Chapter: The coach rattled away, over nearly the same ground as that which
Oliver had traversed when he first entered London in company with the
Dodger; and, turning a different way when it reached the Angel at
Islington, stopped at length before a neat house, in a quiet shady
street near Pentonville.  Here, a bed was prepared, without loss of
time, in which Mr. Brownlow saw his young charge carefully and
comfortably deposited; and here, he was tended with a kindness and
solicitude that knew no bounds.

But, for many days, Oliver remained insensible to all the goodness of
his new friends.  The sun rose and sank, and rose and sank again, and
many times after that; and still the boy lay stretched on his uneasy
bed, dwindling away beneath the dry and wasting heat of fever.  The
worm does not work more surely on the dead body, than does this slow
creeping fire upon the living frame.

Weak, and thin, and pallid, he awoke at last from what seemed to have
been a long and troubled dream.  Feebly raising himself in the bed,
with his head resting on his trembling arm, he looked anxiously around.

'What room is this?  Where have I been brought to?' said Oliver. 'This
is not the place I went to sleep in.'

He uttered these words in a feeble voice, being very faint and weak;
but they were overheard at once.  The curtain at the bed's head was
hastily drawn back, and a motherly old lady, very neatly and precisely
dressed, rose as she undrew it, from an arm-chair close by, in which
she had been sitting at needle-work.

'Hush, my dear,' said the old lady softly.  'You must be very quiet, or
you will be ill again; and you have been very bad,--as bad as bad could
be, pretty nigh.  Lie down again; there's a dear!'  With those words,
the old lady very gently placed Oliver's head upon the pillow; and,
smoothing back his hair from his forehead, looked so kindly and loving
in his face, that he could not help placing his little withered hand in
hers, and drawing it round his neck.

'Save us!' said the old lady, with tears in her eyes.  'What a grateful
little dear it is.  Pretty creetur!  What would his mother feel if she
had sat by him as I have, and could see him now!'

'Perhaps she does see me,' whispered Oliver, folding his hands
together; 'perhaps she has sat by me.  I almost feel as if she had.'

'That was the fever, my dear,' said the old lady mildly.

'I suppose it was,' replied Oliver, 'because heaven is a long way off;
and they are too happy there, to come down to the bedside of a poor
boy.  But if she knew I was ill, she must have pitied me, even there;
for she was very ill herself before she died.  She can't know anything
about me though,' added Oliver after a moment's silence.  'If she had
seen me hurt, it would have made her sorrowful; and her face has always
looked sweet and happy, when I have dreamed of her.'

The old lady made no reply to this; but wiping her eyes first, and her
spectacles, which lay on the counterpane, afterwards, as if they were
part and parcel of those features, brought some cool stuff for Oliver
to drink; and then, patting him on the cheek, told him he must lie very
quiet, or he would be ill again.

So, Oliver kept very still; partly because he was anxious to obey the
kind old lady in all things; and partly, to tell the truth, because he
was completely exhausted with what he had already said.  He soon fell
into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a
candle:  which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with
a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his
pulse, and said he was a great deal better.

'You _are_ a great deal better, are you not, my dear?' said the
gentleman.

'Yes, thank you, sir,' replied Oliver.

'Yes,  I know you are,' said the gentleman:  'You're hungry too, an't
you?'

'No, sir,' answered Oliver.

'Hem!' said the gentleman.  'No, I know you're not.  He is not hungry,
Mrs. Bedwin,' said the gentleman:  looking very wise.

The old lady made a respectful inclination of the head, which seemed to
say that she thought the doctor was a very clever man. The doctor
appeared much of the same opinion himself.

'You feel sleepy, don't you, my dear?' said the doctor.

'No, sir,' replied Oliver.

'No,' said the doctor, with a very shrewd and satisfied look. 'You're
not sleepy.  Nor thirsty.  Are you?'

'Yes, sir, rather thirsty,' answered Oliver.

'Just as I expected, Mrs. Bedwin,' said the doctor.  'It's very natural
that he should be thirsty.  You may give him a little tea, ma'am, and
some dry toast without any butter.  Don't keep him too warm, ma'am; but
be careful that you don't let him be too cold; will you have the
goodness?'

The old lady dropped a curtsey.  The doctor, after tasting the cool
stuff, and expressing a qualified approval of it, hurried away:  his
boots creaking in a very important and wealthy manner as he went
downstairs.

Oliver dozed off again, soon after this; when he awoke, it was nearly
twelve o'clock.  The old lady tenderly bade him good-night shortly
afterwards, and left him in charge of a fat old woman who had just
come:  bringing with her, in a little bundle, a small Prayer Book and a
large nightcap. Putting the latter on her head and the former on the
table, the old woman, after telling Oliver that she had come to sit up
with him, drew her chair close to the fire and went off into a series
of short naps, chequered at frequent intervals with sundry tumblings
forward, and divers moans and chokings. These, however, had no worse
effect than causing her to rub her nose very hard, and then fall asleep
again.

And thus the night crept slowly on.  Oliver lay awake for some time,
counting the little circles of light which the reflection of the
rushlight-shade threw upon the ceiling; or tracing with his languid
eyes the intricate pattern of the paper on the wall. The darkness and
the deep stillness of the room were very solemn; as they brought into
the boy's mind the thought that death had been hovering there, for many
days and nights, and might yet fill it with the gloom and dread of his
awful presence, he turned his face upon the pillow, and fervently
prayed to Heaven.

Gradually, he fell into that deep tranquil sleep which ease from recent
suffering alone imparts; that calm and peaceful rest which it is pain
to wake from.  Who, if this were death, would be roused again to all
the struggles and turmoils of life; to all its cares for the present;
its anxieties for the future; more than all, its weary recollections of
the past!

It had been bright day, for hours, when Oliver opened his eyes; he felt
cheerful and happy.  The crisis of the disease was safely past.  He
belonged to the world again.

In three days' time he was able to sit in an easy-chair, well propped
up with pillows; and, as he was still too weak to walk, Mrs. Bedwin had
him carried downstairs into the little housekeeper's room, which
belonged to her.  Having him set, here, by the fire-side, the good old
lady sat herself down too; and, being in a state of considerable
delight at seeing him so much better, forthwith began to cry most
violently.

'Never mind me, my dear,' said the old lady; 'I'm only having a regular
good cry.  There; it's all over now; and I'm quite comfortable.'

'You're very, very kind to me, ma'am,' said Oliver.

'Well, never you mind that, my dear,' said the old lady; 'that's got
nothing to do with your broth; and it's full time you had it; for the
doctor says Mr. Brownlow may come in to see you this morning; and we
must get up our best looks, because the better we look, the more he'll
be pleased.'  And with this, the old lady applied herself to warming
up, in a little saucepan, a basin full of broth:  strong enough, Oliver
thought, to furnish an ample dinner, when reduced to the regulation
strength, for three hundred and fifty paupers, at the lowest
computation.

'Are you fond of pictures, dear?' inquired the old lady, seeing that
Oliver had fixed his eyes, most intently, on a portrait which hung
against the wall; just opposite his chair.

'I don't quite know, ma'am,' said Oliver, without taking his eyes from
the canvas; 'I have seen so few that I hardly know.  What a beautiful,
mild face that lady's is!'

'Ah!' said the old lady, 'painters always make ladies out prettier than
they are, or they wouldn't get any custom, child. The man that invented
the machine for taking likenesses might have known that would never
succeed; it's a deal too honest.  A deal,' said the old lady, laughing
very heartily at her own acuteness.

'Is--is that a likeness, ma'am?' said Oliver.

'Yes,' said the old lady, looking up for a moment from the broth;
'that's a portrait.'

'Whose, ma'am?' asked Oliver.

'Why, really, my dear, I don't know,' answered the old lady in a
good-humoured manner.  'It's not a likeness of anybody that you or I
know, I expect.  It seems to strike your fancy, dear.'

'It is so pretty,' replied Oliver.

'Why, sure you're not afraid of it?' said the old lady: observing in
great surprise, the look of awe with which the child regarded the
painting.

'Oh no, no,' returned Oliver quickly; 'but the eyes look so sorrowful;
and where I sit, they seem fixed upon me.  It makes my heart beat,'
added Oliver in a low voice, 'as if it was alive, and wanted to speak
to me, but couldn't.'

'Lord save us!' exclaimed the old lady, starting; 'don't talk in that
way, child.  You're weak and nervous after your illness. Let me wheel
your chair round to the other side; and then you won't see it.  There!'
said the old lady, suiting the action to the word; 'you don't see it
now, at all events.'

Oliver _did_ see it in his mind's eye as distinctly as if he had not
altered his position; but he thought it better not to worry the kind
old lady; so he smiled gently when she looked at him; and Mrs. Bedwin,
satisfied that he felt more comfortable, salted and broke bits of
toasted bread into the broth, with all the bustle befitting so solemn a
preparation. Oliver got through it with extraordinary expedition.  He
had scarcely swallowed the last spoonful, when there came a soft rap at
the door.  'Come in,' said the old lady; and in walked Mr. Brownlow.

Now, the old gentleman came in as brisk as need be; but, he had no
sooner raised his spectacles on his forehead, and thrust his hands
behind the skirts of his dressing-gown to take a good long look at
Oliver, than his countenance underwent a very great variety of odd
contortions.  Oliver looked very worn and shadowy from sickness, and
made an ineffectual attempt to stand up, out of respect to his
benefactor, which terminated in his sinking back into the chair again;
and the fact is, if the truth must be told, that Mr. Brownlow's heart,
being large enough for any six ordinary old gentlemen of humane
disposition, forced a supply of tears into his eyes, by some hydraulic
process which we are not sufficiently philosophical to be in a
condition to explain.

'Poor boy, poor boy!' said Mr. Brownlow, clearing his throat. 'I'm
rather hoarse this morning, Mrs. Bedwin.  I'm afraid I have caught
cold.'

'I hope not, sir,' said Mrs. Bedwin.  'Everything you have had, has
been well aired, sir.'

'I don't know, Bedwin.  I don't know,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'I rather
think I had a damp napkin at dinner-time yesterday; but never mind
that.  How do you feel, my dear?'

'Very happy, sir,' replied Oliver.  'And very grateful indeed, sir, for
your goodness to me.'

'Good by,' said Mr. Brownlow, stoutly.  'Have you given him any
nourishment, Bedwin?  Any slops, eh?'

'He has just had a basin of beautiful strong broth, sir,' replied Mrs.
Bedwin:  drawing herself up slightly, and laying strong emphasis on the
last word:  to intimate that between slops, and broth will compounded,
there existed no affinity or connection whatsoever.

'Ugh!' said Mr. Brownlow, with a slight shudder; 'a couple of glasses
of port wine would have done him a great deal more good. Wouldn't they,
Tom White, eh?'

'My name is Oliver, sir,' replied the little invalid:  with a look of
great astonishment.

'Oliver,' said Mr. Brownlow; 'Oliver what?  Oliver White, eh?'

'No, sir, Twist, Oliver Twist.'

'Queer name!' said the old gentleman.  'What made you tell the
magistrate your name was White?'

'I never told him so, sir,' returned Oliver in amazement.

This sounded so like a falsehood, that the old gentleman looked
somewhat sternly in Oliver's face.  It was impossible to doubt him;
there was truth in every one of its thin and sharpened lineaments.

'Some mistake,' said Mr. Brownlow.  But, although his motive for
looking steadily at Oliver no longer existed, the old idea of the
resemblance between his features and some familiar face came upon him
so strongly, that he could not withdraw his gaze.

'I hope you are not angry with me, sir?' said Oliver, raising his eyes
beseechingly.

'No, no,' replied the old gentleman.  'Why! what's this?  Bedwin, look
there!'

As he spoke, he pointed hastily to the picture over Oliver's head, and
then to the boy's face.  There was its living copy. The eyes, the head,
the mouth; every feature was the same. The expression was, for the
instant, so precisely alike, that the minutest line seemed copied with
startling accuracy!

Oliver knew not the cause of this sudden exclamation; for, not being
strong enough to bear the start it gave him, he fainted away.  A
weakness on his part, which affords the narrative an opportunity of
relieving the reader from suspense, in behalf of the two young pupils
of the Merry Old Gentleman; and of recording--

That when the Dodger, and his accomplished friend Master Bates, joined
in the hue-and-cry which was raised at Oliver's heels, in consequence
of their executing an illegal conveyance of Mr. Brownlow's personal
property, as has been already described, they were actuated by a very
laudable and becoming regard for themselves; and forasmuch as the
freedom of the subject and the liberty of the individual are among the
first and proudest boasts of a true-hearted Englishman, so, I need
hardly beg the reader to observe, that this action should tend to exalt
them in the opinion of all public and patriotic men, in almost as great
a degree as this strong proof of their anxiety for their own
preservation and safety goes to corroborate and confirm the little code
of laws which certain profound and sound-judging philosophers have laid
down as the main-springs of all Nature's deeds and actions:  the said
philosophers very wisely reducing the good lady's proceedings to
matters of maxim and theory:  and, by a very neat and pretty compliment
to her exalted wisdom and understanding, putting entirely out of sight
any considerations of heart, or generous impulse and feeling. For,
these are matters totally beneath a female who is acknowledged by
universal admission to be far above the numerous little foibles and
weaknesses of her sex.

If I wanted any further proof of the strictly philosophical nature of
the conduct of these young gentlemen in their very delicate
predicament, I should at once find it in the fact (also recorded in a
foregoing part of this narrative), of their quitting the pursuit, when
the general attention was fixed upon Oliver; and making immediately for
their home by the shortest possible cut.  Although I do not mean to
assert that it is usually the practice of renowned and learned sages,
to shorten the road to any great conclusion (their course indeed being
rather to lengthen the distance, by various circumlocutions and
discursive staggerings, like unto those in which drunken men under the
pressure of a too mighty flow of ideas, are prone to indulge); still, I
do mean to say, and do say distinctly, that it is the invariable
practice of many mighty philosophers, in carrying out their theories,
to evince great wisdom and foresight in providing against every
possible contingency which can be supposed at all likely to affect
themselves.  Thus, to do a great right, you may do a little wrong; and
you may take any means which the end to be attained, will justify; the
amount of the right, or the amount of the wrong, or indeed the
distinction between the two, being left entirely to the philosopher
concerned, to be settled and determined by his clear, comprehensive,
and impartial view of his own particular case.

It was not until the two boys had scoured, with great rapidity, through
a most intricate maze of narrow streets and courts, that they ventured
to halt beneath a low and dark archway.  Having remained silent here,
just long enough to recover breath to speak, Master Bates uttered an
exclamation of amusement and delight; and, bursting into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter, flung himself upon a doorstep, and
rolled thereon in a transport of mirth.

'What's the matter?' inquired the Dodger.

'Ha! ha! ha!' roared Charley Bates.

'Hold your noise,' remonstrated the Dodger, looking cautiously round.
'Do you want to be grabbed, stupid?'

'I can't help it,' said Charley, 'I can't help it!  To see him
splitting away at that pace, and cutting round the corners, and
knocking up again' the posts, and starting on again as if he was made
of iron as well as them, and me with the wipe in my pocket, singing out
arter him--oh, my eye!' The vivid imagination of Master Bates presented
the scene before him in too strong colours.  As he arrived at this
apostrophe, he again rolled upon the door-step, and laughed louder than
before.

'What'll Fagin say?' inquired the Dodger; taking advantage of the next
interval of breathlessness on the part of his friend to propound the
question.

'What?' repeated Charley Bates.

'Ah, what?' said the Dodger.

'Why, what should he say?' inquired Charley:  stopping rather suddenly
in his merriment; for the Dodger's manner was impressive.  'What should
he say?'

Mr. Dawkins whistled for a couple of minutes; then, taking off his hat,
scratched his head, and nodded thrice.

'What do you mean?' said Charley.

'Toor rul lol loo, gammon and spinnage, the frog he wouldn't, and high
cockolorum,' said the Dodger:  with a slight sneer on his intellectual
countenance.

This was explanatory, but not satisfactory.  Master Bates felt it so;
and again said, 'What do you mean?'

The Dodger made no reply; but putting his hat on again, and gathering
the skirts of his long-tailed coat under his arm, thrust his tongue
into his cheek, slapped the bridge of his nose some half-dozen times in
a familiar but expressive manner, and turning on his heel, slunk down
the court.  Master Bates followed, with a thoughtful countenance.

The noise of footsteps on the creaking stairs, a few minutes after the
occurrence of this conversation, roused the merry old gentleman as he
sat over the fire with a saveloy and a small loaf in his hand; a
pocket-knife in his right; and a pewter pot on the trivet.  There was a
rascally smile on his white face as he turned round, and looking
sharply out from under his thick red eyebrows, bent his ear towards the
door, and listened.

'Why, how's this?' muttered the Jew:  changing countenance; 'only two
of 'em?  Where's the third?  They can't have got into trouble.  Hark!'

The footsteps approached nearer; they reached the landing. The door was
slowly opened; and the Dodger and Charley Bates entered, closing it
behind them.



'Where's Oliver?' said the Jew, rising with a menacing look. 'Where's
the boy?'

The young thieves eyed their preceptor as if they were alarmed at his
violence; and looked uneasily at each other.  But they made no reply.

'What's become of the boy?' said the Jew, seizing the Dodger tightly by
the collar, and threatening him with horrid imprecations.  'Speak out,
or I'll throttle you!'

Mr. Fagin looked so very much in earnest, that Charley Bates, who
deemed it prudent in all cases to be on the safe side, and who
conceived it by no means improbable that it might be his turn to be
throttled second, dropped upon his knees, and raised a loud,
well-sustained, and continuous roar--something between a mad bull and a
speaking trumpet.

'Will you speak?' thundered the Jew:  shaking the Dodger so much that
his keeping in the big coat at all, seemed perfectly miraculous.

'Why, the traps have got him, and that's all about it,' said the
Dodger, sullenly.  'Come, let go o' me, will you!'  And, swinging
himself, at one jerk, clean out of the big coat, which he left in the
Jew's hands, the Dodger snatched up the toasting fork, and made a pass
at the merry old gentleman's waistcoat; which, if it had taken effect,
would have let a little more merriment out than could have been easily
replaced.

The Jew stepped back in this emergency, with more agility than could
have been anticipated in a man of his apparent decrepitude; and,
seizing up the pot, prepared to hurl it at his assailant's head.  But
Charley Bates, at this moment, calling his attention by a perfectly
terrific howl, he suddenly altered its destination, and flung it full
at that young gentleman.

'Why, what the blazes is in the wind now!' growled a deep voice. 'Who
pitched that 'ere at me?  It's well it's the beer, and not the pot, as
hit me, or I'd have settled somebody.  I might have know'd, as nobody
but an infernal, rich, plundering, thundering old Jew could afford to
throw away any drink but water--and not that, unless he done the River
Company every quarter.  Wot's it all about, Fagin?  D--me, if my
neck-handkercher an't lined with beer!  Come in, you sneaking warmint;
wot are you stopping outside for, as if you was ashamed of your master!
Come in!'

The man who growled out these words, was a stoutly-built fellow of
about five-and-thirty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled drab
breeches, lace-up half boots, and grey cotton stockings which inclosed
a bulky pair of legs, with large swelling calves;--the kind of legs,
which in such costume, always look in an unfinished and incomplete
state without a set of fetters to garnish them.  He had a brown hat on
his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck:  with the
long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he
spoke.  He disclosed, when he had done so, a broad heavy countenance
with a beard of three days' growth, and two scowling eyes; one of which
displayed various parti-coloured symptoms of having been recently
damaged by a blow.

'Come in, d'ye hear?' growled this engaging ruffian.

A white shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in twenty
different places, skulked into the room.

'Why didn't you come in afore?' said the man.  'You're getting too
proud to own me afore company, are you?  Lie down!'

This command was accompanied with a kick, which sent the animal to the
other end of the room.  He appeared well used to it, however; for he
coiled himself up in a corner very quietly, without uttering a sound,
and winking his very ill-looking eyes twenty times in a minute,
appeared to occupy himself in taking a survey of the apartment.

'What are you up to?  Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious,
in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?' said the man, seating himself deliberately.
'I wonder they don't murder you!  I would if I was them.  If I'd been
your 'prentice, I'd have done it long ago, and--no, I couldn't have
sold you afterwards, for you're fit for nothing but keeping as a
curiousity of ugliness in a glass bottle, and I suppose they don't blow
glass bottles large enough.'

'Hush! hush! Mr. Sikes,' said the Jew, trembling; 'don't speak so loud!'

'None of your mistering,' replied the ruffian; 'you always mean
mischief when you come that.  You know my name:  out with it!  I shan't
disgrace it when the time comes.'

'Well, well, then--Bill Sikes,' said the Jew, with abject humility.
'You seem out of humour, Bill.'

'Perhaps I am,' replied Sikes; 'I should think you was rather out of
sorts too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw pewter pots
about, as you do when you blab and--'

'Are you mad?' said the Jew, catching the man by the sleeve, and
pointing towards the boys.

Mr. Sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left
ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb
show which the Jew appeared to understand perfectly.  He then, in cant
terms, with which his whole conversation was plentifully besprinkled,
but which would be quite unintelligible if they were recorded here,
demanded a glass of liquor.

'And mind you don't poison it,' said Mr. Sikes, laying his hat upon the
table.

This was said in jest; but if the speaker could have seen the evil leer
with which the Jew bit his pale lip as he turned round to the cupboard,
he might have thought the caution not wholly unnecessary, or the wish
(at all events) to improve upon the distiller's ingenuity not very far
from the old gentleman's merry heart.

After swallowing two of three glasses of spirits, Mr. Sikes
condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen; which gracious
act led to a conversation, in which the cause and manner of Oliver's
capture were circumstantially detailed, with such alterations and
improvements on the truth, as to the Dodger appeared most advisable
under the circumstances.

'I'm afraid,' said the Jew, 'that he may say something which will get
us into trouble.'

'That's very likely,' returned Sikes with a malicious grin. 'You're
blowed upon, Fagin.'

'And I'm afraid, you see,' added the Jew, speaking as if he had not
noticed the interruption; and regarding the other closely as he did
so,--'I'm afraid that, if the game was up with us, it might be up with
a good many more, and that it would come out rather worse for you than
it would for me, my dear.'

The man started, and turned round upon the Jew.  But the old
gentleman's shoulders were shrugged up to his ears; and his eyes were
vacantly staring on the opposite wall.

There was a long pause. Every member of the respectable coterie
appeared plunged in his own reflections; not excepting the dog, who by
a certain malicious licking of his lips seemed to be meditating an
attack upon the legs of the first gentleman or lady he might encounter
in the streets when he went out.

'Somebody must find out wot's been done at the office,' said Mr. Sikes
in a much lower tone than he had taken since he came in.

The Jew nodded assent.

'If he hasn't peached, and is committed, there's no fear till he comes
out again,' said Mr. Sikes, 'and then he must be taken care on.  You
must get hold of him somehow.'

Again the Jew nodded.

The prudence of this line of action, indeed, was obvious; but,
unfortunately, there was one very strong objection to its being
adopted.  This was, that the Dodger, and Charley Bates, and Fagin, and
Mr. William Sikes, happened, one and all, to entertain a violent and
deeply-rooted antipathy to going near a police-office on any ground or
pretext whatever.

How long they might have sat and looked at each other, in a state of
uncertainty not the most pleasant of its kind, it is difficult to
guess.  It is not necessary to make any guesses on the subject,
however; for the sudden entrance of the two young ladies whom Oliver
had seen on a former occasion, caused the conversation to flow afresh.

'The very thing!' said the Jew.  'Bet will go; won't you, my dear?'

'Wheres?' inquired the young lady.

'Only just up to the office, my dear,' said the Jew coaxingly.

It is due to the young lady to say that she did not positively affirm
that she would not, but that she merely expressed an emphatic and
earnest desire to be 'blessed' if she would; a polite and delicate
evasion of the request, which shows the young lady to have been
possessed of that natural good breeding which cannot bear to inflict
upon a fellow-creature, the pain of a direct and pointed refusal.

The Jew's countenance fell.  He turned from this young lady, who was
gaily, not to say gorgeously attired, in a red gown, green boots, and
yellow curl-papers, to the other female.

'Nancy, my dear,' said the Jew in a soothing manner, 'what do YOU say?'

'That it won't do; so it's no use a-trying it on, Fagin,' replied Nancy.

'What do you mean by that?' said Mr. Sikes, looking up in a surly
manner.

'What I say, Bill,' replied the lady collectedly.

'Why, you're just the very person for it,' reasoned Mr. Sikes: 'nobody
about here knows anything of you.'

'And as I don't want 'em to, neither,' replied Nancy in the same
composed manner, 'it's rather more no than yes with me, Bill.'

'She'll go, Fagin,' said Sikes.

'No, she won't, Fagin,' said Nancy.

'Yes, she will, Fagin,' said Sikes.

And Mr. Sikes was right.  By dint of alternate threats, promises, and
bribes, the lady in question was ultimately prevailed upon to undertake
the commission.  She was not, indeed, withheld by the same
considerations as her agreeable friend; for, having recently removed
into the neighborhood of Field Lane from the remote but genteel suburb
of Ratcliffe, she was not under the same apprehension of being
recognised by any of her numerous acquaintances.

Accordingly, with a clean white apron tied over her gown, and her
curl-papers tucked up under a straw bonnet,--both articles of dress
being provided from the Jew's inexhaustible stock,--Miss Nancy prepared
to issue forth on her errand.

'Stop a minute, my dear,' said the Jew, producing, a little covered
basket.  'Carry that in one hand.  It looks more respectable, my dear.'

'Give her a door-key to carry in her t'other one, Fagin,' said Sikes;
'it looks real and genivine like.'

'Yes, yes, my dear, so it does,' said the Jew, hanging a large
street-door key on the forefinger of the young lady's right hand.

'There; very good!  Very good indeed, my dear!' said the Jew, rubbing
his hands.

'Oh, my brother!  My poor, dear, sweet, innocent little brother!'
exclaimed Nancy, bursting into tears, and wringing the little basket
and the street-door key in an agony of distress.  'What has become of
him!  Where have they taken him to!  Oh, do have pity, and tell me
what's been done with the dear boy, gentlemen; do, gentlemen, if you
please, gentlemen!'

Having uttered those words in a most lamentable and heart-broken tone:
to the immeasurable delight of her hearers:  Miss Nancy paused, winked
to the company, nodded smilingly round, and disappeared.

'Ah, she's a clever girl, my dears,' said the Jew, turning round to his
young friends, and shaking his head gravely, as if in mute admonition
to them to follow the bright example they had just beheld.

'She's a honour to her sex,' said Mr. Sikes, filling his glass, and
smiting the table with his enormous fist.  'Here's her health, and
wishing they was all like her!'

While these, and many other encomiums, were being passed on the
accomplished Nancy, that young lady made the best of her way to the
police-office; whither, notwithstanding a little natural timidity
consequent upon walking through the streets alone and unprotected, she
arrived in perfect safety shortly afterwards.

Entering by the back way, she tapped softly with the key at one of the
cell-doors, and listened.  There was no sound within:  so she coughed
and listened again.  Still there was no reply:  so she spoke.

'Nolly, dear?' murmured Nancy in a gentle voice; 'Nolly?'

There was nobody inside but a miserable shoeless criminal, who had been
taken up for playing the flute, and who, the offence against society
having been clearly proved, had been very properly committed by Mr.
Fang to the House of Correction for one month; with the appropriate and
amusing remark that since he had so much breath to spare, it would be
more wholesomely expended on the treadmill than in a musical
instrument.  He made no answer: being occupied mentally bewailing the
loss of the flute, which had been confiscated for the use of the
county:  so Nancy passed on to the next cell, and knocked there.

'Well!' cried a faint and feeble voice.

'Is there a little boy here?' inquired Nancy, with a preliminary sob.

'No,' replied the voice; 'God forbid.'

This was a vagrant of sixty-five, who was going to prison for _not_
playing the flute; or, in other words, for begging in the streets, and
doing nothing for his livelihood.  In the next cell was another man,
who was going to the same prison for hawking tin saucepans without
license; thereby doing something for his living, in defiance of the
Stamp-office.

But, as neither of these criminals answered to the name of Oliver, or
knew anything about him, Nancy made straight up to the bluff officer in
the striped waistcoat; and with the most piteous wailings and
lamentations, rendered more piteous by a prompt and efficient use of
the street-door key and the little basket, demanded her own dear
brother.

'I haven't got him, my dear,' said the old man.

'Where is he?' screamed Nancy, in a distracted manner.

'Why, the gentleman's got him,' replied the officer.

'What gentleman!  Oh, gracious heavens!  What gentleman?' exclaimed
Nancy.

In reply to this incoherent questioning, the old man informed the
deeply affected sister that Oliver had been taken ill in the office,
and discharged in consequence of a witness having proved the robbery to
have been committed by another boy, not in custody; and that the
prosecutor had carried him away, in an insensible condition, to his own
residence:  of and concerning which, all the informant knew was, that
it was somewhere in Pentonville, he having heard that word mentioned in
the directions to the coachman.

In a dreadful state of doubt and uncertainty, the agonised young woman
staggered to the gate, and then, exchanging her faltering walk for a
swift run, returned by the most devious and complicated route she could
think of, to the domicile of the Jew.

Mr. Bill Sikes no sooner heard the account of the expedition delivered,
than he very hastily called up the white dog, and, putting on his hat,
expeditiously departed:  without devoting any time to the formality of
wishing the company good-morning.

'We must know where he is, my dears; he must be found,' said the Jew
greatly excited.  'Charley, do nothing but skulk about, till you bring
home some news of him!  Nancy, my dear, I must have him found.  I trust
to you, my dear,--to you and the Artful for everything!  Stay, stay,'
added the Jew, unlocking a drawer with a shaking hand; 'there's money,
my dears.  I shall shut up this shop to-night.  You'll know where to
find me!  Don't stop here a minute.  Not an instant, my dears!'

With these words, he pushed them from the room:  and carefully
double-locking and barring the door behind them, drew from its place of
concealment the box which he had unintentionally disclosed to Oliver.
Then, he hastily proceeded to dispose the watches and jewellery beneath
his clothing.

A rap at the door startled him in this occupation.  'Who's there?' he
cried in a shrill tone.

'Me!' replied the voice of the Dodger, through the key-hole.

'What now?' cried the Jew impatiently.

'Is he to be kidnapped to the other ken, Nancy says?' inquired the
Dodger.

'Yes,' replied the Jew, 'wherever she lays hands on him.  Find him,
find him out, that's all.  I shall know what to do next; never fear.'

The boy murmured a reply of intelligence:  and hurried downstairs after
his companions.

'He has not peached so far,' said the Jew as he pursued his occupation.
'If he means to blab us among his new friends, we may stop his mouth
yet.'

 Mr. Brownlow brings Oliver to his house near Pentonville, and the sick boy is put to bed. For many days, Oliver remains unconscious and feverish. Eventually he awakens, wasted and feeble; Brownlow's housekeeper, Mrs. Bedwin, is at his bedside. Following a visit by a doctor and after a decent meal, the boy enjoys a night's rest and is on the way to recovery. As he begins to convalesce, Oliver is carried down to the housekeeper's room. He is fascinated by the portrait of an attractive lady that adorns the wall. He contemplates the picture with a "look of awe." Mr. Brownlow comes in and cannot deny the tenderness aroused in him by Oliver's piteous condition. Yet the old gentleman is momentarily displeased when he suspects Oliver of falsehood for denying that he told the magistrate that his name was Tom White. Brownlow, however, is reassured by Oliver's guileless expression. The old gentleman is unable to get over the feeling that Oliver's features are somehow familiar. Then with a sudden exclamation, he points from the portrait to Oliver's face: there is "its living copy." Oliver is so startled by the outburst that he faints. After leading the hue and cry in pursuit of poor Oliver, Dawkins and Bates discreetly drop out of the chase and take a roundabout way back to Fagin's quarters. Fagin is forewarned by the sound of only two sets of footsteps on the stairs. Enraged at Oliver's absence, Fagin hurls a pot of beer at Bates, but another person enters the room and receives the contents in his face. This is Bill Sikes, a powerful, unkempt ruffian of about thirty-five. He is followed by a dog as disreputable-looking as himself. Sikes berates Fagin, who obviously fears his guest. The Dodger presents a modified account of Oliver's misadventure. It is evident that Oliver may be a menace to all those assembled. They agree that someone should visit the police office to learn the boy's fate and to learn, if possible, whether Oliver has betrayed Fagin and his associates. None of the company is willing to undertake the mission, all being known in the district and allergic to police offices. The arrival of Bet and Nancy suggests a natural way out of the impasse. Bet strongly refuses to risk the inquiry, causing all efforts to be centered on Nancy, who is relatively new to the area and as yet unknown. She is coerced into compliance and cheerfully sets forth on the expedition. At the police station, Nancy poses as Oliver's sister. She finds out from an officer everything that occurred and the general location of Brownlow's residence. Nancy speeds back to the hideout with the information. Sikes leaves without a word. Fagin is greatly disturbed. He commands his young lieutenants to direct all their energies toward finding and apprehending Oliver. He then gathers up his treasure and prepares to transfer to another retreat.

