CHAPTER XVIII

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 sign, 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 Doger. '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 go 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 entagled 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 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.
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