Stranica 103 [103]
OCR
* Oh, my wig, my wig!” cried Master Charles Bates, from whose lungs the laughter had proceeded; " here he is! oh, cry, here he is! Oh, Fagin, look at him ; Fagin, do look at him! I can’t bear it; it is such a jo.ty game, I can’t bear it. Hold me, somebody, while I laugh it out.” With this irrepressible ebullition of mirth, Master Bates laid himself flat on the floor, and kicked convulsively for five minutes in an ecstacy of facetious joy. Then jumping to his feet, he snatched the cleft stick from the r, and, advancmg to Oliver, viewed him round and round, while the Jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number of low bows to the bewildered boy; the Artful meantime, who was of a rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifling his pockets with steady assiduity. . Look at his togs, Fagin!” said Charley, putting the light so close to Oliver’s “ Look at his togs!—superfine cloth, and the heavy-swell cut! Oh, my eye, what a game! And his books, too ;—nothing but a gentleman, Fagin!" “ Delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,” said the Jew, bowing with mock humility. “The Artful shall give you another suit, my dear, for fear a should spoil that Sunday one. Why didn’t you write, my dear, and say you were coming !—we d have got something warm for supper.” At this, Master Bates roared again, so loud that Fagin himself relaxed, and even the Dodger smiled; but as the Artful drew forth the five-pound note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally or the discovery awakened his merriment. “ Hallo! what "s that ?” inquired Sikes, stepping forward as the Jew seized the note. “ ‘That ’s mine, Fagin.” “ No, no, my dear,” said the Jew. ee Bill, mine; you shall have the “If that ain’t mine!” said Sikes, putting on his hat with a determined air,— “mine and Nancy’s, that is,—I’ll take the boy back again.” The Jew started, and Oliver started too, ee gp “er a very svga cause, for he Oo e dispute might really end in his at taken back. 8 ; “Come, hand it over, will you?” said Sikes. “This is hardly fair, Bill; hardly fair, “ Fair, or not fair,” retorted Sikes, “ hand it over, I tell you! Do you think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter and kidnapping every young boy as gets grabbed through you! Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton; give it here !” With this gentle remonstrance, Mr. Sikes plucked the note from between the Jew’s finger and thumb; and looking the old man coolly 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 half enough, neither. You may keep the books, if you "re fond of reading; and if not, you can sell *am.”’ “'They’re very pretty,” said Charles Bates, who with certain grimaces had been affecting to read one of the volumes in question; “ beautiful writing, isn’t it, Oliver?” and at sight of the dismayed look with which Oliver regarded his tormentors, Master Bates, who was blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ecstacy more boisterous than the first. “They belong to the old gentleman,” said Oliver, wringing his hand: —* to the good, kind old gentleman who took me into his house, and had me nursed when I was near dying of the fever. Oh, pray send them back; send him back the books and money! Keep me here all my life long ; but pray, pray send them back! He 11 think I stole them ;—the old lady, all of them that were so kind to me, will think I stole them. Oh, do have mercy upon me, and send them back !” With these words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate grief, Oliver fell upon his knees at the Jew’s feet, and beat his hands together in perfect desperation. “The boy’s right,” remarked Fagin, looking covertly round, and knitting 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 happened better if we had chosen our time !" 6 Of course it couldn’t,” replied Sikes; “| know’d that, directly I see him coming through Clerkenwell with the books under his arm. It’s all right enough. They "re soft-hearted -singers, or they wouldn’t have took him in at all, and they ll ask no questions arter him, fear they should be obliged to prosecute, and so get him lagged. He’s safe enough. ’ Oliver had looked from one to the other while these words were being spoken, as —
