the five-pound note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sallyor the discovery awakened his merriment.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 164“Hallo! What’s this?” inquired Sikes, stepping forward as theJew seized the note. “That’s mine, Fagin.”“No, no, my dear,” said the Jew. “Mine, Bill, mine. You shallhave the books.”“If that ain’t mine!” said Bill Sikes, putting on his hat with adetermined air; “mine and Nancy’s, that is, I’ll take the boy backagain.”The Jew started. Oliver started too, though from a verydifferent cause; for he hoped that the dispute might really end inhis being taken back.“Come! Hand over, will you?” said Sikes.“This is hardly fair, Bill; hardly fair, is it, Nancy?” inquired theJew.“Fair, or not fair,” retorted Sikes, “hand over, I tell you! Do youthink Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precioustime but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, everyyoung boy as gets grabbed through you? Give it here, youavaricious old skeleton; give it here!”With this gentle remonstrance, Mr. Sikes plucked the note frombetween the Jew’s finger and thumb; and looking the old mancoolly in the face, folded it up small, and tied it in his neckerchief.“That’s for our share of the trouble,” said Sikes; “and not halfenough, neither. You may keep the books, if you’re fond ofreading. If you ain’t, sell ’em.”“They’re very pretty,” said Charley Bates, who, with sundrygrimaces, had been affecting to read one of the volumes inquestion, “beautiful writing, isn’t it, Oliver?” At sight of thedismayed look with which Oliver regarded his tormentors, MasterBates, who was blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fellCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 165into another ecstasy, more boisterous than the first.“They belong to the old gentleman,” said Oliver, wringing hishands; “to the good, kind old gentleman who took me into hishouse, and had me nursed, when I was near dying of the fever. Oh,pray send them back; send him back the books and money. Keepme here all my life long; but pray, pray send them back. He’llthink I stole them; the old lady—all of them who were so kind tome—will think I stole them. Oh, do have mercy upon me, and sendthem back!”With those words, which were uttered with all the energy ofpassionate grief, Oliver fell upon his knees at the Jews feet; andbeat his hands together, in perfect desperation.“The boy’s right,” remarked Fagin, looking covertly round, andknitting his shaggy eyebrows into a hard knot. “You’re right,Oliver, you’re right; they will think you have stolen ’em. Ha! ha!”chuckled the Jew, rubbing his hands; “it couldn’t have happenedbetter, if we had chosen our time!”“Of course it couldn’t,” replied Sikes; “I know’d that, directly Isee him coming through Clerkenwell, with the books under hisarm. It’s all right enough. They’re soft-hearted psalm-singers, orthey wouldn’t have taken him in at all; and they’ll ask no questionsafter him, fear they should be obliged to prosecute, and so get himlagged. He’s safe enough.”Oliver had looked from one to the other, while these wordswere being spoken, as if he were bewildered, and could scarcelyunderstand what passed; but when Bill Sikes concluded, hejumped suddenly to his feet, and tore wildly from the room,uttering shrieks for help, which made the bare old house echo tothe roof.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 166“Keep back the dog, Bill!” cried Nancy, springing before thedoor, and closing it as the Jew and his two pupils darted out inpursuit. “Keep back the dog; he’ll tear the boy to pieces.”“Serve him right!” cried Sikes, struggling to disengage himselffrom the girl’s grasp. “Stand off from me, or I’ll split your headagainst the wall.”“I don’t care for that, Bill, I don’t care for that,” screamed thegirl, struggling violently with the man; “the child shan’t be torndown by the dog, unless you kill me first.”“Shan’t he!” said Sikes, setting his teeth. “I’ll soon do that if youdon’t keep off.”The housekeeper flung the girl from him to the farther end ofthe room, just as the Jew and the two boys returned, draggingOliver among them.“What’s the matter here!” said Fagin, looking round.“The girl’s gone mad I think,” replied Sikes savagely.“No, she hasn’t,” said Nancy, pale and breathless from thescuffle; “no, she hasn’t, Fagin; don’t think it.”“Then keep quiet, will you?” said the Jew, with a threateninglook.“No, I won’t do that, neither,” replied Nancy, speaking veryloud. “Come! What do you think of that?”Mr. Fagin was sufficiently well acquainted with the mannersand customs of that particular species of humanity to which Nancybelonged, to feel tolerably certain that it would be rather unsafe toprolong any conversation with her, at present. With the view ofdiverting the attention of the company, he turned to Oliver.“So you wanted to get away, my dear, did you?” said the Jew,taking up a jagged and knotted club which lay in a corner of theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 167fireplace; “eh?”Oliver made no reply. But he watched the Jew’s motions, andbreathed quickly.“Wanted to get assistance; called for the police; did you?”sneered the Jew, catching the boy by the arm. “We’ll cure you ofthat, my young master.”The Jew inflicted a smart blow on Oliver’s shoulders with theclub; and was raising it for a second, when the girl, rushingforward, wrested it from his hand. She flung it into the fire, with aforce that brought some of the glowing coal whirling out into theroom.“I won’t stand by and see it done, Fagin,” cried the girl. “You’vegot the boy, and what more would you have?—Let him be—lethim be—or I shall put that mark on some of you, that will bring meto the gallows before my time.”The girl stamped her foot violently on the floor as she ventedthis threat; and with her lips compressed, and her hands clenched,looked alternately at the Jew and the other robber: her face quitecolourless from the passion of rage into which she had graduallyworked herself.“Why, Nancy!” said the Jew, in a soothing tone, after a pause,during which he and Mr. Sikes had stared at one another in adisconcerted manner; “you—you’re more clever than ever tonight.Ha! ha! my dear, you are acting beautifully.”“Am I!” said the girl. “Take care I don’t overdo it. You will bethe worse for it, Fagin, if I do; and so I tell you in good time tokeep clear of me.”There is something about a roused woman, especially if she addto all her other strong passions, the fierce impulses of recklessnessCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 168and despair, which few men like to provoke. The Jew saw that itwould be hopeless to affect any further mistake regarding thereality of Miss Nancy’s rage; and, shrinking involuntarily back afew paces, cast a glance, half-imploring and half-cowardly at Sikes,as if to hint that he was the fittest person to pursue the dialogue.Mr. Sikes, thus mutely appealed to, and possibly feeling hispersonal pride and influence interested in the immediatereduction of Miss Nancy to reason, gave utterance to about acouple of score of curses and threats, the rapid production ofwhich reflected great credit on the fertility of his invention. Asthey produced no visible effect on the object against whom theywere discharged, however, he resorted to more tangiblearguments.“What do you mean by this?” said Sikes, backing the inquirywith a very common imprecation concerning the most beautiful ofhuman features, which, if it were heard above, only once out ofevery fifty thousand times that it is uttered below, would renderblindness as common a disorder as measles: “what do you meanby it? Burn my body! Do you know who you are, and what youare?”“Oh, yes, I know all about it,” replied the girl, laughinghysterically; and shaking her head from side to side, with a poorassumption of indifference.“Well, then, keep quiet,” rejoined Sikes, with a growl like thathe was accustomed to use when addressing his dog, “or I’ll quietyou for a good long time to come.”The girl laughed again, even less composedly than before; and,darting a hasty look at Sikes, turned her face aside, and bit her liptill the blood came.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 169“You’re a nice one,” added Sikes, as he surveyed her with acontemptuous air, “to take up the humane and genteel side! Apretty subject for the child, as you call him, to make a friend of!”“God Almighty help me, I am!” cried the girl passionately; “andI wish I had been struck dead in the street or had changed placeswith them we passed so near tonight, before I had lent a hand inbringing him here. He’s a thief, a liar, a devil, all that’s bad, fromthis night forth. Isn’t that enough for the old wretch, withoutblows?”“Come, come, Sikes,” said the Jew, appealing to him in aremonstratory tone, and motioning towards the boys, who wereeagerly attentive to all that passed; “we must have civil words—civil words, Bill.”“Civil words!” cried the girl, whose passion was frightful to see.“Civil words, you villain! Yes, you deserve ’em from me. I thievedfor you when I was a child not half as old as this!” pointing toOliver. “I have been in the same trade, and in the same service, fortwelve years since. Don’t you know it? Speak out! Don’t you knowit?”“Well, well,” replied the Jew, with an attempt at pacification“and, if you have, it’s your living!”“Aye, it is!” returned the girl, not speaking, but pouring out thewords in one continuous and vehement scream. “It is my living;and the cold, wet, dirty streets are my home; and you’re thewretch that drove me to them long ago, and that’ll keep me there,day and night, day and night, till I die!”“I shall do you a mischief!” interposed the Jew, goaded by thesereproaches; “a mischief worse than that, if you say much more!”The girl said nothing; but, tearing her hair and dress in aCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 170transport of frenzy, made such a rush at the Jew as wouldprobably have left signal marks of her revenge upon him, had nother wrists been seized by Sikes at the right moment; upon which,she made a few ineffectual struggles, and fainted. “She’s all rightnow,” said Sikes, laying her down in a corner. “She’s uncommonstrong in the arms, when she’s up in this way.”The Jew wiped his forehead and smiled, as if it were a relief tohave the disturbance over; but neither he, nor Sikes nor the dog,nor the boys, seemed to consider it in any other light than acommon occurrence incidental to business.“It’s the worst of having to do with women,” said the Jew,replacing his club; “but they’re clever and we can’t get on, in ourline, without ’em. Charley, show Oliver to bed.”“I suppose he’d better not wear his best clothes tomorrow,Fagin, had he?” inquired Charley Bates.“Certainly not,” replied the Jew, reciprocating the grin withwhich Charley put the question.Master Bates, apparently much delighted with his commission,took the cleft stick, and led Oliver into an adjacent kitchen, wherethere were two or three of the beds on which he had slept before;and here, with many uncontrollable bursts of laughter, heproduced the identical old suit of clothes which Oliver had somuch congratulated himself upon leaving off at Mr. Brownlow’s;and the accidental display of which, to Fagin, by the Jew whopurchased them, had been the very first clue received of hiswhereabouts.“Pull off the smart ones,” said Charles, “and I’ll give ’em toFagin to take care of. What fun it is!”Poor Oliver unwillingly complied. Master Bates, rolling up theCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 171new clothes under his arm, departed from the room, leaving Oliverin the dark, and locking the door behind him.The noise of Charley’s laughter, and the voice of Miss Betsy,who opportunely arrived to throw water over her friend, andperform other feminine offices for the promotion of her recovery,might have kept many people awake under more happycircumstances than those in which Oliver was placed. But he wassick and weary; and he soon fell sound asleep.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 172Chapter 17Oliver’s destiny continuing unpropitious, brings agreat man to London to injure his reputation.It is the custom on the stage, in all good murderousmelodramas, to present the tragic and the comic scenes in asregular alternation, as the layers of red and white in a side ofstreaky bacon. The hero sinks upon his straw bed, weighed downby fetters and misfortunes; in the next scene, his faithful butunconscious squire regales the audience with a comic song. Webehold, with throbbing bosoms, the heroine in the grasp of aproud and ruthless baron, her virtue and her life alike in danger,drawing forth her dagger to preserve the one at the cost of theother; and, just as our expectations are wrought up to the highestpitch, a whistle is heard, and we are straightway transported tothe great hall of the castle, where a grey-headed seneschal sings afunny chorus with a funnier body of vassals, who are free of allsorts of places, from church vaults to palaces, and roam about incompany, carolling perpetually.Such changes appear absurd; but they are not so unnatural asthey would seem at first sight. The transitions in real life fromwell-spread boards to deathbeds, and from mourning weeds toholiday garments, are not a whit less startling; only, there, we arebusy actors, instead of passive lookers-on, which makes a vastdifference. The actors in the mimic life of the theatre, are blind toviolent transitions and abrupt impulses of passion or feeling,which, presented before the eyes of mere spectators, are at onceCharles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 173condemned as outrageous and preposterous.As sudden shiftings of the scene, and rapid changes of time andplace, are not only sanctioned in books by long usage, but are bymany considered as the great art of authorship—an author’s skillin his craft being, by such critics, chiefly estimated with relation tothe dilemmas in which he leaves his characters at the end of everychapter—this brief introduction to the present one may perhapsbe deemed unnecessary. If so, let it be considered a delicateintimation on the part of the historian that he is going backdirectly to the town in which Oliver Twist was born; the readertaking it for granted that there are good and substantial reasonsfor making the journey, or he would not be invited to proceedupon such an expedition.Mr. Bumble emerged at early morning from the workhousegate, and walked with portly carriage and commanding steps, upthe High Street. He was in the full bloom and pride of beadlehood;his cocked hat and coat were dazzling in the morning sun; heclutched his cane with the vigorous tenacity of health and power.Mr. Bumble always carried his head high; but this morning it washigher than usual. There was an abstraction in his eye, anelevation in his air, which might have warned an observantstranger that thoughts were passing in the beadle’s mind, toogreat for utterance.Mr. Bumble stopped not to converse with the small shopkeepers and others who spoke to him, deferentially, as he passedalong. He merely returned their salutations with a wave of hishand, and relaxed not in his dignified pace, until he reached thefarm where Mrs. Mann tended the infant paupers with parochialcare.Charles Dickens ElecBook ClassicsOliver Twist 174“Drat that beadle!” said Mrs. Mann, hearing the well-knownshaking at the garden gate. “If it isn’t him at this time in themorning! Lauk, Mr. Bumble, only think of its being you! Well, dearme, it is a pleasure, this is! Come into the parlour, sir, please.”The first sentence was addressed to Susan; and theexclamations of delight were uttered to Mr. Bumble, as the goodlady unlocked the garden gate, and showed him, with great