CHAPTER XVIII
HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS
REPUTABLE FRIENDS
About noon next day, when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their
customary avocations, Mr. Fagin 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, in wilfully absenting 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. Fagin 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 succoured under parallel circumstances, but who,
proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing a desire to communicate with the
police, had unfortunately come to be hanged at the Old Bailey one morning. Mr. Fagin
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 for the
crown: which, if it were not precisely true, was indispensably necessary for the safety of
him (Mr. Fagin) and a few select friends. Mr. Fagin 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 Jew's 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,
when he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that gentleman and
Mr. Sikes: which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind. As
he glanced timidly up, and met the Jew's 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 behind him.
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 chimney-pieces
and large doors, with panelled 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 thing; and often, when 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 back-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 descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of
housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends. Sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head
might be seen, peering over the parapet-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 firstnamed
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 an habitual weakness
with him); and, with this end and aim, he condescendingly commanded Oliver to assist
him in his toilet, straightway.
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 'japanning his trotter-cases.' The phrase, rendered into plain English,
signifieth, 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 sign, said, half in
abstraction, and half to Master Bates:
'What a pity it is he isn't a prig!'
'Ah!' said Master Charles Bates; 'he don't know what's good for him.'
The Dodger sighed again, and resumed his pipe: as did Charley Bates. They both
smoked, for some seconds, in silence.
'I 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 a the--; you're one, are you not?'
inquired Oliver, checking himself.
'I am,' replied the Doger. '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. 'So's Charley. So's Fagin. So's Sikes. So's Nancy. So's
Bet. So we all are, down to the dog. And he's the downiest one of the lot!'
'And the least given to peaching,' added Charley 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 wittles for a fortnight,' said the
Dodger.
'Not a bit of it,' observed Charley.
'He's a rum dog. Don't he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs or sings 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 ain't of his breed! Oh, no!'
'He's an out-and-out Christian,' said Charley.
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.
Sikes' 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 go
anything to do with young Green here.'
'No more it has,' said Charley. 'Why don't you put yourself under Fagin, Oliver?'
'And make your fortun' out of hand?' added the Dodger, with a grin.
'And so be able to retire on your property, and do the gen-teel:
as I mean to, in the very next leap-year but four that ever comes, and the forty-second
Tuesday in Trinity-week,' said Charley Bates.
'I don't like it,' rejoined Oliver, timidly; 'I wish they would let me go. I--I--would rather
go.'
'And Fagin would RATHER not!' rejoined Charley.
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. 'Why, where's your spirit?' Don't you take any pride out of
yourself? Would you go and be dependent on your friends?'
'Oh, blow that!' said Master Bates: drawing two or three silk handkerchiefs from 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 haughty 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 Fagin, 'cause the traps know that we work together, and he might have got into
trouble if we hadn't made our lucky; that was the move, wasn't it, Charley?'
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 entagled 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 halfpence. 'Here's
a jolly life! What's the odds where it comes from? Here, catch hold; 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 Charley Bates. 'He'll come to be scragged, won't
he?'
'I don't know what that means,' replied Oliver.
'Something in this way, old feller,' said Charly. 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 pantomimic
representation, that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing.
'That's what it means,' said Charley. 'Look how he stares, Jack!
I never did see such prime company as that 'ere boy; he'll be the death of me, I know he
will.' Master Charley 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. 'Fagin will make something of you,
though, or you'll be the first 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 Oliver that the best thing he could do, would be to secure Fagin's favour 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-handkechers 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 'em will be all the worse, and you'll be all the worse, too, and nobody half a
ha'p'orth the better, except the chaps wot 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. Ha! ha! ha! 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 farther 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 in 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
in point of genius and professional aquirements. 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 the 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 moral long hard-working days; and that he
'wished he might be busted if he warn'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 Fagin. 'Never mind
where I came from, young 'un; 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 Fagin; and withdrew.
After some words apart between the last comer and Fagin, they drew their chairs
towards the fire; and the Jew, telling Oliver to come and sit by him, led the conversation
to the topics most calculated to interest his hearers. These were, the great advantages of
the trade, the proficiency of the Dodger, the amiability of Charley 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. Miss Betsy 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. Fagin 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
IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON
It was a chill, damp, windy night, when the Jew: buttoning his great-coat tight round his
shrivelled body, and pulling the collar up over his ears 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 Spitalfields.
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 stealthily
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 suddenly 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
quarter.
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.
'Bring in your body then,' said Sikes. '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: wagging his tail as he went, to show that he was as well satisfied as
it was in his nature to be.
'Well!' said Sikes.
'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 Oliver. 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 bade 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 piercer, if it finds its way through your heart,' said Mr. Sikes. 'Give him
something to drink, Nancy. Burn my body, make haste! It's enough to turn a man ill, to
see his lean old carcase shivering in that way, like a 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.
Sikes pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the Jew drink it off.
'Quite enough, quite, thankye, Bill,' replied the Jew, putting down the glass after just
setting his lips to it.
'What! You're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?' inquired Sikes, fixing his
eyes on the Jew. 'Ugh!'
With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes 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 curiousity, 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 Sikes, smacking his lips. 'Now I'm ready.'
'For business?' inquired the Jew.
'For business,' replied Sikes; '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. Wot about it?' inquired Sikes.
'Ah! you know what I mean, my dear,' said the Jew. 'He knows what I mean, Nancy;
don't he?'
'No, he don't,' sneered Mr. Sikes. '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 warn't the very first that thought about the robbery. Wot d'ye
mean?'
'Hush, Bill, hush!' said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of
indignation; 'somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody will hear us.'
'Let 'em hear!' said Sikes; 'I don't care.' But as Mr. Sikes 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 Sikes coldly.
'Not to be done at all!' echoed the Jew, leaning back in his chair.
'No, not at all,' rejoined Sikes. '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 Sikes. 'Who are you that's not to be told? I tell you that
Toby Crackit 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 Sikes. 'The old lady has had 'em these twenty
years; and if you were to give 'em 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 Sikes.
'Not by flash Toby Crackit?' said the Jew incredulously. 'Think
what women are, Bill,'
'No; not even by flash Toby Crackit,' replied Sikes. 'He says he's worn sham whiskers,
and a canary waistcoat, the whole blessed time he's been loitering down there, and it's
all of no use.'
'He should have tried mustachios and a pair of military trousers, my dear,' said the Jew.
'So he did,' rejoined Sikes, 'and they warn'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
Crackit reported aright, 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. Sikes. '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 demoniacal. Sikes eyed him furtively
from time to time. Nancy, apparently fearful of irritating the housebreaker, sat with her
eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to all that passed.
'Fagin,' said Sikes, 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 Sikes.
'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 Sikes, 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 afore last, sounding
the panels of the door and shutters. The crib's 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 Sikes, 'as you cross the lawn--'
'Yes?' said the Jew, bending his head forward, with his eyes almost starting out of it.
'Umph!' cried Sikes, 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 Sikes. 'Cept 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 wot it is!' replied Sikes. 'I want a boy, and he musn't be a big 'un. Lord!'
said Mr. Sikes, reflectively, 'if I'd only got that young boy of Ned, the chimbleysweeper's!
He kept him small on purpose, and let him out by 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 arning money, teaches him to read and write, and in time
makes a 'prentice of him. And so they go on,' said Mr. Sikes, 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,' acquiesed the Jew, who had been considering during this speech,
and had only caught the last sentence. 'Bill!'
'What now?' inquired Sikes.
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. Sikes 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
composedly.
'I tell you I do!' replied Sikes.
'Nonsense,' rejoined the girl coolly, 'Go on, Fagin. I know what he's going to say, Bill;
he needn't mind me.'
The Jew still hesitated. Sikes looked from one to the other in some surprise.
'Why, you don't mind the old girl, do you, Fagin?' he asked at length. 'You've known
her long enough to trust her, or the Devil's in it. She ain't one to blab. 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 wot?' inquired Sikes.
'I didn't know whether she mightn't p'r'aps 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 re-assuring both gentlemen; for the Jew nodded his head with a satisfied air, and
resumed his seat: as did Mr. Sikes likewise.
'Now, Fagin,' said Nancy with a laugh. 'Tell Bill at once, about Oliver!'
'Ha! 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! ha!'
'What about him?' demanded Sikes.
'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. Sikes.
'Have him, Bill!' said Nancy. 'I would, if I was in your place. He mayn't 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's a safe one, Bill.'
'I know he is,' rejoined Fagin. '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. Sikes, 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 Sikes. '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, Fagin. 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! Ours for his life. Oho! 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 Sikes. 'Yours, you mean.'
'Perhaps I do, my dear,' said the Jew, with a shrill chuckle.
'Mine, if you like, Bill.'
'And wot,' said Sikes, scowling fiercely on his agreeable friend, 'wot makes you take so
much pains about one chalk-faced kid, when you know there are fifty boys snoozing
about Common Garden every night, as you might pick and choose from?'
'Because they're of no use to me, my dear,' replied the Jew, with some confusion, 'not
worth the taking. Their looks convict 'em when they get into trouble, and I lose 'em all.
With this boy, properly managed, my dears, I could do what I couldn't with twenty of
them. Besides,' said the Jew, recovering his self-possession, 'he has us now if he could
only give us leg-bail again; and he must be in 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 leetle 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. Sikes, 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 planned with Toby, the night arter to-morrow,' rejoined Sikes in a surly voice, 'if he
heerd nothing from me to the contrairy.'
'Good,' said the Jew; 'there's no moon.'
'No,' rejoined Sikes.
'It's all arranged about bringing off the swag, is it?' asked the Jew.
Sikes nodded.
'And about--'
'Oh, ah, it's all planned,' rejoined Sikes, interrupting him. 'Never mind particulars.
You'd better bring the boy here to-morrow night. I shall get off the stone an hour arter
daybreak. Then you hold your tongue, and keep the melting-pot ready, and that's all
you'll have to do.'
After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was decided that Nancy
should repair to the Jew's next evening when the night had set in, and bring Oliver away
with her; Fagin 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 Sikes; and further, that the said Sikes 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. Sikes on his return should be
required to be confirmed and corroborated, in all important particulars, by the testimony
of flash Toby Crackit.
These preliminaries adjusted, Mr. Sikes 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 housebreaking 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, than 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.'
Their eyes met, and the Jew scrutinised her, narrowly. There was no flinching about the
girl. She was as true and earnest in the matter as Toby Crackit himself could be.
The Jew again bade her good-night, and, bestowing a sly kick upon the prostrate form
of Mr. Sikes 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. Ha! ha! The man against the child, for a bag
of gold!'
Beguiling the time with these pleasant reflections, Mr. Fagin wended his way, through
mud and mire, to his gloomy abode: where the Dodger was sitting up, impatiently
awaiting his return.
'Is Oliver 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 shroud and coffin, but in the guise it wears when life has just departed; when 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 it hallowed.
'Not now,' said the Jew, turning softly away. 'To-morrow.
To-morrow.'
