Stranica 44 [44]
OCR
20 kicked into the same apartment every evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys, containing a special clause therein inserted by the authority of the board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver Twist, whom the supplication distinctly set forth to be under the exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an article direct from the manufactory of the devil himself. a It chanced one morning, while Oliver s affairs were in this auspicious and comney-sweeper, was wending his way adown the High-street, deeply cogitating in his mind, his ways and means of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become rather pressing. Mr. Gamfield’s most ulne alan tite of funds could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount; and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when, passing the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on the gate. c Woo!” said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey. The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction,—wondering, probably, whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two, when he had disof the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was laden; so, without noticing the word of command, he jogged onwards. Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but more particularly on his eyes; and running after him, bestowed a blow on his head which would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a donkey’s; then, catching wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master; and, havi by these means turned him round, he gave him another blow on the head, just to stun him until he came back again; and, having done so, walked to the gate to read the bill. exactly the sort of master Oliver Twist wanted. Mr. Gamfield smiled, too, as he perused the document, for five pounds was just the sum he had been wishing for; and, as to the boy with which it was encumbered, Mr. Gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the workhouse was, well knew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing for register stoves. So he spelt the bill through again, from beginning to end; and then, touching his fur cap in token of humility, accosted the gentleman in the white waistcoat. c This here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to ’prentis,” said Mr. Gamfield. “Yes, my man,” said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, with a condescending smile, “ what of him ?” If the parish vould like him to learn. a light, pleasant trade, in a good ’spectable chimbley-sweepin bisness,” said Mr. Gamfield, “I wants a ’prentis, and Im. ready to take him.” “Walk in,” said the gentleman with: the white waistcoat. And Mr. Gamfield having lingered behind, to give the don key another blow on the head, and another wrench of the jaw as a caution not to ruwaway in his absence, followed the gentle. man in the white waistcoat, into the room where Oliver had first seen him. “Tt’s a nasty trade,” said Mr. Limbaie when Gamfield had again stated his wish. “Young boys have been smothered in chimneys, before now,” said another gentleman. ‘ That ’s acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley to make. "em come down again,’’ said Gamfield ; ‘that’s all smoke, and no blaze; vereas smoke ain’t o’ no use at all in makin’ a boy come down; it only sinds him to sleep, and that’s wot he likes. Boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy, gen’lm’n, and there’s nothink like a good hot blaze to make "Jem come down vith a run; it’s humane too, gen’lm’n, acause, even if they ’ve stuck in the chimbley, roastin’ their feet makes ’em struggle to hextricate theirselves.” The gentleman in the white waistcoat. appeared very much amused with this exhands behind him, after having delivered himself of some profound sentiments in the board-room. Havin little dispute between Mr. Gamfield and The board then proceeded to converse among themselves for a few minutes; but in so low a tone that the words “ saving of expenditure,” ‘look well in the ac
