Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens (smart books to read .TXT) 📕

“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 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 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 pockmarked 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 hardworking 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,