These preliminaries adjusted, Mr. Sikes proceeded
to drink brandy at a furious rate, and to flourish
the crowbar in an alarming manner; yelling forth,
at the same time, most unmusical snatches of song,
mingled with wild execrations. At length, in
a fit of professional enthusiasm, he insisted upon
producing his box of housebreaking tools: which
he had no sooner stumbled in with, and opened for
the purpose of explaining the nature and properties
of the various implements it contained, and the peculiar
beauties of their construction, than he fell over the
box upon the floor, and went to sleep where he fell.
‘Good-night, Nancy,’ said the Jew, muffling
himself up as before.
‘Good-night.’
Their eyes met, and the Jew scrutinised her, narrowly.
There was no flinching about the girl. She
was as true and earnest in the matter as Toby Crackit
himself could be.
The Jew again bade her good-night, and, bestowing
a sly kick upon the prostrate form of Mr. Sikes while
her back was turned, groped downstairs.
‘Always the way!’ muttered the Jew to
himself as he turned homeward. ’The worst
of these women is, that a very little thing serves
to call up some long-forgotten feeling; and, the best
of them is, that it never lasts. Ha! ha!
The man against the child, for a bag of gold!’
Beguiling the time with these pleasant reflections,
Mr. Fagin wended his way, through mud and mire, to
his gloomy abode: where the Dodger was sitting
up, impatiently awaiting his return.
‘Is Oliver a-bed? I want to speak to him,’
was his first remark as they descended the stairs.
‘Hours ago,’ replied the Dodger, throwing
open a door. ’Here he is!’
The boy was lying, fast asleep, on a rude bed upon
the floor; so pale with anxiety, and sadness, and
the closeness of his prison, that he looked like death;
not death as it shows in shroud and coffin, but in
the guise it wears when life has just departed; when
a young and gentle spirit has, but an instant, fled
to Heaven, and the gross air of the world has not
had time to breathe upon the changing dust it hallowed.
‘Not now,’ said the Jew, turning softly
away. ’To-morrow. To-morrow.’
WHEREIN OLVER IS DELIVERED OVER TO MR. WILLIAM SIKES
When Oliver awoke in the morning, he was a good deal
surprised to find that a new pair of shoes, with strong
thick soles, had been placed at his bedside; and that
his old shoes had been removed. At first, he
was pleased with the discovery: hoping that it
might be the forerunner of his release; but such thoughts
were quickly dispelled, on his sitting down to breakfast
along with the Jew, who told him, in a tone and manner
which increased his alarm, that he was to be taken
to the residence of Bill Sikes that night.
‘To—to—stop there, sir?’
asked Oliver, anxiously.
