'This
is not the place I went to sleep in.'

He uttered these words in a feeble voice, being very faint and weak;
but they were overheard at once. The curtain at the bed's head was
hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely
dressed, rose as she undrew it, from an arm-chair close by, in which
she had been sitting at needle-work.

'Hush, my dear,' said the old lady softly. 'You must be very quiet, or
you will be ill again; and you have been very bad,--as bad as bad could
be, pretty nigh. Lie down again; there's a dear!' With those words,
the old lady very gently placed Oliver's head upon the pillow; and,
smoothing back his hair from his forehead, looked so kindly and loving
in his face, that he could not help placing his little withered hand in
hers, and drawing it round his neck.

'Save us!' said the old lady, with tears in her eyes. 'What a grateful
little dear it is. Pretty creetur! What would his mother feel if she
had sat by him as I have, and could see him now!'

'Perhaps she does see me,' whispered Oliver, folding his hands
together; 'perhaps she has sat by me. I almost feel as if she had.'

'That was the fever, my dear,' said the old lady mildly.

'I suppose it was,' replied Oliver, 'because heaven is a long way off;
and they are too happy there, to come down to the bedside of a poor
boy. But if she knew I was ill, she must have pitied me, even there;
for she was very ill herself before she died. She can't know anything
about me though,' added Oliver after a moment's silence. 'If she had
seen me hurt, it would have made her sorrowful; and her face has always
looked sweet and happy, when I have dreamed of her.'

The old lady made no reply to this; but wiping her eyes first, and her
spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were
part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for Oliver
to drink; and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very
quiet, or he would be ill again.

So, Oliver kept very still; partly because he was anxious to obey the
kind old lady in all things; and partly, to tell the truth, because he
was completely exhausted with what he had already said. He soon fell
into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a
candle: which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with
a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his
pulse, and said he was a great deal better.

'You _are_ a great deal better, are you not, my dear?' said the
gentleman.

'Yes, thank you, sir,' replied Oliver.

'Yes, I know you are,' said the gentleman: 'You're hungry too, an't
you?'

'No, sir,' answered Oliver.

'Hem!' said the gentleman. 'No, I know you're not. He is not hungry,
Mrs. Bedwin,' said the gentleman: looking very wise.

The old lady made a respectful inclination of the head, which seemed to
say that she thought the doctor was a very clever man. The doctor
appeared much of the same opinion himself.

'You feel sleepy, don't you, my dear?' said the doctor.

'No, sir,' replied Oliver.

'No,' said the doctor, with a very shrewd and satisfied look. 'You're
not sleepy. Nor thirsty. Are you?'

'Yes, sir, rather thirsty,' answered Oliver.

'Just as I expected, Mrs. Bedwin,' said the doctor. 'It's very natural
that he should be thirsty. You may give him a little tea, ma'am, and
some dry toast without any butter. Don't keep him too warm, ma'am; but
be careful that you don't let him be too cold; will you have the
goodness?'

The old lady dropped a curtsey. The doctor, after tasting the cool
stuff, and expressing a qualified approval of it, hurried away: his
boots creaking in a very important and wealthy manner as he went
downstairs.

Oliver dozed off again, soon after this; when he awoke, it was nearly
twelve o'clock. The old lady tenderly bade him good-night shortly
afterwards, and left him in charge of a fat old woman who had just
come: bringing with her, in a little bundle, a small Prayer Book and a
large nightcap. Putting the latter on her head and the former on the
table, the old woman, after telling Oliver that she had come to sit up
with him, drew her chair close to the fire and went off into a series
of short naps, chequered at frequent intervals with sundry tumblings
forward, and divers moans and chokings. These, however, had no worse
effect than causing her to rub her nose very hard, and then fall asleep
again.

And thus the night crept slowly on. Oliver lay awake for some time,
counting the little circles of light which the reflection of the
rushlight-shade threw upon the ceiling; or tracing with his languid
eyes the intricate pattern of the paper on the wall. The darkness and
the deep stillness of the room were very solemn; as they brought into
the boy's mind the thought that death had been hovering there, for many
days and nights, and might yet fill it with the gloom and dread of his
awful presence, he turned his face upon the pillow, and fervently
prayed to Heaven.

Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent
suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain
to wake from. Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all
the struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present;
its anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of
the past!

It had been bright day, for hours, when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt
cheerful and happy. The crisis of the disease was safely past. He
belonged to the world again.

In three days' time he was able to sit in an easy-chair, well propped
up with pillows; and, as he was still too weak to walk, Mrs. Bedwin had
him carried downstairs into the little housekeeper's room, which
belonged to her. Having him set, here, by the fire-side, the good old
lady sat herself down too; and, being in a state of considerable
delight at seeing him so much better, forthwith began to cry most
violently.

'Never mind me, my dear,' said the old lady; 'I'm only having a regular
good cry. There; it's all over now; and I'm quite comfortable.'

'You're very, very kind to me, ma'am,' said Oliver.

'Well, never you mind that, my dear,' said the old lady; 'that's got
nothing to do with your broth; and it's full time you had it; for the
doctor says Mr. Brownlow may come in to see you this morning; and we
must get up our best looks, because the better we look, the more he'll
be pleased.' And with this, the old lady applied herself to warming
up, in a little saucepan, a basin full of broth: strong enough, Oliver
thought, to furnish an ample dinner, when reduced to the regulation
strength, for three hundred and fifty paupers, at the lowest
computation.

'Are you fond of pictures, dear?' inquired the old lady, seeing that
Oliver had fixed his eyes, most intently, on a portrait which hung
against the wall; just opposite his chair.

'I don't quite know, ma'am,' said Oliver, without taking his eyes from
the canvas; 'I have seen so few that I hardly know. What a beautiful,
mild face that lady's is!'

'Ah!' said the old lady, 'painters always make ladies out prettier than
they are, or they wouldn't get any custom, child. The man that invented
the machine for taking likenesses might have known that would never
succeed; it's a deal too honest. A deal,' said the old lady, laughing
very heartily at her own acuteness.

'Is--is that a likeness, ma'am?' said Oliver.

'Yes,' said the old lady, looking up for a moment from the broth;
'that's a portrait.'

'Whose, ma'am?' asked Oliver.

'Why, really, my dear, I don't know,' answered the old lady in a
good-humoured manner. 'It's not a likeness of anybody that you or I
know, I expect. It seems to strike your fancy, dear.'

'It is so pretty,' replied Oliver.

'Why, sure you're not afraid of it?' said the old lady: observing in
great surprise, the look of awe with which the child regarded the
painting.

'Oh no, no,' returned Oliver quickly; 'but the eyes look so sorrowful;
and where I sit, they seem fixed upon me. It makes my heart beat,'
added Oliver in a low voice, 'as if it was alive, and wanted to speak
to me, but couldn't.'

'Lord save us!' exclaimed the old lady, starting; 'don't talk in that
way, child. You're weak and nervous after your illness. Let me wheel
your chair round to the other side; and then you won't see it. There!'
said the old lady, suiting the action to the word; 'you don't see it
now, at all events.'

Oliver _did_ see it in his mind's eye as distinctly as if he had not
altered his position; but he thought it better not to worry the kind
old lady; so he smiled gently when she looked at him; and Mrs. Bedwin,
satisfied that he felt more comfortable, salted and broke bits of
toasted bread into the broth, with all the bustle befitting so solemn a
preparation. Oliver got through it with extraordinary expedition. He
had scarcely swallowed the last spoonful, when there came a soft rap at
the door. 'Come in,' said the old lady; and in walked Mr. Brownlow.

Now, the old gentleman came in as brisk as need be; but, he had no
sooner raised his spectacles on his forehead, and thrust his hands
behind the skirts of his dressing-gown to take a good long look at
Oliver, than his countenance underwent a very great variety of odd
contortions. Oliver looked very worn and shadowy from sickness, and
made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out of respect to his
benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the chair again;
and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that Mr. Brownlow's heart,
being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane
disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes, by some hydraulic
process which we are not sufficiently philosophical to be in a
condition to explain.

'Poor boy, poor boy!' said Mr. Brownlow, clearing his throat. 'I'm
rather hoarse this morning, Mrs. Bedwin. I'm afraid I have caught
cold.'

'I hope not, sir,' said Mrs. Bedwin. 'Everything you have had, has
been well aired, sir.'

'I don't know, Bedwin. I don't know,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'I rather
think I had a damp napkin at dinner-time yesterday; but never mind
that. How do you feel, my dear?'

'Very happy, sir,' replied Oliver. 'And very grateful indeed, sir, for
your goodness to me.'

'Good by,' said Mr. Brownlow, stoutly. 'Have you given him any
nourishment, Bedwin? Any slops, eh?'

'He has just had a basin of beautiful strong broth, sir,' replied Mrs.
Bedwin: drawing herself up slightly, and laying strong emphasis on the
last word: to intimate that between slops, and broth will compounded,
there existed no affinity or connection whatsoever.

'Ugh!' said Mr. Brownlow, with a slight shudder; 'a couple of glasses
of port wine would have done him a great deal more good. Wouldn't they,
Tom White, eh?'

'My name is Oliver, sir,' replied the little invalid: with a look of
great astonishment.

'Oliver,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'Oliver what? Oliver White, eh?'

'No, sir, Twist, Oliver Twist.'

'Queer name!' said the old gentleman. 'What made you tell the
magistrate your name was White?'

'I never told him so, sir,' returned Oliver in amazement.

This sounded so like a falsehood, that the old gentleman looked
somewhat sternly in Oliver's face. It was impossible to doubt him;
there was truth in every one of its thin and sharpened lineaments.

'Some mistake,' said Mr. Brownlow. But, although his motive for
looking steadily at Oliver no longer existed, the old idea of the
resemblance between his features and some familiar face came upon him
so strongly, that he could not withdraw his gaze.

'I hope you are not angry with me, sir?' said Oliver, raising his eyes
beseechingly.

'No, no,' replied the old gentleman. 'Why! what's this? Bedwin, look
there!'

As he spoke, he pointed hastily to the picture over Oliver's head, and
then to the boy's face. There was its living copy. The eyes, the head,
the mouth; every feature was the same. The expression was, for the
instant, so precisely alike, that the minutest line seemed copied with
startling accuracy!

Oliver knew not the cause of this sudden exclamation; for, not being
strong enough to bear the start it gave him, he fainted away. A
weakness on his part, which affords the narrative an opportunity of
relieving the reader from suspense, in behalf of the two young pupils
of the Merry Old Gentleman; and of recording--

That when the Dodger, and his accomplished friend Master Bates, joined
in the hue-and-cry which was raised at Oliver's heels, in consequence
of their executing an illegal conveyance of Mr. Brownlow's personal
property, as has been already described, they were actuated by a very
laudable and becoming regard for themselves; and forasmuch as the
freedom of the subject and the liberty of the individual are among the
first and proudest boasts of a true-hearted Englishman, so, I need
hardly beg the reader to observe, that this action should tend to exalt
them in the opinion of all public and patriotic men, in almost as great
a degree as this strong proof of their anxiety for their own
preservation and safety goes to corroborate and confirm the little code
of laws which certain profound and sound-judging philosophers have laid
down as the main-springs of all Nature's deeds and actions: the said
philosophers very wisely reducing the good lady's proceedings to
matters of maxim and theory: and, by a very neat and pretty compliment
to her exalted wisdom and understanding, putting entirely out of sight
any considerations of heart, or generous impulse and feeling. For,
these are matters totally beneath a female who is acknowledged by
universal admission to be far above the numerous little foibles and
weaknesses of her sex.

If I wanted any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of
the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate
predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a
foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when
the general attention was fixed upon Oliver; and making immediately for
their home by the shortest possible cut. Although I do not mean to
assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages,
to shorten the road to any great conclusion (their course indeed being
rather to lengthen the distance, by various circumlocutions and
discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the
pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas, are prone to indulge); still, I
do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable
practice of many mighty philosophers, in carrying out their theories,
to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every
possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect
themselves. Thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and
you may take any means which the end to be attained, will justify; the
amount of the right, or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the
distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher
concerned, to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive,
and impartial view of his own particular case.

It was not until the two boys had scoured, with great rapidity, through
a most intricate maze of narrow streets and courts, that they ventured
to halt beneath a low and dark archway. Having remained silent here,
just long enough to recover breath to speak, Master Bates uttered an
exclamation of amusement and delight; and, bursting into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter, flung himself upon a doorstep, and
rolled thereon in a transport of mirth.

'What's the matter?' inquired the Dodger.

'Ha! ha! ha!' roared Charley Bates.

'Hold your noise,' remonstrated the Dodger, looking cautiously round.
'Do you want to be grabbed, stupid?'

'I can't help it,' said Charley, 'I can't help it! To see him
splitting away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and
knocking up again' the posts, and starting on again as if he was made
of iron as well as them, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out
arter him--oh, my eye!' The vivid imagination of Master Bates presented
the scene before him in too strong colours. As he arrived at this
apostrophe, he again rolled upon the door-step, and laughed louder than
before.

'What'll Fagin say?' inquired the Dodger; taking advantage of the next
interval of breathlessness on the part of his friend to propound the
question.

'What?' repeated Charley Bates.

'Ah, what?' said the Dodger.

'Why, what should he say?' inquired Charley: stopping rather suddenly
in his merriment; for the Dodger's manner was impressive. 'What should
he say?'

Mr. Dawkins whistled for a couple of minutes; then, taking off his hat,
scratched his head, and nodded thrice.

'What do you mean?' said Charley.

'Toor rul lol loo, gammon and spinnage, the frog he wouldn't, and high
cockolorum,' said the Dodger: with a slight sneer on his intellectual
countenance.

This was explanatory, but not satisfactory. Master Bates felt it so;
and again said, 'What do you mean?'

The Dodger made no reply; but putting his hat on again, and gathering
the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arm, thrust his tongue
into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-dozen times in
a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on his heel, slunk down
the court. Master Bates followed, with a thoughtful countenance.

The noise of footsteps on the creaking stairs, a few minutes after the
occurrence of this conversation, roused the merry old gentleman as he
sat over the fire with a saveloy and a small loaf in his hand; a
pocket-knife in his right; and a pewter pot on the trivet. There was a
rascally smile on his white face as he turned round, and looking
sharply out from under his thick red eyebrows, bent his ear towards the
door, and listened.

'Why, how's this?' muttered the Jew: changing countenance; 'only two
of 'em? Where's the third? They can't have got into trouble. Hark!'

The footsteps approached nearer; they reached the landing. The door was
slowly opened; and the Dodger and Charley Bates entered, closing it
behind them.



CHAPTER XIII

SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES ARE INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT READER,
CONNECTED WITH WHOM VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS ARE RELATED, APPERTAINING
TO THIS HISTORY

'Where's Oliver?' said the Jew, rising with a menacing look. 'Where's
the boy?'

The young thieves eyed their preceptor as if they were alarmed at his
violence; and looked uneasily at each other. But they made no reply.

'What's become of the boy?' said the Jew, seizing the Dodger tightly by
the collar, and threatening him with horrid imprecations. 'Speak out,
or I'll throttle you!'

Mr. Fagin looked so very much in earnest, that Charley Bates, who
deemed it prudent in all cases to be on the safe side, and who
conceived it by no means improbable that it might be his turn to be
throttled second, dropped upon his knees, and raised a loud,
well-sustained, and continuous roar--something between a mad bull and a
speaking trumpet.

'Will you speak?' thundered the Jew: shaking the Dodger so much that
his keeping in the big coat at all, seemed perfectly miraculous.

'Why, the traps have got him, and that's all about it,' said the
Dodger, sullenly. 'Come, let go o' me, will you!' And, swinging
himself, at one jerk, clean out of the big coat, which he left in the
Jew's hands, the Dodger snatched up the toasting fork, and made a pass
at the merry old gentleman's waistcoat; which, if it had taken effect,
would have let a little more merriment out than could have been easily
replaced.

The Jew stepped back in this emergency, with more agility than could
have been anticipated in a man of his apparent decrepitude; and,
seizing up the pot, prepared to hurl it at his assailant's head. But
Charley Bates, at this moment, calling his attention by a perfectly
terrific howl, he suddenly altered its destination, and flung it full
at that young gentleman.

'Why, what the blazes is in the wind now!' growled a deep voice. 'Who
pitched that 'ere at me? It's well it's the beer, and not the pot, as
hit me, or I'd have settled somebody. I might have know'd, as nobody
but an infernal, rich, plundering, thundering old Jew could afford to
throw away any drink but water--and not that, unless he done the River
Company every quarter. Wot's it all about, Fagin? D--me, if my
neck-handkercher an't lined with beer! Come in, you sneaking warmint;
wot are you stopping outside for, as if you was ashamed of your master!
Come in!'

The man who growled out these words, was a stoutly-built fellow of
about five-and-thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled drab
breeches, lace-up half boots, and grey cotton stockings which inclosed
a bulky pair of legs, with large swelling calves;--the kind of legs,
which in such costume, always look in an unfinished and incomplete
state without a set of fetters to garnish them. He had a brown hat on
his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck: with the
long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he
spoke. He disclosed, when he had done so, a broad heavy countenance
with a beard of three days' growth, and two scowling eyes; one of which
displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of having been recently
damaged by a blow.

'Come in, d'ye hear?' growled this engaging ruffian.

A white shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in twenty
different places, skulked into the room.

'Why didn't you come in afore?' said the man. 'You're getting too
proud to own me afore company, are you? Lie down!'

This command was accompanied with a kick, which sent the animal to the
other end of the room. He appeared well used to it, however; for he
coiled himself up in a corner very quietly, without uttering a sound,
and winking his very ill-looking eyes twenty times in a minute,
appeared to occupy himself in taking a survey of the apartment.

'What are you up to? Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious,
in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?' said the man, seating himself deliberately.
'I wonder they don't murder you! I would if I was them. If I'd been
your 'prentice, I'd have done it long ago, and--no, I couldn't have
sold you afterwards, for you're fit for nothing but keeping as a
curiousity of ugliness in a glass bottle, and I suppose they don't blow
glass bottles large enough.'

'Hush! hush! Mr. Sikes,' said the Jew, trembling; 'don't speak so loud!'

'None of your mistering,' replied the ruffian; 'you always mean
mischief when you come that. You know my name: out with it! I shan't
disgrace it when the time comes.'

'Well, well, then--Bill Sikes,' said the Jew, with abject humility.
'You seem out of humour, Bill.'

'Perhaps I am,' replied Sikes; 'I should think you was rather out of
sorts too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw pewter pots
about, as you do when you blab and--'

'Are you mad?' said the Jew, catching the man by the sleeve, and
pointing towards the boys.

Mr. Sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left
ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb
show which the Jew appeared to understand perfectly. He then, in cant
terms, with which his whole conversation was plentifully besprinkled,
but which would be quite unintelligible if they were recorded here,
demanded a glass of liquor.

'And mind you don't poison it,' said Mr. Sikes, laying his hat upon the
table.

This was said in jest; but if the speaker could have seen the evil leer
with which the Jew bit his pale lip as he turned round to the cupboard,
he might have thought the caution not wholly unnecessary, or the wish
(at all events) to improve upon the distiller's ingenuity not very far
from the old gentleman's merry heart.

After swallowing two of three glasses of spirits, Mr. Sikes
condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen; which gracious
act led to a conversation, in which the cause and manner of Oliver's
capture were circumstantially detailed, with such alterations and
improvements on the truth, as to the Dodger appeared most advisable
under the circumstances.

'I'm afraid,' said the Jew, 'that he may say something which will get
us into trouble.'

'That's very likely,' returned Sikes with a malicious grin. 'You're
blowed upon, Fagin.'

'And I'm afraid, you see,' added the Jew, speaking as if he had not
noticed the interruption; and regarding the other closely as he did
so,--'I'm afraid that, if the game was up with us, it might be up with
a good many more, and that it would come out rather worse for you than
it would for me, my dear.'

The man started, and turned round upon the Jew. But the old
gentleman's shoulders were shrugged up to his ears; and his eyes were
vacantly staring on the opposite wall.

There was a long pause. Every member of the respectable coterie
appeared plunged in his own reflections; not excepting the dog, who by
a certain malicious licking of his lips seemed to be meditating an
attack upon the legs of the first gentleman or lady he might encounter
in the streets when he went out.

'Somebody must find out wot's been done at the office,' said Mr. Sikes
in a much lower tone than he had taken since he came in.

The Jew nodded assent.

'If he hasn't peached, and is committed, there's no fear till he comes
out again,' said Mr. Sikes, 'and then he must be taken care on. You
must get hold of him somehow.'

Again the Jew nodded.

The prudence of this line of action, indeed, was obvious; but,
unfortunately, there was one very strong objection to its being
adopted. This was, that the Dodger, and Charley Bates, and Fagin, and
Mr. William Sikes, happened, one and all, to entertain a violent and
deeply-rooted antipathy to going near a police-office on any ground or
pretext whatever.

How long they might have sat and looked at each other, in a state of
uncertainty not the most pleasant of its kind, it is difficult to
guess. It is not necessary to make any guesses on the subject,
however; for the sudden entrance of the two young ladies whom Oliver
had seen on a former occasion, caused the conversation to flow afresh.

'The very thing!' said the Jew. 'Bet will go; won't you, my dear?'

'Wheres?' inquired the young lady.

'Only just up to the office, my dear,' said the Jew coaxingly.

It is due to the young lady to say that she did not positively affirm
that she would not, but that she merely expressed an emphatic and
earnest desire to be 'blessed' if she would; a polite and delicate
evasion of the request, which shows the young lady to have been
possessed of that natural good breeding which cannot bear to inflict
upon a fellow-creature, the pain of a direct and pointed refusal.

The Jew's countenance fell. He turned from this young lady, who was
gaily, not to say gorgeously attired, in a red gown, green boots, and
yellow curl-papers, to the other female.

'Nancy, my dear,' said the Jew in a soothing manner, 'what do YOU say?'

'That it won't do; so it's no use a-trying it on, Fagin,' replied Nancy.

'What do you mean by that?' said Mr. Sikes, looking up in a surly
manner.

'What I say, Bill,' replied the lady collectedly.

'Why, you're just the very person for it,' reasoned Mr. Sikes: 'nobody
about here knows anything of you.'

'And as I don't want 'em to, neither,' replied Nancy in the same
composed manner, 'it's rather more no than yes with me, Bill.'

'She'll go, Fagin,' said Sikes.

'No, she won't, Fagin,' said Nancy.

'Yes, she will, Fagin,' said Sikes.

And Mr. Sikes was right. By dint of alternate threats, promises, and
bribes, the lady in question was ultimately prevailed upon to undertake
the commission. She was not, indeed, withheld by the same
considerations as her agreeable friend; for, having recently removed
into the neighborhood of Field Lane from the remote but genteel suburb
of Ratcliffe, she was not under the same apprehension of being
recognised by any of her numerous acquaintances.

Accordingly, with a clean white apron tied over her gown, and her
curl-papers tucked up under a straw bonnet,--both articles of dress
being provided from the Jew's inexhaustible stock,--Miss Nancy prepared
to issue forth on her errand.

'Stop a minute, my dear,' said the Jew, producing, a little covered
basket. 'Carry that in one hand. It looks more respectable, my dear.'

'Give her a door-key to carry in her t'other one, Fagin,' said Sikes;
'it looks real and genivine like.'

'Yes, yes, my dear, so it does,' said the Jew, hanging a large
street-door key on the forefinger of the young lady's right hand.

'There; very good! Very good indeed, my dear!' said the Jew, rubbing
his hands.

'Oh, my brother! My poor, dear, sweet, innocent little brother!'
exclaimed Nancy, bursting into tears, and wringing the little basket
and the street-door key in an agony of distress. 'What has become of
him! Where have they taken him to! Oh, do have pity, and tell me
what's been done with the dear boy, gentlemen; do, gentlemen, if you
please, gentlemen!'

Having uttered those words in a most lamentable and heart-broken tone:
to the immeasurable delight of her hearers: Miss Nancy paused, winked
to the company, nodded smilingly round, and disappeared.

'Ah, she's a clever girl, my dears,' said the Jew, turning round to his
young friends, and shaking his head gravely, as if in mute admonition
to them to follow the bright example they had just beheld.

'She's a honour to her sex,' said Mr. Sikes, filling his glass, and
smiting the table with his enormous fist. 'Here's her health, and
wishing they was all like her!'

While these, and many other encomiums, were being passed on the
accomplished Nancy, that young lady made the best of her way to the
police-office; whither, notwithstanding a little natural timidity
consequent upon walking through the streets alone and unprotected, she
arrived in perfect safety shortly afterwards.

Entering by the back way, she tapped softly with the key at one of the
cell-doors, and listened. There was no sound within: so she coughed
and listened again. Still there was no reply: so she spoke.

'Nolly, dear?' murmured Nancy in a gentle voice; 'Nolly?'

There was nobody inside but a miserable shoeless criminal, who had been
taken up for playing the flute, and who, the offence against society
having been clearly proved, had been very properly committed by Mr.
Fang to the House of Correction for one month; with the appropriate and
amusing remark that since he had so much breath to spare, it would be
more wholesomely expended on the treadmill than in a musical
instrument. He made no answer: being occupied mentally bewailing the
loss of the flute, which had been confiscated for the use of the
county: so Nancy passed on to the next cell, and knocked there.

'Well!' cried a faint and feeble voice.

'Is there a little boy here?' inquired Nancy, with a preliminary sob.

'No,' replied the voice; 'God forbid.'

This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for _not_
playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and
doing nothing for his livelihood. In the next cell was another man,
who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without
license; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the
Stamp-office.

But, as neither of these criminals answered to the name of Oliver, or
knew anything about him, Nancy made straight up to the bluff officer in
the striped waistcoat; and with the most piteous wailings and
lamentations, rendered more piteous by a prompt and efficient use of
the street-door key and the little basket, demanded her own dear
brother.

'I haven't got him, my dear,' said the old man.

'Where is he?' screamed Nancy, in a distracted manner.

'Why, the gentleman's got him,' replied the officer.

'What gentleman! Oh, gracious heavens! What gentleman?' exclaimed
Nancy.

In reply to this incoherent questioning, the old man informed the
deeply affected sister that Oliver had been taken ill in the office,
and discharged in consequence of a witness having proved the robbery to
have been committed by another boy, not in custody; and that the
prosecutor had carried him away, in an insensible condition, to his own
residence: of and concerning which, all the informant knew was, that
it was somewhere in Pentonville, he having heard that word mentioned in
the directions to the coachman.

In a dreadful state of doubt and uncertainty, the agonised young woman
staggered to the gate, and then, exchanging her faltering walk for a
swift run, returned by the most devious and complicated route she could
think of, to the domicile of the Jew.

Mr. Bill Sikes no sooner heard the account of the expedition delivered,
than he very hastily called up the white dog, and, putting on his hat,
expeditiously departed: without devoting any time to the formality of
wishing the company good-morning.

'We must know where he is, my dears; he must be found,' said the Jew
greatly excited. 'Charley, do nothing but skulk about, till you bring
home some news of him! Nancy, my dear, I must have him found. I trust
to you, my dear,--to you and the Artful for everything! Stay, stay,'
added the Jew, unlocking a drawer with a shaking hand; 'there's money,
my dears. I shall shut up this shop to-night. You'll know where to
find me! Don't stop here a minute. Not an instant, my dears!'

With these words, he pushed them from the room: and carefully
double-locking and barring the door behind them, drew from its place of
concealment the box which he had unintentionally disclosed to Oliver.
Then, he hastily proceeded to dispose the watches and jewellery beneath
his clothing.

A rap at the door startled him in this occupation. 'Who's there?' he
cried in a shrill tone.

'Me!' replied the voice of the Dodger, through the key-hole.

'What now?' cried the Jew impatiently.

'Is he to be kidnapped to the other ken, Nancy says?' inquired the
Dodger.

'Yes,' replied the Jew, 'wherever she lays hands on him. Find him,
find him out, that's all. I shall know what to do next; never fear.'

The boy murmured a reply of intelligence: and hurried downstairs after
his companions.

'He has not peached so far,' said the Jew as he pursued his occupation.
'If he means to blab us among his new friends, we may stop his mouth
yet.'



CHAPTER XIV

COMPRISING FURTHER PARTICULARS OF OLIVER'S STAY AT MR. BROWNLOW'S, WITH
THE REMARKABLE PREDICTION WHICH ONE MR. GRIMWIG UTTERED CONCERNING HIM,
WHEN HE WENT OUT ON AN ERRAND

Oliver soon recovering from the fainting-fit into which Mr. Brownlow's
abrupt exclamation had thrown him, the subject of the picture was
carefully avoided, both by the old gentleman and Mrs. Bedwin, in the
conversation that ensued: which indeed bore no reference to Oliver's
history or prospects, but was confined to such topics as might amuse
without exciting him. He was still too weak to get up to breakfast;
but, when he came down into the housekeeper's room next day, his first
act was to cast an eager glance at the wall, in the hope of again
looking on the face of the beautiful lady. His expectations were
disappointed, however, for the picture had been removed.

'Ah!' said the housekeeper, watching the direction of Oliver's eyes.
'It is gone, you see.'

'I see it is ma'am,' replied Oliver. 'Why have they taken it away?'

'It has been taken down, child, because Mr. Brownlow said, that as it
seemed to worry you, perhaps it might prevent your getting well, you
know,' rejoined the old lady.

'Oh, no, indeed. It didn't worry me, ma'am,' said Oliver. 'I liked to
see it. I quite loved it.'

'Well, well!' said the old lady, good-humouredly; 'you get well as fast
as ever you can, dear, and it shall be hung up again. There! I promise
you that! Now, let us talk about something else.'

This was all the information Oliver could obtain about the picture at
that time. As the old lady had been so kind to him in his illness, he
endeavoured to think no more of the subject just then; so he listened
attentively to a great many stories she told him, about an amiable and
handsome daughter of hers, who was married to an amiable and handsome
man, and lived in the country; and about a son, who was clerk to a
merchant in the West Indies; and who was, also, such a good young man,
and wrote such dutiful letters home four times a-year, that it brought
the tears into her eyes to talk about them. When the old lady had
expatiated, a long time, on the excellences of her children, and the
merits of her kind good husband besides, who had been dead and gone,
poor dear soul! just six-and-twenty years, it was time to have tea.
After tea she began to teach Oliver cribbage: which he learnt as
quickly as she could teach: and at which game they played, with great
interest and gravity, until it was time for the invalid to have some
warm wine and water, with a slice of dry toast, and then to go cosily
to bed.

They were happy days, those of Oliver's recovery. Everything was so
quiet, and neat, and orderly; everybody so kind and gentle; that after
the noise and turbulence in the midst of which he had always lived, it
seemed like Heaven itself. He was no sooner strong enough to put his
clothes on, properly, than Mr. Brownlow caused a complete new suit, and
a new cap, and a new pair of shoes, to be provided for him. As Oliver
was told that he might do what he liked with the old clothes, he gave
them to a servant who had been very kind to him, and asked her to sell
them to a Jew, and keep the money for herself. This she very readily
did; and, as Oliver looked out of the parlour window, and saw the Jew
roll them up in his bag and walk away, he felt quite delighted to think
that they were safely gone, and that there was now no possible danger
of his ever being able to wear them again. They were sad rags, to tell
the truth; and Oliver had never had a new suit before.

One evening, about a week after the affair of the picture, as he was
sitting talking to Mrs. Bedwin, there came a message down from Mr.
Brownlow, that if Oliver Twist felt pretty well, he should like to see
him in his study, and talk to him a little while.

'Bless us, and save us! Wash your hands, and let me part your hair
nicely for you, child,' said Mrs. Bedwin. 'Dear heart alive! If we
had known he would have asked for you, we would have put you a clean
collar on, and made you as smart as sixpence!'

Oliver did as the old lady bade him; and, although she lamented
grievously, meanwhile, that there was not even time to crimp the little
frill that bordered his shirt-collar; he looked so delicate and
handsome, despite that important personal advantage, that she went so
far as to say: looking at him with great complacency from head to
foot, that she really didn't think it would have been possible, on the
longest notice, to have made much difference in him for the better.

Thus encouraged, Oliver tapped at the study door. On Mr. Brownlow
calling to him to come in, he found himself in a little back room,
quite full of books, with a window, looking into some pleasant little
gardens. There was a table drawn up before the window, at which Mr.
Brownlow was seated reading. When he saw Oliver, he pushed the book
away from him, and told him to come near the table, and sit down.
Oliver complied; marvelling where the people could be found to read
such a great number of books as seemed to be written to make the world
wiser. Which is still a marvel to more experienced people than Oliver
Twist, every day of their lives.

'There are a good many books, are there not, my boy?' said Mr.
Brownlow, observing the curiosity with which Oliver surveyed the
shelves that reached from the floor to the ceiling.

'A great number, sir,' replied Oliver. 'I never saw so many.'

'You shall read them, if you behave well,' said the old gentleman
kindly; 'and you will like that, better than looking at the
outsides,--that is, some cases; because there are books of which the
backs and covers are by far the best parts.'

'I suppose they are those heavy ones, sir,' said Oliver, pointing to
some large quartos, with a good deal of gilding about the binding.

'Not always those,' said the old gentleman, patting Oliver on the head,
and smiling as he did so; 'there are other equally heavy ones, though
of a much smaller size. How should you like to grow up a clever man,
and write books, eh?'

'I think I would rather read them, sir,' replied Oliver.

'What! wouldn't you like to be a book-writer?' said the old gentleman.

Oliver considered a little while; and at last said, he should think it
would be a much better thing to be a book-seller; upon which the old
gentleman laughed heartily, and declared he had said a very good thing.
Which Oliver felt glad to have done, though he by no means knew what it
was.

'Well, well,' said the old gentleman, composing his features. 'Don't be
afraid! We won't make an author of you, while there's an honest trade
to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Oliver. At the earnest manner of his reply, the
old gentleman laughed again; and said something about a curious
instinct, which Oliver, not understanding, paid no very great attention
to.

'Now,' said Mr. Brownlow, speaking if possible in a kinder, but at the
same time in a much more serious manner, than Oliver had ever known him
assume yet, 'I want you to pay great attention, my boy, to what I am
going to say. I shall talk to you without any reserve; because I am
sure you are well able to understand me, as many older persons would
be.'

'Oh, don't tell you are going to send me away, sir, pray!' exclaimed
Oliver, alarmed at the serious tone of the old gentleman's
commencement! 'Don't turn me out of doors to wander in the streets
again. Let me stay here, and be a servant. Don't send me back to the
wretched place I came from. Have mercy upon a poor boy, sir!'

'My dear child,' said the old gentleman, moved by the warmth of
Oliver's sudden appeal; 'you need not be afraid of my deserting you,
unless you give me cause.'

'I never, never will, sir,' interposed Oliver.

'I hope not,' rejoined the old gentleman. 'I do not think you ever
will. I have been deceived, before, in the objects whom I have
endeavoured to benefit; but I feel strongly disposed to trust you,
nevertheless; and I am more interested in your behalf than I can well
account for, even to myself. The persons on whom I have bestowed my
dearest love, lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and
delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my
heart, and sealed it up, forever, on my best affections. Deep
affliction has but strengthened and refined them.'

As the old gentleman said this in a low voice: more to himself than to
his companion: and as he remained silent for a short time afterwards:
Oliver sat quite still.

'Well, well!' said the old gentleman at length, in a more cheerful
tone, 'I only say this, because you have a young heart; and knowing
that I have suffered great pain and sorrow, you will be more careful,
perhaps, not to wound me again. You say you are an orphan, without a
friend in the world; all the inquiries I have been able to make,
confirm the statement. Let me hear your story; where you come from;
who brought you up; and how you got into the company in which I found
you. Speak the truth, and you shall not be friendless while I live.'

Oliver's sobs checked his utterance for some minutes; when he was on
the point of beginning to relate how he had been brought up at the
farm, and carried to the workhouse by Mr. Bumble, a peculiarly
impatient little double-knock was heard at the street-door: and the
servant, running upstairs, announced Mr. Grimwig.

'Is he coming up?' inquired Mr. Brownlow.

'Yes, sir,' replied the servant. 'He asked if there were any muffins
in the house; and, when I told him yes, he said he had come to tea.'

Mr. Brownlow smiled; and, turning to Oliver, said that Mr. Grimwig was
an old friend of his, and he must not mind his being a little rough in
his manners; for he was a worthy creature at bottom, as he had reason
to know.

'Shall I go downstairs, sir?' inquired Oliver.

'No,' replied Mr. Brownlow, 'I would rather you remained here.'

At this moment, there walked into the room: supporting himself by a
thick stick: a stout old gentleman, rather lame in one leg, who was
dressed in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, nankeen breeches and
gaiters, and a broad-brimmed white hat, with the sides turned up with
green. A very small-plaited shirt frill stuck out from his waistcoat;
and a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing but a key at the end,
dangled loosely below it. The ends of his white neckerchief were
twisted into a ball about the size of an orange; the variety of shapes
into which his countenance was twisted, defy description. He had a
manner of screwing his head on one side when he spoke; and of looking
out of the corners of his eyes at the same time: which irresistibly
reminded the beholder of a parrot. In this attitude, he fixed himself,
the moment he made his appearance; and, holding out a small piece of
orange-peel at arm's length, exclaimed, in a growling, discontented
voice.

'Look here! do you see this! Isn't it a most wonderful and
extraordinary thing that I can't call at a man's house but I find a
piece of this poor surgeon's friend on the staircase? I've been lamed
with orange-peel once, and I know orange-peel will be my death, or I'll
be content to eat my own head, sir!'

This was the handsome offer with which Mr. Grimwig backed and confirmed
nearly every assertion he made; and it was the more singular in his
case, because, even admitting for the sake of argument, the possibility
of scientific improvements being brought to that pass which will enable
a gentleman to eat his own head in the event of his being so disposed,
Mr. Grimwig's head was such a particularly large one, that the most
sanguine man alive could hardly entertain a hope of being able to get
through it at a sitting--to put entirely out of the question, a very
thick coating of powder.

'I'll eat my head, sir,' repeated Mr. Grimwig, striking his stick upon
the ground. 'Hallo! what's that!' looking at Oliver, and retreating a
pace or two.

'This is young Oliver Twist, whom we were speaking about,' said Mr.
Brownlow.

Oliver bowed.

'You don't mean to say that's the boy who had the fever, I hope?' said
Mr. Grimwig, recoiling a little more. 'Wait a minute! Don't speak!
Stop--' continued Mr. Grimwig, abruptly, losing all dread of the fever
in his triumph at the discovery; 'that's the boy who had the orange!
If that's not the boy, sir, who had the orange, and threw this bit of
peel upon the staircase, I'll eat my head, and his too.'

'No, no, he has not had one,' said Mr. Brownlow, laughing. 'Come! Put
down your hat; and speak to my young friend.'

'I feel strongly on this subject, sir,' said the irritable old
gentleman, drawing off his gloves. 'There's always more or less
orange-peel on the pavement in our street; and I _know_ it's put there
by the surgeon's boy at the corner. A young woman stumbled over a bit
last night, and fell against my garden-railings; directly she got up I
saw her look towards his infernal red lamp with the pantomime-light.
"Don't go to him," I called out of the window, "he's an assassin! A
man-trap!" So he is. If he is not--' Here the irascible old
gentleman gave a great knock on the ground with his stick; which was
always understood, by his friends, to imply the customary offer,
whenever it was not expressed in words. Then, still keeping his stick
in his hand, he sat down; and, opening a double eye-glass, which he
wore attached to a broad black riband, took a view of Oliver: who,
seeing that he was the object of inspection, coloured, and bowed again.

'That's the boy, is it?' said Mr. Grimwig, at length.

'That's the boy,' replied Mr. Brownlow.

'How are you, boy?' said Mr. Grimwig.

'A great deal better, thank you, sir,' replied Oliver.

Mr. Brownlow, seeming to apprehend that his singular friend was about
to say something disagreeable, asked Oliver to step downstairs and tell
Mrs. Bedwin they were ready for tea; which, as he did not half like the
visitor's manner, he was very happy to do.

'He is a nice-looking boy, is he not?' inquired Mr. Brownlow.

'I don't know,' replied Mr. Grimwig, pettishly.

'Don't know?'

'No. I don't know. I never see any difference in boys. I only knew
two sort of boys. Mealy boys, and beef-faced boys.'

'And which is Oliver?'

'Mealy. I know a friend who has a beef-faced boy; a fine boy, they
call him; with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid
boy; with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams
of his blue clothes; with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a
wolf. I know him! The wretch!'

'Come,' said Mr. Brownlow, 'these are not the characteristics of young
Oliver Twist; so he needn't excite your wrath.'

'They are not,' replied Mr. Grimwig. 'He may have worse.'

Here, Mr. Brownlow coughed impatiently; which appeared to afford Mr.
Grimwig the most exquisite delight.

'He may have worse, I say,' repeated Mr. Grimwig. 'Where does he come
from! Who is he? What is he? He has had a fever. What of that?
Fevers are not peculiar to good people; are they? Bad people have
fevers sometimes; haven't they, eh? I knew a man who was hung in
Jamaica for murdering his master. He had had a fever six times; he
wasn't recommended to mercy on that account. Pooh! nonsense!'

Now, the fact was, that in the inmost recesses of his own heart, Mr.
Grimwig was strongly disposed to admit that Oliver's appearance and
manner were unusually prepossessing; but he had a strong appetite for
contradiction, sharpened on this occasion by the finding of the
orange-peel; and, inwardly determining that no man should dictate to
him whether a boy was well-looking or not, he had resolved, from the
first, to oppose his friend. When Mr. Brownlow admitted that on no one
point of inquiry could he yet return a satisfactory answer; and that he
had postponed any investigation into Oliver's previous history until he
thought the boy was strong enough to hear it; Mr. Grimwig chuckled
maliciously. And he demanded, with a sneer, whether the housekeeper
was in the habit of counting the plate at night; because if she didn't
find a table-spoon or two missing some sunshiny morning, why, he would
be content to--and so forth.

All this, Mr. Brownlow, although himself somewhat of an impetuous
gentleman: knowing his friend's peculiarities, bore with great good
humour; as Mr. Grimwig, at tea, was graciously pleased to express his
entire approval of the muffins, matters went on very smoothly; and
Oliver, who made one of the party, began to feel more at his ease than
he had yet done in the fierce old gentleman's presence.

'And when are you going to hear a full, true, and particular account of
the life and adventures of Oliver Twist?' asked Grimwig of Mr.
Brownlow, at the conclusion of the meal; looking sideways at Oliver, as
he resumed his subject.

'To-morrow morning,' replied Mr. Brownlow. 'I would rather he was
alone with me at the time. Come up to me to-morrow morning at ten
o'clock, my dear.'

'Yes, sir,' replied Oliver. He answered with some hesitation, because
he was confused by Mr. Grimwig's looking so hard at him.

'I'll tell you what,' whispered that gentleman to Mr. Brownlow; 'he
won't come up to you to-morrow morning. I saw him hesitate. He is
deceiving you, my good friend.'

'I'll swear he is not,' replied Mr. Brownlow, warmly.

'If he is not,' said Mr. Grimwig, 'I'll--' and down went the stick.

'I'll answer for that boy's truth with my life!' said Mr. Brownlow,
knocking the table.

'And I for his falsehood with my head!' rejoined Mr. Grimwig, knocking
the table also.

'We shall see,' said Mr. Brownlow, checking his rising anger.

'We will,' replied Mr. Grimwig, with a provoking smile; 'we will.'

As fate would have it, Mrs. Bedwin chanced to bring in, at this moment,
a small parcel of books, which Mr. Brownlow had that morning purchased
of the identical bookstall-keeper, who has already figured in this
history; having laid them on the table, she prepared to leave the room.

'Stop the boy, Mrs. Bedwin!' said Mr. Brownlow; 'there is something to
go back.'

'He has gone, sir,' replied Mrs. Bedwin.

'Call after him,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'it's particular. He is a poor
man, and they are not paid for. There are some books to be taken back,
too.'

The street-door was opened. Oliver ran one way; and the girl ran
another; and Mrs. Bedwin stood on the step and screamed for the boy;
but there was no boy in sight. Oliver and the girl returned, in a
breathless state, to report that there were no tidings of him.

'Dear me, I am very sorry for that,' exclaimed Mr. Brownlow; 'I
particularly wished those books to be returned to-night.'

'Send Oliver with them,' said Mr. Grimwig, with an ironical smile; 'he
will be sure to deliver them safely, you know.'

'Yes; do let me take them, if you please, sir,' said Oliver. 'I'll run
all the way, sir.'

The old gentleman was just going to say that Oliver should not go out
on any account; when a most malicious cough from Mr. Grimwig determined
him that he should; and that, by his prompt discharge of the
commission, he should prove to him the injustice of his suspicions: on
this head at least: at once.

'You _shall_ go, my dear,' said the old gentleman. 'The books are on a
chair by my table. Fetch them down.'

Oliver, delighted to be of use, brought down the books under his arm in
a great bustle; and waited, cap in hand, to hear what message he was to
take.

'You are to say,' said Mr. Brownlow, glancing steadily at Grimwig; 'you
are to say that you have brought those books back; and that you have
come to pay the four pound ten I owe him. This is a five-pound note,
so you will have to bring me back, ten shillings change.'

'I won't be ten minutes, sir,' said Oliver, eagerly. Having buttoned
up the bank-note in his jacket pocket, and placed the books carefully
under his arm, he made a respectful bow, and left the room. Mrs.
Bedwin followed him to the street-door, giving him many directions
about the nearest way, and the name of the bookseller, and the name of
the street: all of which Oliver said he clearly understood. Having
superadded many injunctions to be sure and not take cold, the old lady
at length permitted him to depart.

'Bless his sweet face!' said the old lady, looking after him. 'I can't
bear, somehow, to let him go out of my sight.'

At this moment, Oliver looked gaily round, and nodded before he turned
the corner. The old lady smilingly returned his salutation, and,
closing the door, went back to her own room.

'Let me see; he'll be back in twenty minutes, at the longest,' said Mr.
Brownlow, pulling out his watch, and placing it on the table. 'It will
be dark by that time.'

'Oh! you really expect him to come back, do you?' inquired Mr. Grimwig.

'Don't you?' asked Mr. Brownlow, smiling.

The spirit of contradiction was strong in Mr. Grimwig's breast, at the
moment; and it was rendered stronger by his friend's confident smile.

'No,' he said, smiting the table with his fist, 'I do not. The boy has
a new suit of clothes on his back, a set of valuable books under his
arm, and a five-pound note in his pocket. He'll join his old friends
the thieves, and laugh at you. If ever that boy returns to this house,
sir, I'll eat my head.'

With these words he drew his chair closer to the table; and there the
two friends sat, in silent expectation, with the watch between them.

It is worthy of remark, as illustrating the importance we attach to our
own judgments, and the pride with which we put forth our most rash and
hasty conclusions, that, although Mr. Grimwig was not by any means a
bad-hearted man, and though he would have been unfeignedly sorry to see
his respected friend duped and deceived, he really did most earnestly
and strongly hope at that moment, that Oliver Twist might not come back.

It grew so dark, that the figures on the dial-plate were scarcely
discernible; but there the two old gentlemen continued to sit, in
silence, with the watch between them.



CHAPTER XV

SHOWING HOW VERY FOND OF OLIVER TWIST, THE MERRY OLD JEW AND MISS NANCY
WERE

In the obscure parlour of a low public-house, in the filthiest part of
Little Saffron Hill; a dark and gloomy den, where a flaring gas-light
burnt all day in the winter-time; and where no ray of sun ever shone in
the summer: there sat, brooding over a little pewter measure and a
small glass, strongly impregnated with the smell of liquor, a man in a
velveteen coat, drab shorts, half-boots and stockings, whom even by
that dim light no experienced agent of the police would have hesitated
to recognise as Mr. William Sikes. At his feet, sat a white-coated,
red-eyed dog; who occupied himself, alternately, in winking at his
master with both eyes at the same time; and in licking a large, fresh
cut on one side of his mouth, which appeared to be the result of some
recent conflict.

'Keep quiet, you warmint! Keep quiet!' said Mr. Sikes, suddenly
breaking silence. Whether his meditations were so intense as to be
disturbed by the dog's winking, or whether his feelings were so wrought
upon by his reflections that they required all the relief derivable
from kicking an unoffending animal to allay them, is matter for
argument and consideration. Whatever was the cause, the effect was a
kick and a curse, bestowed upon the dog simultaneously.

Dogs are not generally apt to revenge injuries inflicted upon them by
their masters; but Mr. Sikes's dog, having faults of temper in common
with his owner, and labouring, perhaps, at this moment, under a
powerful sense of injury, made no more ado but at once fixed his teeth
in one of the half-boots. Having given in a hearty shake, he retired,
growling, under a form; just escaping the pewter measure which Mr.
Sikes levelled at his head.

'You would, would you?' said Sikes, seizing the poker in one hand, and
deliberately opening with the other a large clasp-knife, which he drew
from his pocket. 'Come here, you born devil! Come here! D'ye hear?'

The dog no doubt heard; because Mr. Sikes spoke in the very harshest
key of a very harsh voice; but, appearing to entertain some
unaccountable objection to having his throat cut, he remained where he
was, and growled more fiercely than before: at the same time grasping
the end of the poker between his teeth, and biting at it like a wild
beast.

This resistance only infuriated Mr. Sikes the more; who, dropping on
his knees, began to assail the animal most furiously. The dog jumped
from right to left, and from left to right; snapping, growling, and
barking; the man thrust and swore, and struck and blasphemed; and the
struggle was reaching a most critical point for one or other; when, the
door suddenly opening, the dog darted out: leaving Bill Sikes with the
poker and the clasp-knife in his hands.

There must always be two parties to a quarrel, says the old adage. Mr.
Sikes, being disappointed of the dog's participation, at once
transferred his share in the quarrel to the new comer.

'What the devil do you come in between me and my dog for?' said Sikes,
with a fierce gesture.

'I didn't know, my dear, I didn't know,' replied Fagin, humbly; for the
Jew was the new comer.

'Didn't know, you white-livered thief!' growled Sikes. 'Couldn't you
hear the noise?'

'Not a sound of it, as I'm a living man, Bill,' replied the Jew.

'Oh no! You hear nothing, you don't,' retorted Sikes with a fierce
sneer. 'Sneaking in and out, so as nobody hears how you come or go! I
wish you had been the dog, Fagin, half a minute ago.'

'Why?' inquired the Jew with a forced smile.

'Cause the government, as cares for the lives of such men as you, as
haven't half the pluck of curs, lets a man kill a dog how he likes,'
replied Sikes, shutting up the knife with a very expressive look;
'that's why.'

The Jew rubbed his hands; and, sitting down at the table, affected to
laugh at the pleasantry of his friend. He was obviously very ill at
ease, however.

'Grin away,' said Sikes, replacing the poker, and surveying him with
savage contempt; 'grin away. You'll never have the laugh at me,
though, unless it's behind a nightcap. I've got the upper hand over
you, Fagin; and, d--me, I'll keep it. There! If I go, you go; so take
care of me.'

'Well, well, my dear,' said the Jew, 'I know all that; we--we--have a
mutual interest, Bill,--a mutual interest.'

'Humph,' said Sikes, as if he thought the interest lay rather more on
the Jew's side than on his. 'Well, what have you got to say to me?'

'It's all passed safe through the melting-pot,' replied Fagin, 'and
this is your share. It's rather more than it ought to be, my dear; but
as I know you'll do me a good turn another time, and--'

'Stow that gammon,' interposed the robber, impatiently. 'Where is it?
Hand over!'

'Yes, yes, Bill; give me time, give me time,' replied the Jew,
soothingly. 'Here it is! All safe!' As he spoke, he drew forth an
old cotton handkerchief from his breast; and untying a large knot in
one corner, produced a small brown-paper packet. Sikes, snatching it
from him, hastily opened it; and proceeded to count the sovereigns it
contained.

'This is all, is it?' inquired Sikes.

'All,' replied the Jew.

'You haven't opened the parcel and swallowed one or two as you come
along, have you?' inquired Sikes, suspiciously. 'Don't put on an
injured look at the question; you've done it many a time. Jerk the
tinkler.'

These words, in plain English, conveyed an injunction to ring the bell.
It was answered by another Jew: younger than Fagin, but nearly as vile
and repulsive in appearance.

Bill Sikes merely pointed to the empty measure. The Jew, perfectly
understanding the hint, retired to fill it: previously exchanging a
remarkable look with Fagin, who raised his eyes for an instant, as if
in expectation of it, and shook his head in reply; so slightly that the
action would have been almost imperceptible to an observant third
person. It was lost upon Sikes, who was stooping at the moment to tie
the boot-lace which the dog had torn. Possibly, if he had observed the
brief interchange of signals, he might have thought that it boded no
good to him.

'Is anybody here, Barney?' inquired Fagin; speaking, now that that
Sikes was looking on, without raising his eyes from the ground.

'Dot a shoul,' replied Barney; whose words: whether they came from the
heart or not: made their way through the nose.

'Nobody?' inquired Fagin, in a tone of surprise: which perhaps might
mean that Barney was at liberty to tell the truth.

'Dobody but Biss Dadsy,' replied Barney.

'Nancy!' exclaimed Sikes. 'Where? Strike me blind, if I don't honour
that 'ere girl, for her native talents.'

'She's bid havid a plate of boiled beef id the bar,' replied Barney.

'Send her here,' said Sikes, pouring out a glass of liquor. 'Send her
here.'

Barney looked timidly at Fagin, as if for permission; the Jew remaining
silent, and not lifting his eyes from the ground, he retired; and
presently returned, ushering in Nancy; who was decorated with the
bonnet, apron, basket, and street-door key, complete.

'You are on the scent, are you, Nancy?' inquired Sikes, proffering the
glass.

'Yes, I am, Bill,' replied the young lady, disposing of its contents;
'and tired enough of it I am, too. The young brat's been ill and
confined to the crib; and--'

'Ah, Nancy, dear!' said Fagin, looking up.

Now, whether a peculiar contraction of the Jew's red eye-brows, and a
half closing of his deeply-set eyes, warned Miss Nancy that she was
disposed to be too communicative, is not a matter of much importance.
The fact is all we need care for here; and the fact is, that she
suddenly checked herself, and with several gracious smiles upon Mr.
Sikes, turned the conversation to other matters. In about ten minutes'
time, Mr. Fagin was seized with a fit of coughing; upon which Nancy
pulled her shawl over her shoulders, and declared it was time to go.
Mr. Sikes, finding that he was walking a short part of her way himself,
expressed his intention of accompanying her; they went away together,
followed, at a little distant, by the dog, who slunk out of a back-yard
as soon as his master was out of sight.

The Jew thrust his head out of the room door when Sikes had left it;
looked after him as we walked up the dark passage; shook his clenched
fist; muttered a deep curse; and then, with a horrible grin, reseated
himself at the table; where he was soon deeply absorbed in the
interesting pages of the Hue-and-Cry.

Meanwhile, Oliver Twist, little dreaming that he was within so very
short a distance of the merry old gentleman, was on his way to the
book-stall. When he got into Clerkenwell, he accidently turned down a
by-street which was not exactly in his way; but not discovering his
mistake until he had got half-way down it, and knowing it must lead in
the right direction, he did not think it worth while to turn back; and
so marched on, as quickly as he could, with the books under his arm.

He was walking along, thinking how happy and contented he ought to
feel; and how much he would give for only one look at poor little Dick,
who, starved and beaten, might be weeping bitterly at that very moment;
when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud. 'Oh, my
dear brother!' And he had hardly looked up, to see what the matter
was, when he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round
his neck.

'Don't,' cried Oliver, struggling. 'Let go of me. Who is it? What are
you stopping me for?'

The only reply to this, was a great number of loud lamentations from
the young woman who had embraced him; and who had a little basket and a
street-door key in her hand.

'Oh my gracious!' said the young woman, 'I have found him! Oh! Oliver!
Oliver! Oh you naughty boy, to make me suffer such distress on your
account! Come home, dear, come. Oh, I've found him. Thank gracious
goodness heavins, I've found him!' With these incoherent exclamations,
the young woman burst into another fit of crying, and got so dreadfully
hysterical, that a couple of women who came up at the moment asked a
butcher's boy with a shiny head of hair anointed with suet, who was
also looking on, whether he didn't think he had better run for the
doctor. To which, the butcher's boy: who appeared of a lounging, not
to say indolent disposition: replied, that he thought not.

'Oh, no, no, never mind,' said the young woman, grasping Oliver's hand;
'I'm better now. Come home directly, you cruel boy! Come!'

'Oh, ma'am,' replied the young woman, 'he ran away, near a month ago,
from his parents, who are hard-working and respectable people; and went
and joined a set of thieves and bad characters; and almost broke his
mother's heart.'

'Young wretch!' said one woman.

'Go home, do, you little brute,' said the other.

'I am not,' replied Oliver, greatly alarmed. 'I don't know her. I
haven't any sister, or father and mother either. I'm an orphan; I live
at Pentonville.'

'Only hear him, how he braves it out!' cried the young woman.

'Why, it's Nancy!' exclaimed Oliver; who now saw her face for the first
time; and started back, in irrepressible astonishment.

'You see he knows me!' cried Nancy, appealing to the bystanders. 'He
can't help himself. Make him come home, there's good people, or he'll
kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!'

'What the devil's this?' said a man, bursting out of a beer-shop, with
a white dog at his heels; 'young Oliver! Come home to your poor mother,
you young dog! Come home directly.'

'I don't belong to them. I don't know them. Help! help!' cried
Oliver, struggling in the man's powerful grasp.

'Help!' repeated the man. 'Yes; I'll help you, you young rascal!

What books are these? You've been a stealing 'em, have you? Give 'em
here.' With these words, the man tore the volumes from his grasp, and
struck him on the head.

'That's right!' cried a looker-on, from a garret-window. 'That's the
only way of bringing him to his senses!'

'To be sure!' cried a sleepy-faced carpenter, casting an approving look
at the garret-window.

'It'll do him good!' said the two women.

'And he shall have it, too!' rejoined the man, administering another
blow, and seizing Oliver by the collar. 'Come on, you young villain!
Here, Bull's-eye, mind him, boy! Mind him!'

Weak with recent illness; stupified by the blows and the suddenness of
the attack; terrified by the fierce growling of the dog, and the
brutality of the man; overpowered by the conviction of the bystanders
that he really was the hardened little wretch he was described to be;
what could one poor child do! Darkness had set in; it was a low
neighborhood; no help was near; resistance was useless. In another
moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark narrow courts, and was
forced along them at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared to
give utterance to, unintelligible. It was of little moment, indeed,
whether they were intelligible or no; for there was nobody to care for
them, had they been ever so plain.


* * * * *

The gas-lamps were lighted; Mrs. Bedwin was waiting anxiously at the
open door; the servant had run up the street twenty times to see if
there were any traces of Oliver; and still the two old gentlemen sat,
perseveringly, in the dark parlour, with the watch between them.



CHAPTER XVI

RELATES WHAT BECAME OF OLIVER TWIST, AFTER HE HAD BEEN CLAIMED BY NANCY

The narrow streets and courts, at length, terminated in a large open
space; scattered about which, were pens for beasts, and other
indications of a cattle-market. Sikes slackened his pace when they
reached this spot: the girl being quite unable to support any longer,
the rapid rate at which they had hitherto walked. Turning to Oliver,
he roughly commanded him to take hold of Nancy's hand.

'Do you hear?' growled Sikes, as Oliver hesitated, and looked round.

They were in a dark corner, quite out of the track of passengers.

Oliver saw, but too plainly, that resistance would be of no avail. He
held out his hand, which Nancy clasped tight in hers.

'Give me the other,' said Sikes, seizing Oliver's unoccupied hand.
'Here, Bull's-Eye!'

The dog looked up, and growled.

'See here, boy!' said Sikes, putting his other hand to Oliver's throat;
'if he speaks ever so soft a word, hold him! D'ye mind!'

The dog growled again; and licking his lips, eyed Oliver as if he were
anxious to attach himself to his windpipe without delay.

'He's as willing as a Christian, strike me blind if he isn't!' said
Sikes, regarding the animal with a kind of grim and ferocious approval.
'Now, you know what you've got to expect, master, so call away as quick
as you like; the dog will soon stop that game. Get on, young'un!'

Bull's-eye wagged his tail in acknowledgment of this unusually
endearing form of speech; and, giving vent to another admonitory growl
for the benefit of Oliver, led the way onward.

It was Smithfield that they were crossing, although it might have been
Grosvenor Square, for anything Oliver knew to the contrary. The night
was dark and foggy. The lights in the shops could scarecely struggle
through the heavy mist, which thickened every moment and shrouded the
streets and houses in gloom; rendering the strange place still stranger
in Oliver's eyes; and making his uncertainty the more dismal and
depressing.

They had hurried on a few paces, when a deep church-bell struck the
hour. With its first stroke, his two conductors stopped, and turned
their heads in the direction whence the sound proceeded.

'Eight o' clock, Bill,' said Nancy, when the bell ceased.

'What's the good of telling me that; I can hear it, can't I!' replied
Sikes.

'I wonder whether THEY can hear it,' said Nancy.

'Of course they can,' replied Sikes. 'It was Bartlemy time when I was
shopped; and there warn't a penny trumpet in the fair, as I couldn't
hear the squeaking on. Arter I was locked up for the night, the row
and din outside made the thundering old jail so silent, that I could
almost have beat my brains out against the iron plates of the door.'

'Poor fellow!' said Nancy, who still had her face turned towards the
quarter in which the bell had sounded. 'Oh, Bill, such fine young
chaps as them!'

'Yes; that's all you women think of,' answered Sikes. 'Fine young
chaps! Well, they're as good as dead, so it don't much matter.'

With this consolation, Mr. Sikes appeared to repress a rising tendency
to jealousy, and, clasping Oliver's wrist more firmly, told him to step
out again.

'Wait a minute!' said the girl: 'I wouldn't hurry by, if it was you
that was coming out to be hung, the next time eight o'clock struck,
Bill. I'd walk round and round the place till I dropped, if the snow
was on the ground, and I hadn't a shawl to cover me.'

'And what good would that do?' inquired the unsentimental Mr. Sikes.
'Unless you could pitch over a file and twenty yards of good stout
rope, you might as well be walking fifty mile off, or not walking at
all, for all the good it would do me. Come on, and don't stand
preaching there.'

The girl burst into a laugh; drew her shawl more closely round her; and
they walked away. But Oliver felt her hand tremble, and, looking up in
her face as they passed a gas-lamp, saw that it had turned a deadly
white.

They walked on, by little-frequented and dirty ways, for a full
half-hour: meeting very few people, and those appearing from their
looks to hold much the same position in society as Mr. Sikes himself.
At length they turned into a very filthy narrow street, nearly full of
old-clothes shops; the dog running forward, as if conscious that there
was no further occasion for his keeping on guard, stopped before the
door of a shop that was closed and apparently untenanted; the house was
in a ruinous condition, and on the door was nailed a board, intimating
that it was to let: which looked as if it had hung there for many
years.

'All right,' cried Sikes, glancing cautiously about.

Nancy stooped below the shutters, and Oliver heard the sound of a bell.
They crossed to the opposite side of the street, and stood for a few
moments under a lamp. A noise, as if a sash window were gently raised,
was heard; and soon afterwards the door softly opened. Mr. Sikes then
seized the terrified boy by the collar with very little ceremony; and
all three were quickly inside the house.

The passage was perfectly dark. They waited, while the person who had
let them in, chained and barred the door.

'Anybody here?' inquired Sikes.

'No,' replied a voice, which Oliver thought he had heard before.

'Is the old 'un here?' asked the robber.

'Yes,' replied the voice, 'and precious down in the mouth he has been.
Won't he be glad to see you? Oh, no!'

The style of this reply, as well as the voice which delivered it,
seemed familiar to Oliver's ears: but it was impossible to distinguish
even the form of the speaker in the darkness.

'Let's have a glim,' said Sikes, 'or we shall go breaking our necks, or
treading on the dog. Look after your legs if you do!'

'Stand still a moment, and I'll get you one,' replied the voice. The
receding footsteps of the speaker were heard; and, in another minute,
the form of Mr. John Dawkins, otherwise the Artful Dodger, appeared.
He bore in his right hand a tallow candle stuck in the end of a cleft
stick.

The young gentleman did not stop to bestow any other mark of
recognition upon Oliver than a humourous grin; but, turning away,
beckoned the visitors to follow him down a flight of stairs. They
crossed an empty kitchen; and, opening the door of a low
earthy-smelling room, which seemed to have been built in a small
back-yard, were received with a shout of laughter.

'Oh, my wig, my wig!' cried Master Charles Bates, from whose lungs the
laughter had proceeded: 'here he is! oh, cry, here he is! Oh, Fagin,
look at him! Fagin, do look at him! I can't bear it; it is such a
jolly game, I cant' bear it. Hold me, somebody, while I laugh it out.'

With this irrepressible ebullition of mirth, Master Bates laid himself
flat on the floor: and kicked convulsively for five minutes, in an
ectasy of facetious joy. Then jumping to his feet, he snatched the
cleft stick from the Dodger; and, advancing to Oliver, viewed him round
and round; while the Jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number
of low bows to the bewildered boy. The Artful, meantime, who was of a
rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it
interfered with business, rifled Oliver's pockets with steady assiduity.

'Look at his togs, Fagin!' said Charley, putting the light so close to
his new jacket as nearly to set him on fire. 'Look at his togs!
Superfine cloth, and the heavy swell cut! Oh, my eye, what a game!
And his books, too! Nothing but a gentleman, Fagin!'

'Delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,' said the Jew, bowing
with mock humility. 'The Artful shall give you another suit, my dear,
for fear you should spoil that Sunday one. Why didn't you write, my
dear, and say you were coming? We'd have got something warm for
supper.'

At his, Master Bates roared again: so loud, that Fagin himself relaxed,
and even the Dodger smiled; but as the Artful drew forth the five-pound
note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally of the discovery
awakened his merriment.

'Hallo, what's that?' inquired Sikes, stepp