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74 advice in the beginning ; you would, if he hadn't had a fever, I suppose,—eh! He was interesting, wasn’t he? Interesting! Bah!” and Mr.Grimwig poked the fire with a flourish. ‘“ He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir,’ retorted Mrs. Bedwin indignantly. c] know what children are, sir, and have done these forty years: and people who can’t say the same shouldn’t say anything about them—that’s my opinion.” This was a hard hit at Mr. Grimwig, who was a bachelor; but as it extorted the old lady tossed her head and smoothed down her apron, preparatory to another speech, when she was stopped by Mr. Brownlow. s Silence!” said the old gentleman, feigning an anger which he was far from feeling. ‘ Never let me hear the boy’s ver—never, on any pretence, mind. You may leave the room, Mrs. Bedwin. Remember; I am in earnest.” There were sad hearts at Mr. Brownlow’s that night. Oliver’s sank within him when he thought of his good, kind friends; but it was well for him that he it would have broken outright. CHAPTER THE EIGHTEENTH. How Oliver passed his time in the improving society of his reputable friends. Axsour noon next day, when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their customary avocations, Mr. Fagin oon the opportunity of reading Oliver a 0 tain 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 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 unfortunateiy come to be hung at the Old Bailey one morning. Mr. Fagin did not seek to con ceal 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 ren = 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 oreat friendliness and politeness of manner, expressed his anxious hope 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 dental companionship, he knew already ; and that deeply-laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently-knowing, or overcommunicative persons, had been really devised and carried out by the old 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 the wary vilJain. The Jew smiled hideously, and, patting Oliver on the head, 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 up in an old patched oreat-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 roomdoor unlocked, and he was at liberty to wander about the house. It was a very dirty place; but the rooms up stairs had great high wooden mantel-pieces and large doors, with panel
