“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 come 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, and
amiability of Charles 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 194
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; and 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,
was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison which he hoped
would blacken it, and change its hue for ever.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 195
Chapter 19
In Which A Notable Plan Is Discussed And
Determined On.
It was a chill, damp, windy night, when the Jew, buttoning his
greatcoat 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
neighbourhood 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 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 196
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; and 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 greatcoat 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.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 197
“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
carcass 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, thank ye, 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 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 Sikes, smacking his lips. “Now I’m ready.”
“For business?” inquired the Jew.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 198
“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!”
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 199
“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 into a
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 year; 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 moustachios 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,
ait’s a sad thing, my dear, to lose so much when we had set our
hearts upon it.”
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 200
“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 I 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, yes,” said the Jew, bending his head forward with his eyes
almost staring 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 what 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.”
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 201
“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
mustn’t be a big ’un. Lord!” said Sikes reflectively, “if I’d only got
that young boy of Ned, the chimbley-sweeper’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 earning money, teaches him
to read and write, and in times makes ’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,” acquiesced 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
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 202
what he is 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 reassuring 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.
Charles Dickens ElecBook Classics
Oliver Twist 203
