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.
SOME NEW ACQUAINTANCES ARE INTRODUCED TO THE INTELLIGENT
READER, CONNECTED WITH WHOM VARIOUS PLEASANT MATTERS
ARE RELATED, APPERTAINING TO THIS HISTORY
‘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.
