Oliver Twist. Volume 1 of 3

“Why,” whispered Sikes, “as you cross the lawn – ”

“Yes, yes,” said the Jew, bending his head forward, with his eyes almost starting out of it.

“Umph!” cried Sikes, stopping short as the girl, scarcely moving her head, looked suddenly round and pointed for an instant to the Jew’s face. “Never mind which part it is. You can’t do it without me, I know; but it’s best to be on the safe side when one deals with you.”

“As you like, my dear, as you like,” replied the Jew, biting his lip. “Is there no help wanted but yours and Toby’s?”

“None,” said Sikes, “’cept a centre-bit and a boy. The first we’ve both got; the second you must find us.”

“A boy!” exclaimed the Jew. “Oh! then it is a panel, eh?”

“Never mind wot it is!” replied Sikes; “I want a boy, and he mustn’t be a big un. Lord!” said Mr. Sikes reflectively, “if I’d only got that young boy of Ned, the chimbley-sweeper’s – he kept him small on purpose, and let him out by the job. But the father gets lagged, and then the Juvenile Delinquent Society comes, and takes the boy away from a trade where he was arning money, teaches him to read and write, and in time makes a ’prentice of him. And so they go on,” said Mr. Sikes, his wrath rising with the recollection of his wrongs, – “so they go on; and, if they’d got money enough, (which it’s a Providence they have not,) we shouldn’t have half-a-dozen boys left in the whole trade in a year or two.”

“No more we should,” acquiesced the Jew, who had been considering during this speech, and had only caught the last sentence. “Bill!”

“What now?” inquired Sikes.

The Jew nodded his head towards Nancy, who was still gazing at the fire, and intimated by a sign that he would have her told to leave the room. Sikes shrugged his shoulders impatiently, as if he thought the precaution unnecessary, but complied, nevertheless, by requesting Miss Nancy to fetch him a jug of beer.

“You don’t want any beer,” said Nancy, folding her arms, and retaining her seat very composedly.

“I tell you I do!” replied Sikes.

“Nonsense,” rejoined the girl, coolly. “Go on, Fagin. I know what he’s going to say, Bill; he needn’t mind me.”

The Jew still hesitated, and Sikes looked from one to the other in some surprise.

“Why, you don’t mind the old girl, do you, Fagin?” he asked at length. “You’ve known her long enough to trust her, or the devil’s in it. She ain’t one to blab, are you, Nancy?”

“I should think not!” replied the young lady, drawing her chair up to the table, and putting her elbows upon it.

“No, no, my dear, – I know you’re not,” said the Jew; “but – ” and again the old man paused.

“But wot?” inquired Sikes.

“I didn’t know whether she mightn’t p’r’aps be out of sorts, you know, my dear, as she was the other night,” replied the Jew.

At this confession Miss Nancy burst into a loud laugh, and, swallowing a glass of brandy, shook her head with an air of defiance, and burst into sundry exclamations of “Keep the game a-going!” “Never say die!” and the like, which seemed at once to have the effect of re-assuring both gentlemen, for the Jew nodded his head with a satisfied air, and resumed his seat, as did Mr. Sikes likewise.

“Now, Fagin,” said Nancy with a laugh, “tell Bill at once about Oliver!”

“Ah! you’re a clever one, my dear; the sharpest girl I ever saw!” said the Jew, patting her on the neck. “It was about Oliver I was going to speak, sure enough. Ha! ha! ha!”

“What about him?” demanded Sikes.

“He’s the boy for you, my dear,” replied the Jew in a hoarse whisper, laying his finger on the side of his nose, and grinning frightfully.

“He!” exclaimed Sikes.

“Have him, Bill!” said Nancy. “I would if I was in your place. He mayn’t be so much up as any of the others; but that’s not what you want if he’s only to open a door for you. Depend upon it he’s a safe one, Bill.”

“I know he is,” rejoined Fagin; “he’s been in good training these last few weeks, and it’s time he began to work for his bread. Besides, the others are all too big.”

“Well, he is just the size I want,” said Mr. Sikes, ruminating.

“And will do everything you want, Bill, my dear,” interposed the Jew; “he can’t help himself, – that is if you only frighten him enough.”

“Frighten him!” echoed Sikes. “It’ll be no sham frightening, mind you. If there’s anything queer about him when we once get into the work, – in for a penny, in for a pound, – you won’t see him alive again, Fagin. Think of that before you send him. Mark my words,” said the robber, poising a heavy crowbar which he had drawn from under the bedstead.

“I’ve thought of it all,” said the Jew with energy. “I’ve – I’ve had my eye upon him, my dears, close – close. Once let him feel that he is one of us; once fill his mind with the idea that he has been a thief, and he’s ours, – ours for his life! Oho! It couldn’t have come about better!” The old man crossed his arms upon his breast, and, drawing his head and shoulders into a heap, literally hugged himself for joy.

“Ours!” said Sikes. “Yours, you mean.”

“Perhaps I do, my dear,” said the Jew with a shrill chuckle. “Mine, if you like, Bill.”

“And wot,” said Sikes, scowling fiercely on his agreeable friend, – “wot makes you take so much pains about one chalk-faced kid, when you know there are fifty boys snoozing about Common Garden every night, as you might pick and choose from?”

“Because they’re of no use to me, my dear,” replied the Jew with some confusion, “not worth the taking; for their looks convict ’em when they get into trouble, and I lose ’em all. With this boy properly managed, my dears, I could do what I couldn’t with twenty of them. Besides,” said the Jew, recovering his self-possession, “he has us now if he could only give us leg-bail again; and he must be in the same boat with us. Never mind how he came there, it’s quite enough for my power over him that he was in a robbery, that’s all I want. Now how much better this is than being obliged to put the poor leetle boy out of the way, which would be dangerous, and we should lose by it besides.”

“When is it to be done?” asked Nancy, stopping some turbulent exclamation on the part of Mr. Sikes, expressive of the disgust with which he received Fagin’s affectation of humanity.

“Ah, to be sure,” said the Jew, “when is it to be done, Bill?”

“I planned with Toby, the night arter to-morrow,” rejoined Sikes in a surly voice, “if he heard nothing from me to the contrairy.”

“Good,” said the Jew; “there’s no moon.”

“No,” rejoined Sikes.

“It’s all arranged about bringing off the swag,[1 - Booty.] is it?” asked the Jew.

Sikes nodded.

“And about – ”

“Oh, ah, it’s all planned,” rejoined Sikes, interrupting him; “never mind particulars. You’d better bring the boy here to-morrow night; I shall get off the stones an hour arter day-break. Then you hold your tongue, and keep the melting-pot ready, and that’s all you’ll have to do.”

After some discussion, in which all three took an active part, it was decided that Nancy should repair to the Jew’s next evening when the night had set in, and bring Oliver away with her: Fagin craftily observing, that, if he evinced any disinclination to the task, he would be more willing to accompany the girl who had so recently interfered in his behalf, than anybody else. It was also solemnly arranged that poor Oliver should, for the purposes of the contemplated expedition, be unreservedly consigned to the care and custody of Mr. William Sikes; and further, that the said Sikes should deal with him as he thought fit, and should not be held responsible by the Jew for any mischance or evil that might befall the boy, or any punishment with which it might be necessary to visit him, it being understood that, to render the compact in this respect binding, any representations made by Mr. Sikes on his return should be required to be confirmed and corroborated, in all important particulars, by the testimony of flash Toby Crackit.

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 it 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 down stairs.