Oliver Twist. Volume 1 of 3

“I think I would rather read them, sir,” replied Oliver.

“What! wouldn’t you like to be a book-writer?” said the old gentleman.

Oliver considered a little while, and at last said he should think it would be a much better thing to be a bookseller; upon which the old gentleman laughed heartily, and declared he had said a very good thing, which Oliver felt glad to have done, though he by no means knew what it was.

“Well, well,” said the old gentleman, composing his features, “don’t be afraid; we won’t make an author of you, while there’s an honest trade to be learnt, or brick-making to turn to.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Oliver; and at the earnest manner of his reply the old gentleman laughed again, and said something about a curious instinct, which Oliver, not understanding, paid no very great attention to.

“Now,” said Mr. Brownlow, speaking if possible in a kinder, but at the same time in a much more serious manner than Oliver had ever heard him speak in yet, “I want you to pay great attention, my boy, to what I am going to say. I shall talk to you without any reserve, because I am sure you are as well able to understand me as many older persons would be.”

“Oh, don’t tell me you are going to send me away, sir, pray!” exclaimed Oliver, alarmed by the serious tone of the old gentleman’s commencement! “don’t turn me out of doors to wander in the streets again. Let me stay here and be a servant. Don’t send me back to the wretched place I came from. Have mercy upon a poor boy, sir; do?”

“My dear child,” said the old gentleman, moved by the warmth of Oliver’s sudden appeal, “you need not be afraid of my deserting you, unless you give me cause.”

“I never, never will, sir,” interposed Oliver.

“I hope not,” rejoined the old gentleman; “I do not think you ever will. I have been deceived before, in the objects whom I have endeavoured to benefit; but I feel strongly disposed to trust you, nevertheless, and more interested in your behalf than I can well account for, even to myself. The persons on whom I have bestowed my dearest love lie deep in their graves; but, although the happiness and delight of my life lie buried there too, I have not made a coffin of my heart, and sealed it up for ever on my best affections. Deep affliction has only made them stronger; it ought, I think, for it should refine our nature.”

As the old gentleman said this in a low voice, more to himself than to his companion, and remained silent for a short time afterwards, Oliver sat quite still, almost afraid to breathe.

“Well, well,” said the old gentleman at length in a more cheerful tone, “I only say this, because you have a young heart, and knowing that I have suffered great pain and sorrow, you will be more careful, perhaps, not to wound me again. You say you are an orphan, without a friend in the world; all the inquiries I have been able to make confirm the statement. Let me hear your story; where you came from, who brought you up, and how you got into the company in which I found you. Speak the truth; and if I find you have committed no crime, you will never be friendless while I live.”

Oliver’s sobs checked his utterance for some minutes; and when he was on the point of beginning to relate how he had been brought up at the farm, and carried to the workhouse by Mr. Bumble, a peculiarly impatient little double-knock was heard at the street-door, and the servant, running up stairs, announced Mr. Grimwig.

“Is he coming up?” inquired Mr. Brownlow.

“Yes, sir,” replied the servant. “He asked if there were any muffins in the house, and, when I told him yes, he said he had come to tea.”

Mr. Brownlow smiled, and, turning to Oliver, said Mr. Grimwig was an old friend of his, and he must not mind his being a little rough in his manners, for he was a worthy creature at bottom, as he had reason to know.

“Shall I go down stairs, sir?” inquired Oliver.

“No,” replied Mr. Brownlow; “I would rather you stopped here.”

At this moment there walked into the room, supporting himself by a thick stick, a stout old gentleman, rather lame in one leg, who was dressed in a blue coat, striped waistcoat, nankeen breeches and gaiters, and a broad-brimmed white hat, with the sides turned up with green. A very small-plaited shirt-frill stuck out from his waistcoat, and a very long steel watch-chain, with nothing but a key at the end, dangled loosely below it. The ends of his white neckerchief were twisted into a ball about the size of an orange; – the variety of shapes into which his countenance was twisted defy description. He had a manner of screwing his head round on one side when he spoke, and looking out of the corners of his eyes at the same time, which irresistibly reminded the beholder of a parrot. In this attitude he fixed himself the moment he made his appearance; and, holding out a small piece of orange-peel at arm’s length, exclaimed in a growling, discontented voice,

“Look here! do you see this? Isn’t it a most wonderful and extraordinary thing that I can’t call at a man’s house but I find a piece of this poor-surgeon’s-friend on the staircase? I’ve been lamed with orange-peel once, and I know orange-peel will be my death at last. It will, sir; orange-peel will be my death, or I’ll be content to eat my own head, sir!” This was the handsome offer with which Mr. Grimwig backed and confirmed nearly every assertion he made: and it was the more singular in his case, because, even admitting, for the sake of argument, the possibility of scientific improvements being ever brought to that pass which will enable a gentleman to eat his own head in the event of his being so disposed, Mr. Grimwig’s head was such a particularly large one, that the most sanguine man alive could hardly entertain a hope of being able to get through it at a sitting – to put entirely out of the question a very thick coating of powder.

“I’ll eat my head, sir,” repeated Mr. Grimwig, striking his stick upon the ground. “Hallo! what’s that?” he added, looking at Oliver, and retreating a pace or two.

“This is young Oliver Twist, whom we were speaking about,” said Mr. Brownlow.

Oliver bowed.

“You don’t mean to say that’s the boy that had the fever, I hope?” said Mr. Grimwig, recoiling a little further. “Wait a minute, don’t speak: stop – ” continued Mr. Grimwig abruptly, losing all dread of the fever in his triumph at the discovery; “that’s the boy that had the orange! If that’s not the boy, sir, that had the orange, and threw this bit of peel upon the staircase, I’ll eat my head and his too.”

“No, no, he has not had one,” said Mr. Brownlow, laughing. “Come, put down your hat, and speak to my young friend.”

“I feel strongly on this subject, sir,” said the irritable old gentleman, drawing off his gloves. “There’s always more or less orange-peel on the pavement in our street, and I know it’s put there by the surgeon’s boy at the corner. A young woman stumbled over a bit last night, and fell against my garden-railings; directly she got up I saw her look towards his infernal red lamp with the pantomime-light. ‘Don’t go to him,’ I called out of the window, ‘he’s an assassin, – a man-trap!’ So he is. If he is not – ” Here the irascible old gentleman gave a great knock on the ground with his stick, which as always understood by his friends to imply the customary offer whenever it was not expressed in words. Then, still keeping his stick in his hand, he sat down, and, opening a double eye-glass which he wore attached to a broad black riband, took a view of Oliver, who, seeing that he was the object of inspection, coloured, and bowed again.

“That’s the boy, is it?” said Mr. Grimwig, at length.

“That is the boy,” replied Mr. Brownlow, nodding good-humouredly to Oliver.

“How are you, boy?” said Mr. Grimwig.

“A great deal better, thank you, sir,” replied Oliver.

Mr. Brownlow, seeming to apprehend that his singular friend was about to say something disagreeable, asked Oliver to step down stairs and tell Mrs. Bedwin they were ready for tea, which, as he did not half like the visitor’s manner, he was very happy to do.

“He is a nice-looking boy, is he not?” inquired Mr. Brownlow.

“I don’t know,” replied Grimwig, pettishly.

“Don’t know?”

“No, I don’t know. I never see any difference in boys. I only know two sorts of boys, – mealy boys, and beef-faced boys.”

“And which is Oliver!”

“Mealy. I know a friend who’s got a beef-faced boy; a fine boy they call him, with a round head, and red cheeks, and glaring eyes; a horrid boy, with a body and limbs that appear to be swelling out of the seams of his blue clothes – with the voice of a pilot, and the appetite of a wolf. I know him, the wretch!”

“Come,” said Mr. Brownlow, “these are not the characteristics of young Oliver Twist; so he needn’t excite your wrath.”

“They are not,” replied Grimwig. “He may have worse.”

Here Mr. Brownlow coughed impatiently, which appeared to afford Mr. Grimwig the most exquisite delight.

“He may have worse, I say,” repeated Mr. Grimwig. “Where does he come from? Who is he? What is he? He has had a fever – what of that? Fevers are not peculiar to good people, are they? Bad people have fevers sometimes, haven’t they, eh? I knew a man that was hung in Jamaica for murdering his master; he had had a fever six times; he wasn’t recommended to mercy on that account. Pooh! nonsense!”

Now, the fact was, that, in the inmost recesses of his own heart, Mr. Grimwig was strongly disposed to admit that Oliver’s appearance and manner were unusually prepossessing, but he had a strong appetite for contradiction, sharpened on this occasion by the finding of the orange-peel; and inwardly determining that no man should dictate to him whether a boy was well-looking or not, he had resolved from the first to oppose his friend. When Mr. Brownlow admitted that on no one point of inquiry could he yet return a satisfactory answer, and that he had postponed any investigation into Oliver’s previous history until he thought the boy was strong enough to bear it, Mr. Grimwig chuckled maliciously, and demanded, with a sneer, whether the housekeeper was in the habit of counting the plate at night; because, if she didn’t find a table-spoon or two missing some sunshiny morning, why, he would be content to – , et cetera.

All this, Mr. Brownlow, although himself somewhat of an impetuous gentleman, knowing his friend’s peculiarities, bore with great good humour; as Mr. Grimwig, at tea, was graciously pleased to express his entire approval of the muffins, matters went on very smoothly; and Oliver, who made one of the party, began to feel more at his ease than he had yet done in the fierce old gentleman’s presence.

“And when are you going to hear a full, true, and particular account of the life and adventures of Oliver Twist?” asked Grimwig of Mr. Brownlow, at the conclusion of the meal: looking sideways at Oliver as he resumed the subject.

“To-morrow morning,” replied Mr. Brownlow. “I would rather he was alone with me at the time. Come up to me to-morrow morning at ten o’clock, my dear.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver. He answered with some hesitation, because he was confused by Mr. Grimwig’s looking so hard at him.

“I’ll tell you what,” whispered that gentleman to Mr. Brownlow; “he won’t come up to you to-morrow morning. I saw him hesitate. He is deceiving you, my dear friend.”

“I’ll swear he is not,” replied Mr. Brownlow, warmly.

“If he is not,” said Mr. Grimwig, “I’ll – ” and down went the stick.

“I’ll answer for that boy’s truth with my life,” said Mr. Brownlow, knocking the table.