บทที่ บทที่ 18 · HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS REPUTABLE

. 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 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 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 sigh, 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 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. “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 got 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 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 Charley. 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.