 Oliver Twist, Chapter 15 In the obscure parlor 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 recognize as Mr. William Sykes. 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 vomit! Keep quiet!' said Mr. Sykes, 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 generally apt to revenge injuries inflicted upon them by their masters, but Mr. Sykes' dog, having faults of temper and common with his owner, and laboring perhaps at this moment under a powerful sense of injury, made no more adieu 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. Sykes levelled at his head. "'You would, would you?' said Sykes, 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, do you hear?' The dog no doubt heard, because Mr. Sykes 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. Sykes 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 a struggle was reaching a most critical point for one or other, when the door suddenly opening, the dog darted out, leaving Bill Sykes with the poker and the clasp knife in his hands. "'There must always be two parties to a quarrel,' says the old adage. Mr. Sykes, being disappointed of the dog's participation, at once transferred his share in the quarrel to the newcomer. "'What the devil do you come in between me and my dog for?' said Sykes with a fierce gesture. "'I didn't know, my dear, I didn't know,' replied Fagan humbly, for the Jew was the newcomer. "'Didn't know, you white-livered thief, Groud Sykes, 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 Sykes with a fierce sneer, sneaking in and out so as nobody hears how you come or go. I wish you had been the dog, Fagan, half a minute ago. Why?' inquired the Jew with a forced smile. "'Cause the government is cares for the lives of such men as you, as haven't half the pluck of curse, let's a man-killer dog how he likes,' replied Sykes, 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 Sykes, replacing the poker, and surveying him with savage contempt. Grin away. You'll never hear the laugh at me, though, unless it's behind a night-cap. I've got the upper hand over you, Fagan, and damn 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 have a mutual interest, Bill, a mutual interest.' "'Hmph,' said Sykes, 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 Fagan. "'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 into pose 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 quarter produced a small brown paper packet. Sykes, snatching it from him, hastily opened it, and proceeded to count the sovereigns it contained. "'This is all, is it,' inquired Sykes. All,' replied the Jew. "'You haven't opened the parcel and swallowed what it to is you come along have you,' inquired Sykes 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 Fagan, but nearly as vile and repulsive in appearance. Bill Sykes merely pointed to the empty measure. The Jew, perfectly understanding the hint, retired to fill it previously exchanging a remarkable look with Fagan, 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 Sykes, 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 bode it no good to him. "'Is anybody here, Barney?' inquired Fagan, speaking, now that Sykes was looking on, without raising his eyes from the ground. "'Dotter Scholl,' replied Barney, whose words, whether they came from the heart or not, made their way through the nose. Nobody,' inquired Fagan, in a tone of surprise, which perhaps might mean that Barney was at liberty to tell the truth. "'Dobody but best Denzi,' replied Barney. "'Nancy,' replied Sykes, "'where? Strike me blind if I don't honour that ear, girl, for a native talents. She's been havin' to playin' a boiled beef at a bar,' replied Barney. "'Center here,' said Sykes, pouring out a glass of liquor. "'Center here.' Barney looked timidly at Fagan, 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 all the scent, are you, Nancy?' inquired Sykes, proffering the glass. "'Yes, I am,' Bill,' replied the young lady, disposing of its contents. "'And tired enough I am of it, too. The young brat's been ill and confined to the crib, and—ah! Nancy, dear,' said Fagan, 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. Sykes, turned the conversation to other matters. In about ten minutes' time Mr. Fagan with seized with a fit of coughing upon which Nancy pulled her shawl over her shoulders and declared it was time to go. After Sykes 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 backyard as soon as his master was out of sight. The Jew thrust his head out of the room door when Sykes had left it, looked after him as he walked up the dark passage, shook his clenched fist, muttered a deep curse, and then, with a horrible grin, trotted himself at the table where he was soon deeply absorbed in the interesting pages of the hue and cry. Meanwhile Oliver Twist, little gleaming that he was within so very short a distance of the merry old gentleman, was on his way to the bookstore. When he got into Clarkinwell, he accidentally turned down a by- street which was not exactly in his way, but not discovering his mistake until he 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 have found him! Like gracious goodness heavens, I have found him! With these incoherent exclamations the young woman burst into a netherfit 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 a year a month ago from his parents, who are hardworking 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 a 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 as steely as I'm of you. Give them 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. Here, bullseye, mind him, boy, mind him! Weak with recent illness, stupefied 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 heart of 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 a 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 parlor with the watch between them. END OF CHAPTER XVI The narrow streets and courts at length determinated in a large open space, scattered about which were pens for beasts and other indications of a cattle market. Sykes 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 Sykes 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 Sykes, seizing Oliver's unoccupied hand. Here bullseye! The dog looked up and growled. See here, boy, said Sykes, putting his other hand to Oliver's throat. If he speaks ever so soft a word, hold him. Do you 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 Sykes, 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 one! Sykes 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 Grovener Square for anything Oliver knew to the contrary. The night was dark and foggy. The lights in the shops could scarcely 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 at telling me that I can hear it, can't I?' replied Sykes. "'I wonder whether they can hear it,' said Nancy. "'Of course they can,' replied Sykes. "'It was botlemy time when I was shopped, and there warn't a penny trumpet in the fair, as I couldn't hear the squeaking on. Otter I was locked up for the night, the rowing, din-out side made the thundernold 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 Sykes. "'Fine young chaps. Well, they're as good as dead, so it don't much matter.' With this consolation Mr. Sykes 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 could that do?' inquired the unsentimental Mr. Sykes. "'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. Sykes 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, stepped 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 aboard, intimating that it was too let, which looked as if it had hung there for many years. "'All right,' cried Sykes, 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. Sykes 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 Sykes. "'No,' replied a voice which Oliver thought he had heard before. "'Is the old Oniere?' asked the robber. "'Yes,' replied the voice. "'I'm 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 Sykes. "'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,' 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 humorous grin, but turning away back in 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 brickyard, were received with a shout of laughter. "'Oh, my wig, my wig,' cried Master Charlie Bates, from whose lungs the laughter had proceeded. Here he is! Oh, cry, here he is! Oh, faggot, look at him! Faggot, do look at him! I can't bear it! It is such a jolly game, I can't bear it! Hold me, somebody, while I laugh it out!' With this irrepressible emulation of mirth, Master Bates laid himself flat on the floor, and kicked convulsively for five minutes in an ecstasy of facetious joy. Then jumping to his feet he snatched the cleft stick from the dodger, and advancing on Oliver viewed him round and around, while the Jew, taking off his night-cap, 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 aciduity. "'Look at his togs, Faggot,' said Charlie, putting the light so close to his new jacket as nearly to set him on fire. Look at his togs, super fine cloth, and a heavy swell cut! Oh, my eye, what a game! Add his books, too! Nothing but a gentleman, Faggot!' "'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 fair you should spoil that Sunday one. Why didn't you write, my dear, and say you were coming? Indeed I've got something warm for supper!' At his, master Bates roared again, so loud, that Faggot 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. "'Hello, what's that?' inquired Sykes, stepping forward as the Jew sees the note. "'That's mine, Faggot. "'No, no, my dear,' said the Jew. "'Mind, Bill, mine. You shall have the books.' "'If that ain't mine,' said Bill Sykes, putting on his hat with a determined air, "'mine and nancy's, that is, I'll take the boy back again.' The Jew started. Oliver started, too, though from a very different cause, for he hoped that the dispute might really end in his being taken back. "'Come. Hand over, will you?' said Sykes. "'This is hardly fair, Bill. Hardly fair is it, Nancy,' inquired the Jew. "'Fair or not fair,' retorted Sykes, hand over, I tell you. "'Do you think Nancy and me had got nothing else to do with our precious time, but to spend it in scouting after and kidnapping every young boy's gets grabbed through you? Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton! Give it here!' With this gentle remonstrance Mr. Sykes plucked the note from between the Jew's finger and thumb, and looking the old man coolly in the face, folded it up small, and tied it in his handkerchief. "'That's for our share, the trouble,' said Sykes, and not half enough neither. You may keep the books, if you're fond of reading. If you ain't, sell them.' "'They're very pretty,' said Charlie Bates, who, with sundry grippuses, had been effecting to read one of the volumes in question. Beautiful writing, isn't it, Oliver?' At sight of the dismayed look with which Oliver regarded his tormentors, Master Bates, who was blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ecstasy more boisterous than the first. "'They belonged to the old gentleman,' said Oliver, rigging his hands. "'To the good kind, old gentleman, who took me into his house and had me nursed, when I was near dying of the fever. Oh, pray send them back. Send him back the books and money. Keep me here all my long life, but pray, pray, send them back. You'll think I stole them, the old lady, all of them who were so kind to me. You'll think I stole them. Oh, do have mercy upon me, and send them back!' With these words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate grief, Oliver fell upon his knees at the Jew's feet, and beat his hands together in perfect desperation. "'The boy's right,' remarked Fagin, looking covertly round, and knitting his shaggy eyebrows, and were hard not. "'You're right, Oliver. You're right. They will think you have stolen them. Ha-ha! Chuckled the Jew, rubbing his hands. It couldn't have happened better if we had chosen our time.' "'Of course it couldn't,' replied Sykes. "'I know that directly. I see him coming through Clarkinwell, with the books under his arm. It's all right enough. They're soft-hearted song-singers, or they wouldn't have taken him in at all, and they'll ask no questions after him. They should be obliged to prosecute, and so get him lagged. He's safe enough!' Oliver had looked from one to the other, while these words were being spoken, as if he were bewildered and could scarcely understand what passed. But when Bill Sykes concluded, he jumped suddenly to his feet, and tore wildly from the room, uttering shrieks for help, which made the bare old house echo to the roof. "'Keep back the dog, Bill,' cried Nancy, springing before the door and closing it, as the Jew and his two pupils darted out in pursuit. Keep back the dog. He'll tear the boy to pieces. Serve him right,' cried Sykes, struggling to disengage himself from the girl's grasp. Stand off from me, or I'll split your head against the wall. "'I don't care for that, Bill. I don't care for that,' screamed the girl, struggling violently with the man. The child shan't be torn down by the dog unless you kill me first.' "'He,' said Sykes, setting his teeth. I'll soon do that if you don't keep off.' The house-breaker flung the girl from him to the further end of the room, just as the Jew and the two boys returned, dragging Oliver among them. "'What's the matter here?' said Fagan, looking round. "'The girl's gone mad, I think,' replied Sykes savagely. "'No, she hasn't,' said Nancy, pale and breathless from the scuffle. "'No, she hasn't. Fagan, don't think it. And keep quiet, will you,' said the Jew, with a threatening look. "'No, I won't do that neither,' replied Nancy, speaking very loud. "'Come. What do you think of that?' Mr. Fagan was sufficiently well acquainted with the manners and customs of that particular species of humanity to which Nancy belonged, to feel tolerably certain that it would be rather unsafe to prolong any conversation with her at present. With the view of diverting the attention of the company, he turned to Oliver. "'So you wanted to get away, my dear, did you?' said the Jew, taking up a jagged and not a club which lay in a corner of the fireplace. Eh?' Oliver made no reply. But he watched the Jew's motions and breathed quickly. "'Wanted to get assistance, called for the police, did you?' sneered the Jew, catching the boy by the arm. "'We'll cure you of that, my young master.' The Jew inflicted a smart blow on Oliver's shoulders with the club, and was raising it for a second, when the girl rushing forward rested it from his hand. She flung it into the fire with a force that brought some of the glowing coals whirling out into the room. "'I won't stand by and see it done, Fagan,' cried the girl. "'You've got the boy, and what more would you have? Let him be, let him be, or I shall put that mark on some of you that will bring me to the gallows before my time.' The girl stamped her foot violently on the floor as she vented this threat, and with her lips compressed and her hands clenched, looked alternately at the Jew and the other robber, her face quite colorless from the passion of rage into which she had gradually worked herself. "'Why, Nancy,' said the Jew, in a soothing tone, after a pause during which he and Mr. Sykes had stared at one another in a disconcerted manner, you, you're more clever than ever tonight. Ha-ha! My dear! You are acting beautifully!' "'Am I?' said the girl. "'Take care, I don't overdo it. You will be the worst for it, Fagan, if I do. And so I tell you, in good time to keep clear of me. There is something about a roused woman, especially if she adds to all her other strong passions the fierce impulses of recklessness and despair which few men like to provoke. The Jew saw that it would be hopeless to affect any further mistake regarding the reality of Miss Nancy's rage, and shrinking and voluntarily back a few paces cast a glance half imploringly and half cowardly at Sykes, as if to hint that he was the fittest person to pursue the dialogue. Mr. Sykes thus mutely appealed to, and possibly feeling his personal pride and influence interested in the immediate reduction of Miss Nancy to reason, gave utterance to about a couple of score of curses and threats, the rapid production of which reflected great credit on the fertility of his invention, as they produced no visible effect on the object-to-gaze to whom they were discharged, however, he resorted to more tangible arguments. What do you mean by this? said Sykes, backing the inquiry with a very common implication concerning the most beautiful of human features which, if it were heard above, only once out of every fifty thousand times that it is uttered below, would render blindness as common a disorder as measles. What do you mean by it? Burn my body! Do you know who you are and what you are? Oh, yes, I know all about it, replied the girl, laughing hysterically, and shaking her head from side to side with a poor assumption of a difference. Well, then keep quiet, rejoined Sykes, with a growl like that he was accustomed to use when addressing his dog, or I'll quiet you for a good long time to come. The girl laughed again, even less composedly than before, and darting a hasty look at Sykes, turned her face aside, and bit her lip till the blood came. You're a nice one, added Sykes, as he surveyed her with a contemptuous air, to take up the humane and gentile side, a pretty subject for the child as you call him to make a friend of. God Almighty help me, I am, cried the girl passionately, and I wish I had been struck dead in the street or had changed places with them we pass so near to-night, before I had led to hand in bringing him here. He's a thief, a liar, a devil, all that's bad from this night with. Isn't that enough for the old wretch without blows? Come, come, Sykes, said the Jew, appealing to him in her demonstratory tone, and motioning towards the boys who were eagerly attentive to all that past. We must have civil words, civil words, Bill. Civil words, cried the girl, whose passion was frightful to see. Civil words, you villain, yes, you deserve them from me. I feed for you when I was a child not half as old as this, pointing to Oliver. I have been in the same trade and in the same service for twelve years since. Don't you know it. Speak out. Don't you know it. Well, well, replied the Jew with an attempt at pacification, and if you have, it's your living. I, it is, returned the girl, not speaking, but pouring out the words in one continuous enviem and scream. It is my living, and the cold, wet, dirty streets are my home, and you're the wretch that drove me to them long ago, and that'll keep me here day and night, day and night till I die. I shall do you a mischief, it reposed the Jew, goaded by these reproaches, a mischief worse than that if you say much more. The girl said nothing more, but tearing her hair and dress in a transport of passion made such a rush at the Jew, as would probably have left signal marks of revenge upon him, had not her wrist been seized by Sykes at the right moment, upon which she made a few ineffectual struggles and fainted. She's all right now, said Sykes, laying her down in a quarter. She's uncommon strong in the arm when she's up in this way. The Jew wiped his forehead, and smiled as if it were a relief to have the disturbance over, but neither he nor Sykes nor the dog nor the boys seemed to consider it in any other light that a common occurrence incidental to business. It's the worst of having to do with women, said the Jew, kissing his club. But they're clever, and we can't get on in our line without him. Charlie, show Oliver to bed. I suppose he'd better not wear his best clothes to moral fag and heady, inquired Charlie Bates, certainly not, replied the Jew, reciprocating the grin with which Charlie put the question. Master Bates, apparently much delighted with his commission, took the cleft stick, and led Oliver into an adjacent kitchen where there were two or three of the beds on which he had slept before, and here, with many uncontrollable bursts of laughter, he produced the identical old suit of clothes which Oliver had so much congratulated himself upon leaving off at Mr. Brownlow's, and the accidental display of which to Faggen, by the Jew who purchased him, had been the very first clue received of his whereabouts. Put off the smart one, said Charlie, and all given to Faggen to take care of. What fun it is! Before Oliver unwillingly complied, Master Bates, rolling up the new clothes under his arm, departed from the room, leaving Oliver in the dark and locking the door behind him. The noise of Charlie's laughter, and the voice of Miss Betsy, who opportunity arrived to throw water over her friend, and perform the feminine opposes for the promotion of her recovery, might have kept many people awake under more happy circumstances than those in which Oliver was placed. But he was sick and weary, and he soon fell sound asleep. END OF CHAPTER XVI. Oliver's destiny, continuing unpropitious, brings a great man to London to injure his reputation. It is the custom on the stage in all good murderous melodramas to present the tragic and the comic scenes in as regular alternation as the layers of red and white in a side of streaky bacon. The hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed down by fetters and misfortunes. In the next scene his faithful but unconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song. We behold, with throbbing bosoms the heroine in the grasp of a proud and ruthless baron, her virtue and her life alike in danger, drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of the other, and just as our expectations are wrought up to the highest pitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway transported to the great hall of the castle, where a gray-headed seneschal sings a funny chorus with a funnier body of vassals who are free of all sorts of places from church vaults to palaces and Rome about in company caroling perpetually. Such changes appear absurd, but they are not so unnatural as they would seem at first sight. The transitions in real life from well-spread boards to death beds, and from morning weeds to holiday garments, are not a wit less startling. Only there we are busy actors, instead of passive lookers on, which makes a vast difference. The actors in the mimic life of the theatre are blind to violent transitions and abrupt impulses of passion or feeling which, presented before the eyes of mere spectators, are at once condemned as outrageous and preposterous. As sudden shiftings of the scene and rapid changes of time and place are not only sanctioned in books by long usage, but are by many considered as the great art of authorship, an author's skill in his craft, being, by such critics, chiefly estimated with relation to the dilemmas in which he leaves his characters at the end of every chapter, this brief introduction to the present one may perhaps be deemed unnecessary. If so, let it be considered a delicate intimation on the part of the historian that he is going back to the town in which Oliver Twist was born, the reader taking it for granted that there are good and substantial reasons for making the journey, or he would not be invited to proceed upon such an expedition. Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from the workhouse gate, and walked with portly carriage and commending steps up the high street. He was in the full bloom and pride of beetle-hood. His cocked hat and coat were dazzling in the morning sun. He clutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity of health and power. Mr. Bumble always carried his head high, but this morning it was higher than usual. There was an abstraction in his eye, an elevation in his air, which might have warned an observant stranger that thoughts were passing in the beetle's mind too great for utterance. Mr. Bumble stopped not to converse with the small shopkeepers and others who spoke to him, deferentially as he passed along. He merely returned their salutations with a wave of his hand, and relaxed not in his dignified pace, until he reached the farm where Mrs. Mann tended the infant poppers with parochial care. "'Drat that beetle,' said Mrs. Mann, hearing the well-known shaking at the garden gate, "'if it isn't him at this time in the morning, lock, Mr. Bumble, only think of its being you. Well, dear me, it is a pleasure this is. Come into the parlour, sir, please.' The first sentence was addressed to Susan, and the exclamations of delight were uttered to Mr. Bumble, as the good lady unlocked the garden gate and showed him with great attention and respect into the house. "'Mrs. Mann,' said Mr. Bumble, not sitting upon or dropping himself into his seat, as any common jack-and-apes would, but letting himself gradually and slowly down into a chair, "'Mrs. Mann, ma'am, good morning.' "'Well, and good morning to you, sir,' replied Mrs. Mann, with many smiles, "'and hoping you'll find yourself well, sir.' "'So, so,' Mrs. Mann,' replied the beetle, "'a parochial life is not a bed of roses, Mrs. Mann. Ah, that it isn't Mr. Bumble,' rejoined the lady, and all the infant-poppers might have coerced the rejoinder with great propriety if they had heard it. "'A parochial life, ma'am,' continued Mr. Bumble, striking the table with his cane, "'is a life of word and vexation, and Hollywood, but all public characters, as I may say, suffer from prosecution.' Mrs. Mann, not very well knowing what the beetle meant, raised her hands with a look of sympathy and sighed. "'Ah, you may well sigh,' Mrs. Mann,' said the beetle. Finding she had done right, Mrs. Mann sighed again, evidently to the satisfaction of the public character, who, repressing a complacent smile by looking sternly at his cocked hat, said, "'Mrs. Mann, I am going to London.' "'Law, Mr. Bumble,' cried Mrs. Mann, starting back. "'To London, ma'am,' resumed the inflexible beetle, "'by coach. I and two poppers, Mrs. Mann. A legal action is a coming on about a settlement, and the board has appointed me, me, Mrs. Mann, to dispose to the matter before the quarter-sessions at Clark and Whale. At a very much question,' added Mr. Bumble, drawing himself up, "'whether the Clark and Whale sessions will not find themselves in the wrong box before they have done with me. Oh, you mustn't be too hard upon themselves,' said Mrs. Mann, coaxingly. "'The Clark and Whale sessions have brought it upon themselves, ma'am,' replied Mr. Bumble, and if the Clark and Whale sessions find that they come off rather worse than they expected, the Clark and Whale sessions have only themselves to thank. There was so much determination and depth of purpose about the menacing manner in which Mr. Bumble delivered himself of these few words that Mrs. Mann appeared quite odd by them. At length, she said, "'You're going by coach, sir. I thought it was always you as you will to send them poppers in carts.' "'That's when they're ill, Mrs. Mann,' said the beetle. "'We've put the sick poppers into open carts in the rainy weather to prevent their taking cold,' said Mrs. Mann. "'The opposition, coach, contracts for these two, and takes them cheap,' said Mr. Bumble. "'They are both in a very low state, and we find it would come two-pound cheaper to move them than to bury them. That is, we can throw them upon another parish, which I think we shall be able to do if they don't die upon the road despite us.'" When Mr. Bumble had laughed a little while, his eyes again encountered the cocked hat, and he became grave. "'We are forgetting business, ma'am,' said the beetle. "'Here is your parochial stippend for the month.' Mr. Bumble produced some silver money rolled up in paper from his pocket-book, and requested a receipt, which Mrs. Mann wrote. "'It's very much blotted, sir,' said the farmer of infants. "'But it's formal enough, I dare say. Thank you, Mr. Bumble, sir. I am very much obliged to you, I'm sure.' Mr. Bumble nodded, blandly, in acknowledgment of Mrs. Mann's curtsy, and inquired how the children were. "'Bless their dear little heart,' said Mrs. Mann, with emotion. "'There as well as can be the dears. Of course, except the two that died last week, and little Dick.' "'Isn't that boy no better?' inquired Mr. Bumble. Mrs. Mann shook her head. "'He's an ill-conditioned, vicious, bad-disposed parochial child, that,' said Mrs. Bumble angrily. "'Where is he?' "'I'll bring him to you in one minute, sir,' replied Mrs. Mann. "'Here you, Dick!' After some calling, Dick was discovered. Having had his face put under the pump and dried upon Mrs. Mann's gown, he was led into the awful presence of Mr. Bumble the beetle. The child was pale and thin, his cheeks were sunken, and his eyes large and bright, the scanty, perished dress, the livery of his misery, hung loosely on his feeble body, and his young limbs had wasted away like those of an old man. Such was the little being who stood trembling beneath Mr. Bumble's glance, not daring to lift his eyes from the floor and dreading even to hear the beetle's voice. "'Can't you look at the gentleman you obstinate, boy?' said Mrs. Mann. The child meekly raised his eyes and encountered those of Mr. Bumble. "'What's the matter with you, parochial Dick?' inquired Mr. Bumble, with well-timed jocularity. "'Nothing, sir,' replied the child, faintly. "'I should think not,' said Mrs. Mann, who had, of course, laughed very much at Mr. Bumble's humour. "'You want for nothing, I'm sure.' "'I should like,' faltered the child. "'Hey, Day, interpose, Mrs. Mann. I suppose you're going to say you DO want for something now. Why, you little wretch, stop, Mrs. Mann, stop,' said the beetle, raising his hand with a show of authority. "'Like what, sir? Eh?' "'I should like,' faltered the child. "'If somebody that can write would put a few words down for me on a piece of paper, and fold it up and seal it, and give it for me, after I am laid in the ground.' "'Why, what does the boy mean?' exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the earnest matter-and-wan aspect of the child had made some impression, accustomed, as he was, to such things. "'What do you mean, sir?' "'I should like,' said the child, "'to leave my dear love to pour all over twist, and to let him know how often I have sat by myself and cried to think of his wandering about in the dark nights with nobody to help him. "'And I should like to tell him,' said the child, pressing his small hands together and speaking with great fervor, that I was glad to die when I was very young, for perhaps if I had lived to be a man, and had grown old, my little sister who is in heaven might forget me, or be unlike me, and it would be so much happier if we were both children there together.' Mr. Bumble surveyed the little speaker, from head to foot, with indescribable astonishment, and, turning to his companion, said, "'They're all in one story, Mrs. Mann, that audacious Oliver has demogalized them all.' "'I couldn't have believed it, sir,' said Mrs. Mann, holding up her hands and looking malignantly at Dick. "'I never see such a hardened little wretch. Take him away, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble, imperiously. "'This must be stated to the board, Mrs. Mann. I hope the gentleman will understand that it isn't my fault, sir,' said Mrs. Mann, whimpering pathetically. "'They shall understand that, ma'am, they shall be equated with the true state of the case,' said Mr. Bumble. "'There, take him away, I can't bear the sight on him.' Dick was immediately taken away and locked up in the coal cellar. Mr. Bumble, shortly afterwards, took himself off to prepare for his journey. At six o'clock next morning, Mr. Bumble, having exchanged his cocked hat for a round one, and encased his purse in a blue great coat with a cape to it, took his place on the outside of the coach, accompanied by the criminals whose settlement was disputed, with whom in due course of time he arrived in London. He experienced no other crosses on the way than those which originated in the perverse behaviour of the two poppers, who persisted in shivering and complaining of the cold, in a manner which Mr. Bumble declared, caused his teeth to chatter in his head, and made him feel quite uncomfortable, although he had a great coat on. Having disposed of these evil-minded persons for the night, Mr. Bumble sat himself down in the house at which the coach stopped, and took a temperate dinner of steaks, oyster sauce, and porter, putting a glass of hot gin and water on the chimney-piece, he drew his chair to the fire, and with sundry moral reflections on the two prevalent sin of discontent and complaining, composed himself to read the paper. The very first paragraph, upon which Mr. Bumble's eye rested, was the following advertisement. Five Guineas Reward, whereas a young boy named Oliver Twist absconded, or was enticed, on Thursday evening last, from his home at Pentonville, and has not since been heard of, the above reward will be paid to any person who will give such information as will lead to the discovery of the said Oliver Twist, or tend to throw any light upon his previous history, in which the advertiser is, for many reasons, warmly interested, and then followed a full description of Oliver's dress, person, appearance, and disappearance, with the name and address of Mr. Brownlow at full length. Mr. Bumble opened his eyes, read the advertisement, slowly and carefully, three several times, and in something more than five minutes was on his way to Pentonville, having actually, in his excitement, left the glass of hot gin and water untasted. Is Mr. Brownlow at home, inquired Mr. Bumble of the girl who opened the door? To this inquiry the girl returned the not uncommon but rather evasive reply of, I don't know, where do you come from? Mr. Bumble no sooner uttered Oliver's name in explanation of his errand, than Mrs. Bedwin, who had been listening at the parlor door, hastened into the passage in a breathless state. Come in, come in, said the old lady, I knew we should hear of him. Poor dear, I knew we should, I was certain of it, bless his heart, I said so all along. Having heard this, the worthy old lady hurried back into the parlor again, and seating herself on a sofa, burst into tears. The girl, who was not quite so susceptible, had run upstairs, meanwhile, and now returned with a request that Mr. Bumble would follow her immediately, which he did. He was shown into the little back-study, where sat Mr. Brownlow and his friend Mr. Grimwig, with decanters and glasses before them. The latter gentleman at once burst into the exclamation, a beetle, a perished beetle, or I'll eat my head! Pray don't interrupt just now, said Mr. Brownlow, take a seat, will you?" Mr. Bumble sat himself down, quite confounded by the oddity of Mr. Grimwig's manner. Mr. Brownlow moved the lamp, so as to obtain an uninterrupted view of the beetle's countenance, and said with a little impatience, Now, sir, you come in consequence of having seen the advertisement. Yes, sir, said Mr. Bumble, and you are a beetle. Are you not, inquired Mr. Grimwig? I am a parochial beetle, gentlemen, rejoined Mr. Bumble proudly. Of course, observed Mr. Grimwig aside to his friend. I knew he was a beetle all over. Mr. Brownlow gently shook his head to impose silence on his friend, and resumed, Do you know where this poor boy is now? No more than nobody, replied Mr. Bumble. Well, what do you know of him, inquired the old gentleman? Speak out, my friend, if you have anything to say, what do you know of him? You don't happen to know any good of him, do you? said Mr. Grimwig costically, after an attentive perusal of Mr. Bumble's features. Mr. Bumble, catching at the inquiry very quickly, shook his head with portentious solemnity. You see, said Mr. Grimwig, looking triumphantly at Mr. Brownlow, Mr. Brownlow looked apprehensively at Mr. Bumble's burst-up confidence, and requested him to communicate what he knew regarding Oliver in as few words as possible. Mr. Bumble put down his hat, unbuttoned his coat, folded his arms, inclined his head in a retrospective manner, and after a few moments' reflection commenced his story. It would be tedious, if given in the beetle's words, occupying as it did some twenty minutes in the telling, but the sum and substance of it was, that Oliver was a foundling born of low and vicious parents, that he had, from his birth, displayed no better qualities than treachery and gratitude and malice, that he had terminated his brief career in the palace of his birth by making a sanguinary and cowardly attack on an unoffending lad and running away in the night-time from his master's house. In proof of his really being the person he represented himself, Mr. Bumble laid upon the table the papers he had brought to town. Folding his arms again he then awaited Mr. Brownlow's observations. I fear it is all too true, said the old gentleman sorrowfully, after looking over the papers. This is not much for your intelligence, but I would gladly have given you treble the money, if it had been favorable to the boy. It is not improbable that if Mr. Bumble had been possessed of this information at an earlier period of the interview he might have imparted a very different colouring to his little history. It was too late to do it now, however, so he shook his head gravely, and pocketing the five guineas withdrew. Mr. Brownlow paced the room to and fro for some minutes, evidently so much disturbed by the Beatles' tale that even Mr. Grimwig forebode to vex him further, at length he stopped and rang the bell violently. Mrs. Bedwin, said Mr. Brownlow, when the housekeeper appeared, that boy, Oliver, is an imposter. It can't be, sir, it cannot be, said the old lady energetically. I tell you he is, retorted the old gentleman. What you mean by can't be? We have just heard a full account of him from his birth, and he has been a thorough-paced little villain all his life. I never will believe it, sir, replied the old lady, firmly, never. You old women never believe anything but quack doctors and lying story-books, growled Mr. Grimwig. I knew it all along. Why didn't you take my advice in the beginning? You would, if he hadn't had a fever, I suppose, eh? He was interesting, wasn't he? Interesting. Bah! And Mr. Grimwig poked the fire with a flourish. He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir, retorted Mrs. Bedwin indignantly. I know what children are, sir, and have done these forty years, and people who can't say the same shouldn't say anything about them. That's my opinion." This was a hard hit at Mr. Grimwig, who was a bachelor. At it extorted nothing from that gentleman but a smile. The old lady tossed her head and smoothed down her apron, preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by Mr. Brownlow. Silence, said the old gentleman, feigning in anger he was far from feeling. Never let me hear the boy's name again. I rank to tell you that, never, never on any pretense mind, you may leave the room, Mrs. Bedwin. Remember, I am in earnest. There were sad hearts at Mr. Brownlow's that night. Oliver's heart sank within him, when he thought of his good friends. It was well for him that he could not know what they had heard, or that might have broken outright. CHAPTER XVIII. About noon next day, when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their customary avocations, Mr. Fagan took the opportunity of reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude, of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty to no ordinary extent, and willfully absedting himself from the society of his anxious friends, and still more in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery. Mr. Fagan laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in and cherished him when, without his timely aid, he might have perished with hunger, and he related the dismal and affecting history of a young lad whom, in his philanthropy, he had suckered under parallel circumstances, but who, proving unworthy of his competence and evincing a desire to communicate with the police, had unfortunately come to be hanged at the old Bailey one morning. Mr. Fagan did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe, but lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of certain evidence from the crown, which, if it were not precisely true, was indispensable necessary for the safety of him, Mr. Fagan, and a few select friends. Mr. Fagan concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging, and, with great friendliness and politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hopes that he might never be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation. Little Oliver's blood ran cold as he listened to the Jews' words, and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them, that it was possible, even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship he knew already, and that deeply laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently knowing or over-communicative persons had been really devised and carried out by the Jew on more occasions than one he thought by no means unlikely, would he recollect the general nature of the altercation between that gentleman and Mr. Sykes, which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind. As he glanced timidly up and met the Jews' searching look, he felt that his pale face and trembling limbs were neither unnoticed nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman. The Jew, smiling hideously, patted Oliver on the head, and said that if he kept himself quiet and applied himself to business, he saw they would be very good friends yet. Then, taking his hat and covering himself with an old, patched great coat, he went out and locked the room-door between them. And so Oliver remained all that day, and for the greater part of many subsequent days seeing nobody between early morning and midnight, and left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts, which never failing to revert to his kind friends and the opinion they must long ago have formed of him, were sad indeed. After the lapse of a week or so, the Jew left the room-door unlocked, and he was at liberty to wander about the house. It was a very dirty place. The rooms upstairs had great high wooden shimney-pieces and large doors with paneled walls and cornices to the ceiling, which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were ornamented in various ways. From all of these tokens Oliver concluded that a long time ago, before the old Jew was born, it had belonged to better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome, dismal and dreary as it looked now. Spiders had built their webs in the angles of the walls and ceilings, and sometimes when Oliver walked softly into a room the mice would scamper across the floor and run back terrified to their holes. With these exceptions there was neither sight nor sound of any living things, and often would it grew dark, and he was tired of wandering from room to room. He would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street door to be as near living people as he could, and would remain there listening and counting the hours until the Jew or the boys returned. In all the rooms the mouldering shutters were fast closed. The bars which held them were screwed tight into the wood. The only light which was admitted, stealing its way through round holes at the top, which made the rooms more gloomy and filled them with strange shadows. There was a black garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter, and out of this Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together, but nothing was to be described from it but a confused and crowded mass of hostops, blackened chimneys, and gable ends. Sometimes indeed a grisly head might be seen peering over the peripet wall of a distant house, but it was quickly withdrawn again, and as the window of Oliver's observatory was nailed down and dimmed with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make out the forms of the different objects beyond, without making any attempt to be seen or heard, which he had as much chance of being as if he had lived inside the ball of St. Paul's Cathedral. One afternoon the Dodger and Master Bates, being engaged out that evening, the first named young gentleman, took it into his head to evince some anxiety regarding the decoration of his person to do him justice. This was by no means a habitual weakness with him, and with this end and aim he condescendingly commanded Oliver to assist him in his toilet a straight way. Oliver was but too glad to make himself useful, too happy to have some faces however bad to look upon, too desirous to conciliate those about him when he could honestly do so to throw any objection in the way of this proposal. So he at once expressed his readiness, and kneeling on the floor while the Dodger sat upon the table so that he could take his foot in his laps, he applied himself to a process which Mr. Dawkins designated as japaning his trotter-cases, the phrase rendered into plain English signifyeth cleaning his boots. Whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational animal may be supposed to feel, when he sits on a table in an easy attitude smoking a pipe, swinging one leg carelessly to and fro, and having his boots cleaned all the time, without even the past trouble of having taken them off, or the prospective misery of putting them on to disturb his reflections, or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco that soothed the feelings of the Dodger or the mildness of the beer that mollified his thoughts, he was evidently tinctured for the nonce, with a spice of romance and enthusiasm foreign to his general nature. He looked down on Oliver, with a thoughtful countenance, for a brief space, and then raising his head, and heaving a gentle sigh, said half in abstraction, and half to master Bates. Well, to pity it is he isn't a prig. Ah! said master Charlie Bates. He don't know what's good for him. The Dodger sighed again and resumed his pipe, as did Charlie Bates. They both smoked for some seconds in silence. Ah! Suppose you don't even know what a prig is, said the Dodger, mournfully. I think I know that, replied Oliver, looking up. It's, ah, your one, are you not, inquired Oliver, checking himself. I am, replied the Dodger, I'd scorn to be anything else. Mr. Dawkins gave his hat a ferocious cock after delivering this sentiment, and looked at master Bates, as if to denote that he would feel obliged by his saying anything to the contrary. I am, repeated the Dodger, sows Charlie, sows Faggin, sows Sykes, sows Nancy, sows Bette, so we all are, down to the dog, and he's the downiest one of the lot. And the least given to preaching, added Charlie Bates. He wouldn't so much as bark in a witness-box for fear of committing himself. No, not if you tied him up in one, and left him there without whittles for a fortnight, said the Dodger. Not a bit of it, observed Charlie. He's a rum-dog. Don't he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs all Sykes when he's in company, pursued the Dodger. Won't he growl at all when he hears a fiddle-playing? And don't he hate other dogs as eight of his breed? Oh, no! He's an out-and-out Christian, said Charlie. This was merely intended as a tribute to the animal's abilities. But it was an appropriate remark, in another sense, if Master Bates had only known it, for there are a good many ladies and gentlemen claiming to be out-and-out Christians between whom, and Mr. Sykes' dog, there exist strong and singular points of resemblance. Well, well, said the Dodger, recurring to the point from which they had strayed, with that mindfulness of his profession which influenced all his proceedings. This hasn't got anything to do with young green here. No more it has, said Charlie. Why don't you put yourself under Fagan, Oliver, and make your fortune out of hand, add at the Dodger, with a grin, and so be able to retire on your property and do the gentile, as I mean to, in the very next leap year, but four that ever comes, and the forty-second Tuesday and Trinity week, said Charlie Bates. I don't like it, rejoined Oliver, timidly. I wish they would let me go. I would rather go. And Fagan would rather not, rejoined Charlie. Oliver knew this too well, but thinking it might be dangerous to express his feelings more openly, he only sighed, and went on with his boot-cleaning. Go, exclaimed the Dodger, or where's your spirit? Don't you take any pride out of yourself? Would you go, and be depended on your friends? Oh, blow that, said Master Bates, drying two or three silk handkerchiefs of his pocket, and tossing them into a cupboard. That's too mean, that is. I couldn't do it, said the Dodger, with an air of hotty disgust. You can leave your friends, though, said Oliver, with a half-smile, and let them be punished for what you did. That, rejoined the Dodger, with a wave of his pipe, that was all out of consideration for Fagan, cos the traps know that we worked together, and he might have got into trouble if we hadn't made our lucky. That was the move, wasn't it, Charlie? Master Bates nodded assent, and would have spoken, but the recollection of Oliver's flight came so suddenly upon him, that the smoke he was inhaling got entangled with a laugh, and went up into his head and down into his throat, and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping about five minutes long. Look here, said the Dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and apents. Here's a jolly life. What's the odds where it comes from? Here, catch-hole, there's plenty more where they were took from. You won't, won't you? Oh, you precious flat! It's naughty, ain't it, Oliver, inquired Charlie Bates. He'll come to be scragged, won't he? I don't know what that means, replied Oliver. Something in this way, old fella, said Charlie, as he said it, Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief, and holding it erect in the air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious sound through his teeth, thereby indicating by a lively pantomantic representation that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing. That's what it means, said Charlie. Look how he stares, Jack. I never did see such prime company as that, dear boy. He'll be the death of me, I know he will. Master Charlie Bates, having laughed heartily again, resumed his pipe with tears in his eyes. You've been brought up bad, said the Dodger, surveying his boots with much satisfaction when Oliver had polished them. Faggin will make something of you, though, or you'll be the thirst he ever had that turned out unprofitable. You'd better begin at once, for you'll come to the trade long before you think of it, and you're only losing time, Oliver. Master Bates backed this advice with sundry moral admonitions of his own, which, being exhausted, he and his friend Mr. Dawkins, launched into a glowing description of the numerous pleasures incidental to the life they led, interspersed with a variety of hints to Dodger, that the best thing he could do would be to secure Faggin's favor without more delay by the means which they themselves had employed to gain it. "'And always put this in your pipe, Nolly,' said the Dodger, as the Jew was heard unlocking the door above. "'If you don't take Fogels and Tickers, what's the good of talking in that way, interposed Master Bates? He don't know what you mean.' "'If you don't take pocket handkitches and watches,' said the Dodger, reducing his conversation to the level of Oliver's capacity, some other cove will, so that the coves that lose them will be all the worse, and you'll be all the worse, too, and nobody half-a-happeth the better except the chap what gets them, and you've just as good a right to them as they have.' "'To be sure, to be sure,' said the Jew, who had entered unseen by Oliver, "'it all lies in a nutshell, my dear, in a nutshell. Take the Dodger's word for it! He understands the catechism of his trade. The old man rubbed his hands gleefully together as he corroborated the Dodger's reasoning in these terms, and chuckled with delight at his pupil's proficiency. The conversation proceeded no further at this time, for the Jew had returned home accompanied by Miss Betsy, and a gentleman whom Oliver had never seen before, but who was accosted by the Dodger as Tom Chitling, and who, having lingered on the stairs to exchange a few gallantries with the lady, now made his appearance. Mr. Chitling was older than years than the Dodger, having perhaps numbered eighteen winters, but there was a degree of deference in his deportment towards that young gentleman which seemed to indicate that he felt himself conscious of a slight inferiority and point of genius and professional acquirements. He had small twinkling eyes and a pock-marked face, wore a fur cap, a dark corduroy jacket, greasy, fustian trousers, and an apron. His wardrobe was in truth rather out of repair. But he excused himself to the company by stating that his time was only out an hour before, and that in consequence of having worn the regimentals for six weeks past he had not been able to bestow any attention on his private clothes. Mr. Chitling added, with strong marks of irritation, that the new way of fumigating clothes up yonder was infernal unconstitutional, for it burnt holes in them, and there was no remedy against the county. The same remark he considered to apply to his regulation mode of cutting the hair, which he held to be decidedly unlawful, Mr. Chitling wound up his observations by stating that he had not touched a drop of anything for forty-two more long, hard working days, and that he wished he might be busted if he wasn't as dry as a lime basket. Where do you think the gentleman has come from, Oliver, inquired the Jew with a grin, as the other boys put a bottle of spirits on the table? I—I don't know, sir," replied Oliver. "'Who's that?' inquired Tom Chitling, casting a contemptuous look at Oliver. "'A young friend of mine, my dear,' replied the Jew. "'He's in luck, then,' said the young man, with a meaning look at Fagan. "'Never mind where I come from, young one. You'll find your way there soon enough, I'll bet a crown.'" At this sally the boys laughed. After some more jokes on the same subject, they exchanged a few short whispers with Fagan and with Drew. After some words apart between the last-comer and Fagan, they drew their chairs towards the fire, and the Jew, telling Oliver to come and sit by him, led the conversation to the topics more calculated to interest his hearers. These were the great advantages of the trade, the proficiency of the dodger, the amyability of Charlie Bates, and the liberality of the Jew himself. At length these subjects displayed signs of being thoroughly exhausted, and Mr. Chitling did the same, for the House of Correction becomes fatiguing after a week or two. Spetzi accordingly withdrew and left the party to their repose. From this day Oliver was seldom left alone, but was placed in almost constant communication with the two boys, who played the old game with the Jew every day, whether for their own improvement or Oliver's, Mr. Fagan best knew. At other times the old man would tell them stories of robberies he had committed in his younger days, mixed up with so much that was droll and curious that Oliver could not help laughing heartily and showing that he was amused in spite of all his better feelings. In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils, having prepared his mind by solitude and gloom to prefer any society to the companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped would blacken it and change its hue for ever. CHAPTER XIX It was a chill, damp, windy night when the Jew, buttoning his great coat tight round his strivelled body and pulling the collar up over his ear so as completely to obscure the lower part of his face, emerged from his den. He paused on the step as the door was locked and chained behind him, and having listened while the boys made all secure and until their retreating footsteps were no longer audible, slunk down the street as quickly as he could. The house to which Oliver had been conveyed was in the neighborhood of Whitechapel. The Jew stopped for an instant at the corner of the street and, glancing suspiciously round, crossed the road and struck off in the direction of the spittle fields. The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the streets. The rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold and clammy to the touch. It seemed just the night when it befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided stethily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved, crawling forth by night in search of some rich offal for a meal. He kept on his course through many winding and narrow ways, until he reached Bethnal Green, then turning subtly off to the left. He soon became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty streets which abound in that close and densely populated corner. The Jew was evidently too familiar with the ground he traversed to be at all bewildered, either by the darkness of the night or the intricacies of the way. He hurried through several alleys and streets, and at length turned into one, lighted only by a single lamp at the farther end. At the door of a house in this street he knocked, having exchanged a few muttered words with the person who opened it he walked upstairs. A dog growled as he touched the handle of a room door, and a man's voice demanded who was there. "'Only me, Bill. Only me, my dear,' said the Jew, looking in. "'Brig in your body, then,' said Sykes. "'Lie down, you stupid brute, don't you know the devil when he's got a great coat on?' Apparently the dog had been somewhat deceived by Mr. Fagin's outer garment, for as the Jew unbuttoned it and threw it over the back of a chair, he retired to the corner from which he had risen, digging his tail as he went, to show that he was as well satisfied as it was in his nature to be. "'Well,' said Sykes, "'well, my dear,' replied the Jew. "'Ah, Nancy!' The latter recognition was uttered with just enough of embarrassment to imply a doubt of its reception, for Mr. Fagin and his young friend had not met, since she had interfered in behalf of all of her. All doubts upon the subject if he had any were speedily removed by the young lady's behaviour. She took her feet off the fender, pushed back her chair, and bad Fagin draw up his, without saying more about it, for it was a cold night and no mistake. "'It is cold, Nancy, dear,' said the Jew, as he warmed his skinny hands over the fire. "'It seems to go right through one,' added the old man, touching his side. "'It must be a piercerer if it finds its way through your heart,' said Mr. Sykes. "'Give him something to drink, Nancy. Burn my body, make haste. It's enough to turn a man ill to see his lean old carcass shivering in that way, like an ugly ghost just rose from the grave.' Nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there were many, which, to judge from the diversity of their appearance, were filled with several kinds of liquids. Sykes pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the Jew drink it off. "'Quite enough, quite, thank ye, Bill,' replied the Jew, putting down the glass after just setting his lips to it. "'What, you're afraid of all getting the better of you, are you?' inquired Sykes, fixing his eyes on the Jew. "'Ugh!' With a hoarse grunt of contempt Mr. Sykes seized the glass and threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes as a preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself, which he did at once. The Jew glanced round the room as his companion tossed down the second glassful, not in curiosity, for he had seen it often before, but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him. It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was anything but a working man, and with no more suspicious articles displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood in a corner and a life-preserver that hung over the chimney-piece. "'There,' said Sykes, smacking his lips, "'now I'm ready.' For business,' inquired the Jew. "'For business,' replied Sykes. "'So say what you've got to say.' "'About the crib at Chertsey, Bill,' said the Jew, drawing his chair forward and speaking in a very low voice. "'Yes, what about it?' inquired Sykes. "'Ah, you know what I mean, my dear,' said the Jew. "'He knows what I mean, Nancy, don't he?' "'No, he don't,' snared Mr. Sykes. "'Or he won't, and that's the same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names. Don't sit there winking and blinking and talking to me in hints, as if you weren't the very first that thought about the robbery. What do you mean?' "'Hush, Bill, hush,' said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indictation. Somebody will hear us, my dear, somebody will hear us. Let him hear,' said Sykes, "'I don't care.' But as Mr. Sykes did care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer. "'There, there,' said the Jew, coaxingly, "'it was only my caution, nothing more. Now, my dear, about that crib at Chertsey, when is it to be done, Bill, eh? When is it to be done?' "'Such plate, my dear, such plate,' said the Jew, rubbing his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of anticipation. "'Not at all,' replied Sykes coldly. "'Not to be done at all,' echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair. "'No, not at all,' rejoined Sykes. "'At least it can't be a put-up job, as we expected. Then it hasn't been properly gone about,' said the Jew, turning pale with anger. "'Don't tell me. But I will tell you,' retorted Sykes. "'Who are you that's not to be told? I tell you that Toby Crackett has been hanging about the place for a fortnight, and he can't get one of the servants in line. "'Do you mean to tell me, Bill,' said the Jew, softening as the other grew heated, that neither of the two men in the house can be got over?' "'Yes, I do mean to tell you so,' replied Sykes. "'The old lady has had him these twenty years, and if you were to give him five hundred pound they wouldn't be in it. But do you mean to say, my dear,' remonstrated the Jew, that the women can't be got over? Not a bit of it,' replied Sykes. "'Not by flash, Toby Crackett,' said the Jew incredulously. "'Think what women are, Bill. No, not even by flash, Toby Crackett,' replied Sykes. He says he's worn sham whiskers and a canary waistcoat. The whole blessed time has been loitering down there, and it's all of no use. He should have tried moustaches and a pair of military trousers, my dear,' said the Jew. So he did rejoin Sykes, and they weren't of no more use than the other plant. The Jew looked blank at this information. After ruminating for some minutes with his chin sunk on his breast, he raised his head and said with a deep sigh that if flash, Toby Crackett, reported a right, he feared the game was up. And yet,' said the old man, dropping his hands on his knees, "'It's a sad thing, my dear, to lose so much when we had set our hearts upon it. So it is,' said Mr. Sykes, worse luck.' A long silence ensued, during which the Jew was plunged in deep thought, with his face wrinkled into an expression of villainy perfectly demoniical. Sykes eyed him furtively from time to time. Nancy apparently fearful of irritating the house-breaker, sat with her eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to all that passed. "'Fergen,' said Sykes, abruptly breaking the stillness that prevailed. "'Is it worth fifty shiners extra, if it's safely done from the outside?' "'Yes,' said the Jew, as suddenly rousing himself. "'Is it a bargain?' inquired Sykes. "'Yes, my dear, yes,' rejoined the Jew, his eyes glistening, and every muscle in his face working with the excitement that the inquiry had awakened. "'Then,' said Sykes, thrusting aside the Jew's hand with some disdain, "'let it come off as soon as you like. Toby and me were over the garden-wall the night of four last, sounding the panels of the door and shutters, the cribs barred up at night like a jail, but there's one part we can crack safe and softly.' "'Which is that, Bill?' asked the Jew, eagerly. "'Why?' whispered Sykes, as you crossed the lawn. "'Yes,' said the Jew, bending his head forward with his eyes almost starting out of it. "'Ugh!' cried Sykes, stopping short, as the girl, scarcely moving her head, looked suddenly round and pointed for an instant to the Jew's face. "'Never mind which part it is. You can't do it without me, I know, but it's best to be on the safe side when one deals with you.' "'As you like, my dear, as you like,' replied the Jew. "'Is there no help wanted but yours and Toby's?' "'None,' said Sykes, sept a centre-bit and a boy. "'The first we've both got, the second you must find us.' "'A boy!' exclaimed the Jew. "'Oh, then it's a panel, eh?' "'Never mind what it is,' replied Sykes. "'I want a boy, and he must be a bigon.' "'Lord!' said Mr. Sykes, reflectively. "'If I'd only got that young boy of Ned, the Chimley-sweepers. He kept him small on purpose, and led him out on the job. But the father gets lagged, and then the juvenile delinquent society comes, and takes the boy away from a trade where he was earning money, teaches him to read and write, and in time makes apprentice of him, and so they go on,' said Mr. Sykes, his wrath rising with the recollection of his wrongs, so they go on, and if they'd got money enough, which it's a providence they haven't, we shouldn't have half a dozen boys left in the whole trade in a year or two.' "'No more we should,' acquiesced the Jew, who had been considering during the speech, and had only caught the last sentence. "'Bill!' "'What now?' inquired Sykes. The Jew nodded his head towards Nancy, who was still gazing at the fire, and intimated by a sign that he would have her told to leave the room. Sykes shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as if he thought the precaution unnecessary, but complied nevertheless by requesting Miss Nancy to fetch him a jug of beer. "'You don't want any beer,' said Nancy, folding her arms and retaining her seat very compositely. "'I tell you, I do,' replied Sykes, nonsense, rejoined the girl coolly. "'Go on, Fagan. I know what he's going to say, Bill. He needn't mind me.' The Jew still hesitated. Sykes looked from one to the other in some surprise. "'Why, you don't mind the old girl, do you, Fagan?' he asked at length. "'You've known her long enough to trust her, or the devil's in it. She ain't one to blabber, are you, Nancy?' "'I should think not,' replied the young lady, drawing her chair up to the table and putting her elbows upon it. "'No, no, my dear, I know you're not,' said the Jew. But—' And again the old man paused. "'But what?' inquired Sykes. "'I didn't know whether she mightn't perhaps be out of sorts, you know, my dear, as she was the other night,' replied the Jew. At this confession Miss Nancy burst into a loud laugh, and, swallowing a glass of brandy, shook her head with an air of defiance, and burst into sundry exclamations of, Keep the game a-going, never say die and the like. These seemed to have the effect of reassuring both gentlemen, for the Jew nodded his head with a satisfied air, and resumed his seat, as did Mr. Sykes likewise. "'Now, Faggan,' said Nancy, with a laugh, "'tell Bill at once about Oliver.' "'Ah, you're a clever one, my dear, the sharpest girl I ever saw,' said the Jew, patting her on the neck. "'It was about Oliver, I was going to speak sure enough—ha-ha! What about him?' demanded Sykes. "'He's the boy for you, my dear,' replied the Jew, in a hoarse whisper, laying his finger on the side of his nose and grinning frightfully. "'He,' exclaimed Sykes, "'have him, Bill,' said Nancy. "'I would, if I was in your place. He may be so much up as any of the others, but that's not what you want. If he's only to open a door for you, depend upon it, he'll be a safe one, Bill. I know he is, rejoined Faggan. He's been in good training these last few weeks, and it's time he began to work for his bread, besides the others are all too big. Well, he is just the size I want,' said Mr. Sykes, ruminating, "'and will do everything you want, Bill, my dear,' interposed the Jew. He can't help himself. That is, if you frighten him enough, frighten him,' echoed Sykes. "'It'll be no sham frightening, mind you, if there's anything queer about him when we once get into the work, in for a penny, in for a pound. You won't see him alive again, Faggan. Think of that before you send him. Mark my words,' said the robber, poising a crowbar which he had drawn from under the bedstead. "'I've thought of it all,' said the Jew, with energy. "'I've—I've had my eye upon him, my dears, close—close. Once let him feel that he is one of us. Once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief and he's ours—hours for his life. Oh, ho! It couldn't have come about better!' The old man crossed his arms upon his breast, and drawing his head and shoulders into a heap, literally hugged himself for joy. "'Ours,' said Sykes, "'yours,' you mean. "'Perhaps I do, my dear,' said the Jew, with a shrill chuckle. "'Mine, if you like, Bill. And what,' said Sykes, scowling fiercely on his agreeable friend, "'what makes you take so much pains but one chock-faced kid, and to know there are fifty boys snoozing about common-garden every night as you might pick and choose from? Because there of no use to me, my dear,' replied the Jew, with some confusion, not worth the taking. There looks convicted when they get into trouble, and I lose them all. With this boy, properly managed, my dears, I could do what I couldn't do with twenty of them, besides,' said the Jew, recovering his self-possession. He has us now, if he could only give us leg-bale again, and he must be on the same boat with us. Never mind how he came there. It's quite enough for my power over him that he was in a robbery. That's all I want. Now, how much better this is, than being obliged to put the poor little boy out of the way, which would be dangerous, and we should lose by it, besides. When is it to be done?' asked Nancy, stopping some turbulent exclamation on the part of Mr. Sykes, expressive of the disgust with which he received Fagin's affectation of humanity. Ah, to be sure,' said the Jew, when is it to be done, Bill? I plan with Toby the night after to-morrow, rejoined Sykes, in a surly voice, if he heard nothing from me to the contrary. Good, said the Jew, there's no moon, no rejoined Sykes. It's all arranged about bringing off the swag, is it, asked the Jew, Sykes nodded. And about? Oh, ah, it's all planned,' rejoined Sykes, interrupting him. Never mind particulars, you'd better bring the boy here to-morrow night. I shall get off the stone an hour after daybreak, then you hold your tongue, and keep the melting pot ready, and that's all you have to do.' After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was decided that Nancy should repair to the Jews next evening when the night had set in, and bring Oliver away with her, fagging craftily observing that if he evinced any disinclination to the task he would be more willing to accompany the girl who had so recently interfered in his behalf than anybody else. It was also solemnly arranged that poor Oliver should, for the purposes of the contemplated expedition, be unreservedly consigned to the care and custody of Mr. William Sykes, and further that the said Sykes should deal with him as he thought fit, and should not be held responsible by the Jew for any mischance or evil that might be necessary to visit him. It being understood that to render the compact in this respect binding, any representations made by Mr. Sykes on his return should be required to be confirmed and corroborated in all important particulars by the testimony of Flash Toby Crackett. These preliminaries adjusted. Mr. Sykes proceeded to drink brandy at a furious rate, and to flourish the crowbar in an alarming manner, yelling forth at the same time most unmusical snatches of song, mingled with wild execrations. At length, in a fit of professional enthusiasm, he insisted upon producing his box of house-breaking tools, which he had no sooner stumbled in with and opened for the purpose of explaining the nature and properties of the various implements it contained, and the peculiar beauties of their construction, that he fell over the box upon the floor and went to sleep where he fell. Good night, Nancy, said the Jew, muffling himself up as before, good night, the rise met, and the Jew scrutinized her narrowly. There was no flinching about the girl. She was as true and earnest in the matter as Toby Crackett himself could be. The Jew again bet her good night, and bestowing a sly kick upon the prostrate form of Mr. Sykes while her back was turned, groped downstairs. Always the way, muttered the Jew to himself as he turned homeward. The worst of these women is that a very little thing serves to call up some long-forgotten feeling, and the best of them is that it never lasts. The man against the child, for a bag of gold. Beguiling the time with these pleasing reflections, Mr. Fagan wedded his way through mud and mire to his gloomy abode where the Dodger was sitting up impatiently awaiting his return. "'Is all of her a bed I want to speak to him?' was his first remark as they descended the stairs. "'Hours ago,' replied the Dodger, throwing open a door, "'here he is.' The boy was lying fast asleep on a rude bed upon the floor, so pale with anxiety and sadness, and the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death, not death as it shows in stroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed, where a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled to heaven, and the gross air of the world has not had time to breathe upon the changing dust at Hallowed. Not now,' said the Jew, turning softly away. TOMORROW. When Oliver awoke in the morning, he was a good deal surprised to find that a new pair of shoes, with strong, thick soles, had been placed at his bedside, and that his old shoes had been removed. At first he was pleased with the discovery, hoping that it might be the forerunner of his release, but such thoughts were quickly dispelled on his sitting down to breakfast along with the Jew, who told him, in a tone and manner which increased his alarm, that he was to be taken to the residence of Bill Sykes that night. "'To stop there, sir?' asked Oliver anxiously. "'No, no, my dear, not to stop there,' replied the Jew. "'We shouldn't like to lose you. Don't be afraid, Oliver. You shall come back to us again. We won't be so cruel as to send you away, my dear. Oh, no, no!' The old man, who was stooping over the fire, toasting a piece of bread, looked round as he bantered Oliver thus, and shuckled as if to show that he would still be very glad to get away if he could. "'I suppose,' said the Jew, fixing his eyes on Oliver, "'you want to know what you're going to bills for, eh, my dear?' Oliver colored involuntarily to find out that the old thief had been reading his thoughts, but boldly said, yes, he did want to know. "'Why do you think?' inquired Fagan, perrying the question. "'Indeed, I don't know, sir,' replied Oliver. "'Bah!' said the Jew, turning away with a disappointed countenance from a close perusal of the boy's face. "'Wait till Bill tells you, then.' The Jew seemed very much vexed by Oliver's not expressing any greater curiosity on the subject, but the truth is that, although Oliver felt very anxious, he was too much confused by the earnest cunning of Fagan's looks and his own speculations to make any further inquiries just then. He had no other opportunity, for the Jew remained very surly and silent till night, when he prepared to go abroad. "'You may burn a candle,' said the Jew, putting one upon the table, "'and here's a book for you to read till they come to fetch you. Good night!' "'Good night!' replied Oliver, softly. The Jew walked to the door, looking over his shoulder at the boy as he went. Suddenly stopping, he called him by his name. Oliver looked up. The Jew, pointing to the candle, motioned him to light it. He did so, and as he placed the candles to come upon the table, saw that the Jew was gazing fixedly at him with lowering and contracted brows from the dark end of the room. "'Take heed, Oliver, take heed,' said the old man, shaking his right hand before him in a warning manner. He's a rough man and thinks nothing of blood when his own is up. Water falls out, saying nothing, and do what he bids you, mind!' Placing a strong emphasis on the last word, he suffered his features gradually to resolve themselves into a ghastly grin, and nodding his head left the room. Oliver leaned his head upon his hand when the old man disappeared, and pondered with a trembling heart on the words he had just heard. The more he thought of the Jew's admonition, the more he was at a loss to divine its real purpose and meaning. He could think of no bad object to be attained by sending him to Sykes, which would not be equally well answered by his remaining with Fagin, and after meditating for a long time concluded that he had been selected to perform some ordinary menial offices for the host-breaker, until another boy, better suited for his purpose, could be engaged. He was too well accustomed to suffering, and had suffered too much where he was to bewail the prospect of change very severely. He remained lost in thought for some minutes, and then, with a heavy sigh, snuffed the candle, and taking up the book which the Jew had left with him, began to read. He turned over the leaves, carelessly at first, but lighting on a passage which attracted his attention, he soon became intent upon the volume. It was a history of the lives and trials of great criminals, and the pages were soiled and thumbed with use. Here he read of dreadful crimes that made the blood run cold, of secret murders that had been committed by the lonely wayside, of bodies hidden from the eye of man in deep pits and wells which would not keep them down, deep as they were, but had yielded them up at last, after many years, and so maddened the murderers with the sight that in their horror they had confessed their guilt and yelled for the jibbit to end their agony. There, too, he read of men who, lying in their beds at dead of night, had been tempted, so they said, and led on by their own bad thoughts, to such dreadful bloodshed as it made the flesh creep and the limbs quail to think of. The terrible descriptions were so real and vivid that the sallow pages seemed to turn red with gore, and the words upon them to be sounded in his ears as if they were whispered in hollow murmurs by the spirits of the dead. At a paroxysm of fear the boy closed the book and thrust it from him, then falling upon his knees he prayed heaven to spare him from such deeds, and rather to will that he should die at once than be reserved for crime so fearful and appalling. By degrees he grew more calm and besought in a low and broken voice that he might be rescued from his present dangers, and that if any aid were to be raised up for a poor outcast boy who had never known the love of friends or kindred it might come to him now when desolate and deserted he stood alone in the midst of wickedness and guilt. He had concluded his prayer, but still remained with his head buried in his hands when a rustling noise aroused him. What's that? he cried, starting up and catching sight of a figure standing by the door. Who's there? Me, only me, replied a tremulous voice. Oliver raised the candle above his head and looked towards the door. It was Nancy. But down the lights of the girl turning away her head it hurts my eyes. Oliver saw that she was very pale and gently inquired if she were ill. The girl threw herself into a chair with her back towards him and wrung her hands, but made no reply. God forgive me, she cried after a while. I never thought of this. Has anything happened, asked Oliver? Can I help you? I will, if I can. I will, indeed." She rocked herself to and fro, caught her throat, and uttering a gurgling sound, gasped for breath. Nancy, cried Oliver, what is it? The girl beat her hands upon her knees and her feet upon the ground, and suddenly stopping drew her shawl close rounder and shivered with cold. She first heard the fire. Drawing her chair close to it she sat there for a little time without speaking, but at length she raised her head and looked round. I don't know what comes over me sometimes, said she, affecting to busy herself in arranging her dress. It's this damp, dirty room, I think. Now, nolly dear, are you ready? Am I to go with you? asked Oliver. Yes, I have come from Bill, replied the girl. You are to go with me. What for, asked Oliver, recoiling? What for, echoed the girl, raising her eyes and averting them again the moment they encountered the boy's face? Oh, for no harm! I don't believe it, said Oliver, who had watched her closely. Have it your own way, rejoined the girl, affecting to laugh, for no good then. Oliver could see that he had had some power over the girl's better feelings, and for an instant thought of appealing to her compassion for his helpless state. But then the thought darted across his mind that it was barely eleven o'clock, and that many people were still in the streets, of whom surely some might be found to give credence to his tale. As the reflection occurred to him, he stepped forward and said somewhat hastily that he was ready. Neither his brief consideration nor its purport was lost on his companion. She eyed him narrowly while he spoke, and cast upon him a look of intelligence which sufficiently showed that she guessed what had been passing in his thoughts. Hush, said the girl, stooping over him and pointing to the door, as she looked cautiously round. You can't help yourself. I've tried hard for you, but all to no purpose. You are hedged round and round. If ever you are to get loose from here, this is not the time. Struck by the energy of her manner, Oliver looked up in her face with great surprise. She seemed to speak the truth. Her countenance was white and agitated, and she trembled with very earnestness. I have saved you from being ill-used once, and I will again, and I do now, continued the girl aloud, for those who would have fetched you if I had not would have been far more rough than me. I have promised for you of being quiet and silent. If you are not, you will only do harm to yourself and me too, and perhaps be my death. See here, I have borne all this for you already, as true as God sees me show it. She pointed hastily to some livid bruises on her neck and arms, and continued with great rapidity. Remember this, and don't let me suffer more for you just now. If I could help you, I would, but I have not the power. They don't mean to harm you. Whatever they make you do is no fault of yours, hush. Every word from you is a blow for me. Give me your hand. Make haste. Your hand." She caught the hand which Oliver instinctively placed in hers, and blowing out the light drew him after her up the stairs. The door was opened quickly by someone shrouded in the darkness, and was as quickly closed when they had passed out. A hackney cabaret was in waiting, with the same vehemence which she had exhibited in a dressing Oliver the girl pulled him in with her and drew the curtains close. The driver wanted no directions, but lashed his horse into full speed without the delay of an instant. The girl still held Oliver fast by the hand, and continued to pour into his ear the warnings and assurances she had already imparted. All was so quick and hurried that he had scarcely time to recollect where he was or how he came there when the carriage stopped at the house to which the Jew's steps had been directed on the previous evening. For one brief moment Oliver cast a hurried glance along the empty street, and a cry for help hung up on his lips. But the girl's voice was in his ear beseeching him in such tones of agony to remember her that he had not the heart to utter it. While he hesitated, the opportunity was gone. He was already in the house, and the door was shut. "'This way,' said the girl, releasing her hold for the first time. "'Bill!' "'Hello!' replied Sykes, appearing at the head of the stairs with a candle. "'Oh! That's the time of day. Come on!' This was a very strong expression of approbation, an uncommonly hearty welcome from a person of Mr. Sykes' temperament. Nancy, appearing much gratified thereby, saluted him cordially. "'Bull's eye got home with Tom,' observed Sykes, as he lighted them up. "'He'd have been in the way. That's right,' rejoined Nancy. "'So you've got the kids,' said Sykes, when they had all reached the room, closing the door as he spoke. "'Yes, here he is,' replied Nancy. "'Did he come quiet?' inquired Sykes. "'Like a lamb,' rejoined Nancy. "'I'm glad to hear it,' said Sykes, looking grimly at Oliver. For the sake of his young carcasses would otherwise have suffered for it. "'Come here, young one. Let me read you a lecture, which is as well got over at once.' Thus addressing his new pupil, Mr. Sykes pulled off Oliver's cap, and threw it into a corner, and then, taking him by the shoulder, sat himself down by the table, and stood the boy in front of him. "'Now, first, do you know what this is?' inquired Sykes, taking up a pocket-pistol which lay on the table. Oliver replied in the affirmative. "'Well, then, look here,' continued Sykes. "'This is powder. That is a bullet. And this is a little bit of an old hat for waden.' Oliver murmured his comprehension of the different bodies referred to, and Mr. Sykes proceeded to load the pistol with great nicety and deliberation. "'Now it's loaded,' said Mr. Sykes, when he had finished. "'Yes, I see it is,' replied Oliver. "'Well,' said the robber, grasping Oliver's wrist and pulling the barrel so close to his temple that they touched, at which moment the boy could not repress a start. "'If you speak a word when you're out the doors with me, except when I speak to you, that loading will be in your head without notice. So if you do make up your mind to speak without leave, say your prayers first.' Having bestowed a scowl upon the object of this warning to increase its effect, Mr. Sykes continued. "'As near as I know, there isn't anybody as would be asking very particular out to you, if you was disposed of, so I needn't take the devil in all of trouble to explain matters to you, if it weren't for your own good. Do you hear me?' "'The short and the long of what you mean,' said Nancy, speaking very emphatically and slightly frowning at Oliver, as if to speak as serious attention to her words, is that if you're crossed by him in the strab you have on hand, you'll prevent his ever-telling tales afterwards by shooting him through the head, and will take your chance of swinging for it as you do for a great many other things in the way of business every month of your life. "'That's it,' observed Mr. Sykes approvingly. "'Women can always put things in fewest words, except when it's blowing up and then they lengthens it out. And now that he's thoroughly up to it, let's have some supper and get a snooze before starting.' In pursuance of this request, Nancy quickly laid the cloth, disappearing for a few minutes, she presently returned with a pot of porter and a dish of sheep's-hands, which gave occasion to several pleasant witticisms on the part of Mr. Sykes, founded upon the singular coincidence of Jimmy's being a can name common to them, and also to an ingenious implement much used in his profession. Indeed, the worthy gentleman, stimulated perhaps by the immediate prospect of being on active service, was in great spirits and good humour. In proof whereof it may be here remarked that he humorously drank all the beer at a draught, and did not utter on a rough calculation more than four score o's during the whole progress of the meal. The supper being ended, it may be easily conceived that Oliver had no great appetite for it, Mr. Sykes disposed of a couple of glasses of spirits and water, and threw himself on the bed, ordering Nancy with many implications in case of failure, to call him at five precisely. Oliver stretched himself in his clothes by command of the same authority on a mattress upon the floor, and the girl mending the fire sat before it in readiness to rouse them at the appointed time. For a long time Oliver lay awake, thinking it not impossible that Nancy might seek that opportunity of whispering some further advice, but the girl sat brooding over the fire without moving, save now and then to trim the light. Weary with watching in anxiety he at length fell asleep. When he awoke, the table was covered with tea-things, and Sykes was thrusting various articles into the pockets of his great coat, which hung over the back of a chair. Nancy was busily engaged in preparing breakfast. It was not yet daylight, for the candle was still burning, and was quite dark outside. A sharp rain, too, was beating against the window-panes, and the sky looked black and cloudy. Now, then, growled Sykes, as Oliver started up, half-past five, look sharp or you get no breakfast for as late as it is. Oliver was not long in making his toilet, having taken some breakfast, he replied to a surly inquiry from Sykes by saying that he was quite ready. Nancy, scarcely looking at the boy, threw him a handkerchief to tie round his throat. Sykes gave him a large, rough cape to button over his shoulders. Thus attired, he gave his hand to the robber, who merely pausing to show him with a menacing gesture that he had that same pistol in a side pocket of his great coat, clasped it firmly in his, and exchanged a farewell with Nancy and led him away. Oliver turned for an instant when they reached the door, in the hope of meeting a look from the girl. But she had resumed her old seat in front of the fire, and sat perfectly motionless before it. End of Chapter 20