Oliver Twist. Volume 3 of 3

“To be sure it is,” replied Fagin; “and you can have a few good beats chalked out in Camden-town, and Battle-bridge, and neighbourhoods like that, where they’re always going errands, and upset as many kinchins as you want any hour in the day. Ha! ha! ha!”

With this Fagin poked Mr. Claypole in the side, and they joined in a burst of laughter both long and loud.

“Well, that’s all right!” said Noah, when he had recovered himself, and Charlotte had returned. “What time to-morrow shall we say?”

“Will ten do?” asked the Jew, adding, as Mr. Claypole nodded assent, “What name shall I tell my good friend?”

“Mr. Bolter,” replied Noah, who had prepared himself for such an emergency. “Mr. Morris Bolter. This is Mrs. Bolter.”

“Mrs. Bolter’s humble servant,” said Fagin, bowing with grotesque politeness. “I hope I shall know her better very shortly.”

“Do you hear the gentleman, Char-lotte?” thundered Mr. Claypole.

“Yes, Noah, dear!” replied Mrs. Bolter, extending her hand.

“She calls me Noah, as a sort of fond way of talking,” said Mr. Morris Bolter, late Claypole, turning to the Jew. “You understand?”

“Oh yes, I understand – perfectly,” replied Fagin, telling the truth for once. “Good night! Good night!”

With many adieus and good wishes Mr. Fagin went his way; and Noah Claypole, bespeaking his good lady’s attention, proceeded to enlighten her relative to the arrangement he had made, with all that haughtiness and air of superiority becoming not only a member of the sterner sex, but a gentleman who appreciated the dignity of a special appointment on the kinchin lay in London and its vicinity.

CHAPTER XLII

WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE

“And so it was you that was your own friend, was it?” asked Mr. Claypole, otherwise Bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into between them, he had removed next day to the Jew’s house. “’Cod, I thought as much last night!”

“Every man’s his own friend, my dear,” replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin. “He hasn’t as good a one as himself anywhere.”

“Except sometimes,” replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. “Some people are nobody’s enemies but their own, yer know.”

“Don’t believe that,” said the Jew. “When a man’s his own enemy, it’s only because he’s too much his own friend, not because he’s careful for every body but himself. Pooh! pooh! There ain’t such a thing in nature.”

“There oughtn’t to be, if there is,” replied Mr. Bolter.

“That stands to reason,” said the Jew. “Some conjurers say that number three is the magic number, and some say number seven. It’s neither, my friend, neither. It’s number one.”

“Ha! ha!” cried Mr. Bolter. “Number one for ever.”

“In a little community like ours, my dear,” said the Jew, who felt it necessary to qualify this position, “we have a general number one; that is, you can’t consider yourself as number one without considering me too as the same, and all the other young people.”

“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Mr. Bolter.

“You see,” pursued the Jew, affecting to disregard this interruption, “we are so mixed up together and identified in our interests that it must be so. For instance, it’s your object to take care of number one – meaning yourself.”

“Certainly,” replied Mr. Bolter. “Yer about right there.”

“Well, you can’t take care of yourself, number one, without taking care of me, number one.”

“Number two, you mean,” said Mr. Bolter, who was largely endowed with the quality of selfishness.

“No, I don’t!” retorted the Jew. “I’m of the same importance to you as you are to yourself.”

“I say,” interrupted Mr. Bolter, “yer a very nice man, and I’m very fond of yer; but we ain’t quite so thick together as all that comes to.”

“Only think,” said the Jew, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching out his hands, “only consider. You’ve done what’s a very pretty thing, and what I love you for doing; but what at the same time would put the cravat round your throat that’s so very easily tied and so very difficult to unloosen – in plain English, the halter!”

Mr. Bolter put his hand to his neckerchief as if he felt it inconveniently tight, and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not in substance.

“The gallows,” continued Fagin, “the gallows, my dear, is an ugly finger-post, which points out a very short and sharp turning that has stopped many a bold fellow’s career on the broad highway. To keep in the easy road, and keep it at a distance, is object number one with you.”

“Of course it is,” replied Mr. Bolter. “What do yer talk about such things for?”

“Only to show you my meaning clearly,” said the Jew, raising his eyebrows. “To be able to do that, you depend upon me; to keep my little business all snug, I depend upon you. The first is your number one, the second my number one. The more you value your number one, the more careful you must be of mine; so we come at last to what I told you at first – that a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do so unless we would all go to pieces in company.”

“That’s true,” rejoined Mr. Bolter, thoughtfully. “Oh! yer a’ cunning old codger!”

Mr. Fagin saw with delight that this tribute to his powers was no mere compliment, but that he had really impressed his recruit with a sense of his wily genius, which it was most important that he should entertain in the outset of their acquaintance. To strengthen an impression so desirable and useful, he followed up the blow by acquainting him in some detail with the magnitude and extent of his operations; blending truth and fiction together as best served his purpose, and bringing both to bear with so much art, that Mr. Bolter’s respect visibly increased, and became tempered, at the same time, with a degree of wholesome fear, which it was highly desirable to awaken.

“It’s this mutual trust we have in each other that consoles me under heavy losses,” said the Jew. “My best hand was taken from me yesterday morning.”

“Yer don’t mean to say he died?” cried Mr. Bolter.

“No, no,” replied Fagin, “not so bad as that. Not quite so bad.”

“What, I suppose he was – ”

“Wanted,” interposed the Jew. “Yes, he was wanted.”

“Very particular?” inquired Mr. Bolter.

“No,” replied the Jew, “not very. He was charged with attempting to pick a pocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him, – his own, my dear, his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it. They remanded him till to-day, for they thought they knew the owner. Ah! he was worth fifty boxes and I’d give the price of as many to have him back. You should have known the Dodger, my dear; you should have known the Dodger.”

“Well, but I shall know him, I hope; don’t yer think so?” said Mr. Bolter.

“I’m doubtful about it,” replied the Jew, with a sigh. “If they don’t get any fresh evidence it’ll only be a summary conviction, and we shall have him back again after six weeks or so; but, if they do, it’s a case of lagging. They know what a clever lad he is; he’ll be a lifer: they’ll make the Artful nothing less than a lifer.”

“What do yer mean by lagging, and a lifer?” demanded Mr. Bolter. “What’s the good of talking in that way to me? why don’t yer speak so as I can understand yer?”

Fagin was about to translate these mysterious expressions into the vulgar tongue, and, being interpreted, Mr. Bolter would have been informed, that they represented that combination of words, “transportation for life,” when the dialogue was cut short by the entry of Master Bates, with his hands in his breeches’ pockets, and his face twisted into a look of semi-comical woe.

“It’s all up, Fagin,” said Charley; when he and his new companion had been made known to each other.

“What do you mean?” asked the Jew, with trembling lips.

“They’ve found the gentleman as owns the box; two or three more’s a coming to ’dentify him, and the Artful’s booked for a passage out,” replied Master Bates. “I must have a full suit of mourning, Fagin, and a hatband, to wisit him in, afore he sets out upon his travels. To think of Jack Dawkins – lummy Jack – the Dodger – the Artful Dodger – going abroad for a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box! I never thought he’d ha’ done it under a gold watch, chain, and seals, at the lowest. Oh, why didn’t he rob some rich old gentleman, of all his walables, and go out as a gentleman, and not like a common prig, without no honour nor glory!”

With this expression of feeling for his unfortunate friend, Master Bates sat himself on the nearest chair, with an aspect of chagrin and despondency.