his hat, scratched his head, and nodded thrice.
“What do you mean?” said Charley.
“Toor rul lol loo, gammon and spinnage, the frog he wouldn’t,
and high cockolorum,” said the Dodger, with a slight sneer on his
intellectual countenance.
This was explanatory, but not satisfactory. Master Bates felt it
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so; and again said, “What do you mean?”
The Dodger made no reply; but putting his hat on again, and
gathering the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arm, thrust
his tongue into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-
dozen times in a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on
his heel, slunk down the court. Master Bates followed, with a
thoughtful countenance.
The noise of footsteps on the creaking stairs, a few minutes
after the occurrence of this conversation, roused the merry old
gentleman as he sat over the fire with a saveloy and a small loaf in
his left hand; a pocket-knife in his right; and a pewter pot on the
trivet. There was a rascally smile on his white face as he turned
round, and, looking sharply out from under his thick red
eyebrows, bent his ear towards the door and listened. “Why, how’s
this,” muttered the Jew, changing countenance; “only two of ’em?
Where’s the third? They can’t have got into trouble. Hark!”
The footsteps approached nearer; they reached the landing.
The door was slowly opened; and the Dodger and Charley Bates
entered, closing it behind them.
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Chapter 13
Some New Acquaintances Are Introduced To The
Intelligent Reader, Connected With Whom, Various
Pleasant Matters Are Related, Appertaining To This
History.
“W here’s Oliver?” said the Jew, rising with a
menacing look. “Where’s the boy?”
The young thieves eyed their preceptor as if
they were alarmed at his violence; and looked uneasily at each
other: But they made no reply.
“What’s become of the boy?” said the Jew, seizing the Dodger
tightly by the collar, and threatening him with horrid
imprecations. “Speak out, or I’ll throttle you!”
Mr. Fagin looked so very much in earnest, that Charley Bates,
who deemed it prudent in all cases to be on the safe side, and who
conceived it by no means improbable that it might be his turn to
be throttled second, dropped upon his knees, and raised a loud,
well-sustained, and continuous roar—something between a mad
bull and a speaking-trumpet.
“Will you speak?” thundered the Jew, shaking the Dodger so
much that his keeping in the big coat at all seemed perfectly
miraculous.
“Why, the traps have got him, and that’s all about it,” said the
Dodger sullenly. “Come, let go o’ me, will you!” And swinging
himself, at one jerk, clean out of the big coat, which he left in the
Jew’s hands, the Dodger snatched up the toasting-fork, and made
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a pass at the merry old gentleman’s waistcoat; which, if it had
taken effect, would have let a little more merriment out, than
could have been easily replaced.
The Jew stepped back, in this emergency, with more agility
than could have been anticipated in a man of his apparent
decrepitude; and, seizing up the pot, prepared to hurl it at his
assailant’s head. But Charley Bates, at this moment, calling his
attention by a perfectly terrific howl, he suddenly altered its
destination, and flung it full at that young gentleman.
“Why, what the blazes is in the wind now!” growled a deep
voice. “Who pitched that ’ere at me? It’s well it’s the beer, and not
the pot, as hit me, or I’d have settled somebody. I might have
know’d, as nobody but an infernal rich, plundering, thundering
old Jew could afford to throw away any drink but water—and not
that, unless he done the River Company every quarter. Wot’s it all
about, Fagin? D—me, if my neck-handkercher ain’t lined with
beer! Come in, you sneaking warmint; wot are you stopping
outside for, as if you was ashamed of your master! Come in!”
The man who growled out these words, was a stoutly-built
fellow about five-and-thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled
drab breeches, lace-up half-boots and grey cotton stockings, which
inclosed a bulky pair of legs, with large, swelling calves—the kind
of legs, which, in such costume, always look in an unfinished and
incomplete state without a set of fetters to garnish them. He had a
brown hat on his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his
neck; with the long, frayed ends of which he smeared the beer
from his face as he spoke. He disclosed, when he had done so, a
broad, heavy countenance with a beard of three days’ growth, and
two scowling eyes; one of which displayed various parti-coloured
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symptoms of having been recently damaged by a blow.
“Come in, d’ye hear?” growled this engaging ruffian.
A white, shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in twenty
different places, skulked into the room.
“Why didn’t you come in afore?” said the man. “You’re getting
too proud to own me afore company, are you? Lie down!”
This command was accompanied with a kick, which sent the
animal to the other end of the room. He appeared well used to it,
however, for he coiled himself up in a corner very quietly, without
uttering a sound, and, winking his very ill-looking eyes twenty
times in a minute, appeared to occupy himself in taking a survey
of the apartment.
“What are you up to? Ill-treating the boys, you covetous,
avaricious, in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?” said the man, seating himself
deliberately. “I wonder they don’t murder you! I would if I was
them. If I’d been your ’prentice, I’d have done it long ago, and—
no, I couldn’t have sold you afterwards, for you’re fit for nothing
but keeping as a curiosity of ugliness in a glass bottle, and I
suppose they don’t blow glass bottles large enough.”
“Hush! hush! Mr. Sikes,” said the Jew, trembling; “don’t speak
so loud.”
“None of your mistering,” replied the ruffian; “you always
mean mischief when you come that. You know my name: out with
it! I shan’t disgrace it when the time comes.”
“Well, well, then—Bill Sikes,” said the Jew, with abject
humility. “You seem out of humour, Bill.”
“Perhaps I am,” replied Sikes; “I should think you was rather
out of sorts, too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw
pewter pots about, as you do when you blab and—”
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“Are you mad?” said the Jew, catching the man by the sleeve,
and pointing towards the boys.
Mr. Sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot
under his left ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder;
a piece of dumb show which the Jew appeared to understand
perfectly. He then, in cant terms, with which his whole
conversation v. as plentifully besprinkled, but which would be
quite unintelligible if they were recorded here, demanded a glass
of liquor.
“And mind you don’t poison it,” said Mr. Sikes, laying his hat
upon the table.
This was said in jest; but if the speaker could have seen the evil
leer with which the Jew bit his pale lip as he turns round to the
cupboard, he might have thought the caution not wholly
unnecessary, or the wish (at all events) to improve upon the
distiller’s ingenuity not very far from the old gentleman’s merry
heart.
After swallowing two or three glasses of spirits, Mr. Sikes
condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen; which
gracious act led to a conversation, in which the cause and manner
of Oliver’s capture were circumstantially detailed, with such
alterations and improvements on the truth, as to the Dodger
appeared most advisable under the circumstances.
“I’m afraid,” said the Jew, “that he may say something which
will get us into trouble.”
“That’s very likely,” returned Sikes, with a malicious grin.
“You’re blowed upon, Fagin.”
“And I’m afraid, you see,” added the Jew, speaking as if he had
not noticed the interruption; and, regarding the other closely as he
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did so—“I’m afraid that, if the game was up with us, it might be up
with a good many more and that it would come out rather worse
for you than it would for me, my dear.”
The man started, and turned round upon the Jew. But the old
gentleman’s shoulders were shrugged up to his ears; and his eyes
were vacantly staring on the opposite wall.
There was a long pause. Every member of the respectable
coterie appeared plunged in his own reflections; not excepting the
dog, who by a certain malicious licking of his lips seemed to be
meditating an attack upon the legs of the first gentleman or lady
he might encounter in the streets when he went out.
“Somebody must find out wot’s been done at the office,” said
Mr. Sikes, in a much lower tone than he had taken since he came
in.
The Jew nodded assent.
“If he hasn’t peached, and is committed, there’s no fear till he
comes out again,” said Mr. Sikes, “and then he must be taken care
on. You must get hold of him somehow.”
Again the Jew nodded.
The prudence of this line of action, indeed, was obvious; but,
unfortunately, there was one very strong objection to it being
adopted. This was, that the Dodger, and Charley Bates, and Fagin,
and Mr. William Sikes, happened, one and all, to entertain a
violent and deeply-rooted antipathy to going near a police-office
on any ground or pretext whatever.
How long they might have sat and looked at each other, in a
state of uncertainty not the most pleasant of its kind, it is difficult
to guess. It is not necessary to make any guesses on the subject,
however; for the sudden entrance of the two young ladies whom
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Oliver had seen on a former occasion, caused the conversation to
flow afresh.
“The very thing!” said the Jew. “Bet will go; won’t you, my
dear?”
“Wheres?” inquired the young lady.
“Only just up to the office, my dear,” said the Jew coaxingly.
It is due to the young lady to say that she did not positively
affirm that she would not, but that she merely expressed an
emphatic and earnest desire to be “blessed” if she would; a polite
and delicate evasion of the request which shows the young lady to
have been possessed of that natural good-breeding which cannot
bear to inflict upon a fellow-creature, the pain of a direct and
pointed refusal.
The Jew’s countenance fell. He turned from this young lady,
who was gaily, not to say gorgeously, attired, in a red gown, green
boots, and yellow curl-papers, to the other female.
“Nancy, my dear,” said the Jew, in a soothing manner, “what do
you say?”
“That it won’t do; so it’s no use a-trying it on, Fagin,” replied
Nancy.
“What do you mean by that?” said Mr. Sikes, looking up in a
surly manner.
“What I say, Bill,” replied the lady collectedly.
“Why, you’re just the very person for it,” reasoned Mr. Sikes;
“nobody about here knows anything of you.”
“And as I don’t want ’em to, neither,” replied Nancy, in the
same composed manner, “it’s rather more no than yes with me,
Bill.”
“She’ll go, Fagin,” said Sikes.
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“No, she won’t, Fagin,” said Nancy.
“Yes, she will, Fagin,” said Sikes.
And Mr. Sikes was right. By dint of alternate threats, promises,
and bribes, the lady in question was ultimately prevailed upon to
undertake the commission. She was not, indeed, withheld by the
same considerations as her agreeable friend; for, having recently
removed into the neighbourhood of Field Lane from the remote
but genteel suburb of Ratcliffe, she was not under the same
apprehension of being recognised by any of her numerous
acquaintances.
Accordingly, with a clean white apron tied over her gown, and
her curl-papers tucked up under a straw bonnet—both articles of
dress being provided from the Jew’s inexhaustible stock—Miss
Nancy prepared to issue forth on her errand.
“Stop a’ minute, my dear,” said the Jew, producing a little
covered basket. “Carry that in one hand. It looks more
respectable, my dear.”
“Give her a door key to carry in her t’other one, Fagin,” said
Sikes; “it looks real and genuine like.”
“Yes, yes, my dear, so it does,” said the Jew, hanging a large
street door key on the forefinger of the young lady’s right hand.
“There; very good! Very good indeed, my dear!” said the Jew,
rubbing his hands.
“Oh, my brother! My poor, dear, sweet, innocent little brother!”
exclaimed Nancy, bursting into tears, and wringing the little
basket and the street door key in an agony of distress. “What has
become of him! Where have they taken him to! Oh, do have pity,
and tell me what’s been done with the dear boy, gentlemen; do,
gentlemen, if you please, gentlemen!”
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Having uttered these words in a most lamentable and heartbroken tone, to the immeasurable delight of her hearers, Miss
Nancy paused, winked to the company, nodded smilingly round,
and disappeared.
“Ah! she’s a clever girl, my dears,” said the Jew, turning round
to his young friends, and shaking his head gravely, as if in mute
admonition to them to follow the bright example they had just
beheld.
“She’s an honour to her sex,” said Mr. Sikes, filling his glass,
and smiting the table with his enormous fist. “Here’s her health,
and wishing they was all like her!”
While these, and many other encomiums, were being passed on
the accomplished Nancy, that young lady made the best of her way
to the police-office; whither, notwithstanding a little natural
timidity consequent upon walking through the streets alone and
unprotected, she arrived in perfect safety shortly afterwards.
Entering by the back way, she tapped softly with the key at one
of the cell doors, and listened. There was no sound within; so she
coughed and listened again. Still there was no reply; so she spoke.
“Nolly, dear—” murmured Nancy, in a gentle voice; “Nolly?”
There was nobody inside but a miserable, shoeless criminal,
who had been taken up for playing the flute, and who, the offence
against society having been clearly proved, had been very properly
committed by Mr. Fang to the house of correction for one month;
with the appropriate and amusing remark that since he had so
much breath to spare, it would be more wholesomely expended on
the treadmill than in a musical instrument. He made no answer;
being occupied in mentally bewailing the loss of the flute, which
had been confiscated for the use of the county; so Nancy passed on
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to the next cell, and knocked there.
“Well!” cried a faint and feeble voice.
“Is there a little boy here?” inquired Nancy, with a preliminary
sob.
“No,” replied the voice; “God forbid.”
This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for not
playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and
doing nothing for his livelihood. In the next cell, another man, who
was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without a
licence; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the
Stamp-office.
But, as neither of these criminals answered to the name of
Oliver, or knew anything about him, Nancy made straight up to
the bluff officer in the striped waistcoat; and with the most piteous
wailings and lamentations, rendered more piteous by a prompt
and efficient use of the street door key and the little basket,
demanded her own dear brother.
