Chapter XLII

Oliver Twist

by Charles Dickens

An Old Acquaintance of Oliver's, Exhibiting Decided Marks of
Genius, Becomes a Public Character in the Metropolis

Upon the night when Nancy, having lulled Mr. Sikes to sleep,
hurried on her self-imposed mission to Rose Maylie, there advanced
towards London, by the Great North Road, two persons, upon whom it is
expedient that this history should bestow some attention.

They were a man and woman; or perhaps they would be better
described as a male and female: for the former was one of those
long-limbed, knock-kneed, shambling, bony people, to whom it is
difficult to assign any precise age,--looking as they do, when they
are yet boys, like undergrown men, and when they are almost men, like
overgrown boys. The woman was young, but of a robust and hardy make,
as she need have been to bear the weight of the heavy bundle which
was strapped to her back. Her companion was not encumbered with much
luggage, as there merely dangled from a stick which he carried over
his shoulder, a small parcel wrapped in a common handkerchief, and
apparently light enough. This circumstance, added to the length of
his legs, which were of unusual extent, enabled him with much ease to
keep some half-dozen paces in advance of his companion, to whom he
occasionally turned with an impatient jerk of the head: as if
reproaching her tardiness, and urging her to greater exertion.

Thus, they had toiled along the dusty road, taking little heed
of any object within sight, save when they stepped aside to allow a
wider passage for the mail-coaches which were whirling out of town,
until they passed through Highgate archway; when the foremost
traveller stopped and called impatiently to his companion,

'Come on, can't yer? What a lazybones yer are, Charlotte.'

'It's a heavy load, I can tell you,' said the female, coming up,
almost breathless with fatigue.

'Heavy! What are yer talking about? What are yer made for?'
rejoined the male traveller, changing his own little bundle as he
spoke, to the other shoulder. 'Oh, there yer are, resting again!

Well, if yer ain't enough to tire anybody's patience out, I
don't know what is!'

'Is it much farther?' asked the woman, resting herself against a
bank, and looking up with the perspiration streaming from her
face.

'Much farther! Yer as good as there,' said the long-legged
tramper, pointing out before him. 'Look there! Those are the lights
of London.'

'They're a good two mile off, at least,' said the woman
despondingly.

'Never mind whether they're two mile off, or twenty,' said Noah
Claypole; for he it was; 'but get up and come on, or I'll kick yer,
and so I give yer notice.'

As Noah's red nose grew redder with anger, and as he crossed the
road while speaking, as if fully prepared to put his threat into
execution, the woman rose without any further remark, and trudged
onward by his side.

'Where do you mean to stop for the night, Noah?' she asked,
after they had walked a few hundred yards.

'How should I know?' replied Noah, whose temper had been
considerably impaired by walking.

'Near, I hope,' said Charlotte.

'No, not near,' replied Mr. Claypole. 'There! Not near; so
don't think it.'

'Why not?'

'When I tell yer that I don't mean to do a thing, that's enough,
without any why or because either,' replied Mr. Claypole with
dignity.

'Well, you needn't be so cross,' said his companion.

'A pretty thing it would be, wouldn't it to go and stop at the
very first public-house outside the town, so that Sowerberry, if he
come up after us, might poke in his old nose, and have us taken back
in a cart with handcuffs on,' said Mr. Claypole in a jeering tone.
'No! I shall go and lose myself among the narrowest streets I can
find, and not stop till we come to the very out-of-the-wayest house I
can set eyes on. 'Cod, yer may thanks yer stars I've got a head; for
if we hadn't gone, at first, the wrong road a purpose, and come back
across country, yer'd have been locked up hard and fast a week ago,
my lady. And serve yer right for being a fool.'

'I know I ain't as cunning as you are,' replied Charlotte; 'but
don't put all the blame on me, and say I should have been locked up.
You would have been if I had been, any way.'

'Yer took the money from the till, yer know yer did,' said Mr.
Claypole.

'I took it for you, Noah, dear,' rejoined Charlotte.

'Did I keep it?' asked Mr. Claypole.

'No; you trusted in me, and let me carry it like a dear, and so
you are,' said the lady, chucking him under the chin, and drawing her
arm through his.

This was indeed the case; but as it was not Mr. Claypole's habit
to repose a blind and foolish confidence in anybody, it should be
observed, in justice to that gentleman, that he had trusted Charlotte
to this extent, in order that, if they were pursued, the money might
be found on her: which would leave him an opportunity of asserting
his innocence of any theft, and would greatly facilitate his chances
of escape. Of course, he entered at this juncture, into no
explanation of his motives, and they walked on very lovingly
together.

In pursuance of this cautious plan, Mr. Claypole went on,
without halting, until he arrived at the Angel at Islington, where he
wisely judged, from the crowd of passengers and numbers of vehicles,
that London began in earnest. Just pausing to observe which appeared
the most crowded streets, and consequently the most to be avoided, he
crossed into Saint John's Road, and was soon deep in the obscurity of
the intricate and dirty ways, which, lying between Gray's Inn Lane
and Smithfield, render that part of the town one of the lowest and
worst that improvement has left in the midst of London.

Through these streets, Noah Claypole walked, dragging Charlotte
after him; now stepping into the kennel to embrace at a glance the
whole external character of some small public-house; now jogging on
again, as some fancied appearance induced him to believe it too
public for his purpose. At length, he stopped in front of one, more
humble in appearance and more dirty than any he had yet seen; and,
having crossed over and surveyed it from the opposite pavement,
graciously announced his intention of putting up there, for the
night.

'So give us the bundle,' said Noah, unstrapping it from the
woman's shoulders, and slinging it over his own; 'and don't yer
speak, except when yer spoke to. What's the name of the
house--t-h-r--three what?'

'Cripples,' said Charlotte.

'Three Cripples,' repeated Noah, 'and a very good sign too.
Now, then! Keep close at my heels, and come along.' With these
injunctions, he pushed the rattling door with his shoulder, and
entered the house, followed by his companion.

There was nobody in the bar but a young Jew, who, with his two
elbows on the counter, was reading a dirty newspaper. He stared very
hard at Noah, and Noah stared very hard at him.

If Noah had been attired in his charity-boy's dress, there might
have been some reason for the Jew opening his eyes so wide; but as he
had discarded the coat and badge, and wore a short smock-frock over
his leathers, there seemed no particular reason for his appearance
exciting so much attention in a public-house.

'Is this the Three Cripples?' asked Noah.

'That is the dabe of this 'ouse,' replied the Jew.

'A gentleman we met on the road, coming up from the country,
recommended us here,' said Noah, nudging Charlotte, perhaps to call
her attention to this most ingenious device for attracting respect,
and perhaps to warn her to betray no surprise. 'We want to sleep
here to-night.'

'I'b dot certaid you cad,' said Barney, who was the attendant
sprite; 'but I'll idquire.'

'Show us the tap, and give us a bit of cold meat and a drop of
beer while yer inquiring, will yer?' said Noah.

Barney complied by ushering them into a small back-room, and
setting the required viands before them; having done which, he
informed the travellers that they could be lodged that night, and
left the amiable couple to their refreshment.

Now, this back-room was immediately behind the bar, and some
steps lower, so that any person connected with the house, undrawing a
small curtain which concealed a single pane of glass fixed in the
wall of the last-named apartment, about five feet from its flooring,
could not only look down upon any guests in the back-room without any
great hazard of being observed (the glass being in a dark angle of
the wall, between which and a large upright beam the observer had to
thrust himself), but could, by applying his ear to the partition,
ascertain with tolerable distinctness, their subject of conversation.
The landlord of the house had not withdrawn his eye from this place
of espial for five minutes, and Barney had only just returned from
making the communication above related, when Fagin, in the course of
his evening's business, came into the bar to inquire after some of
his young pupils.

'Hush!' said Barney: 'stradegers id the next roob.'

'Strangers!' repeated the old man in a whisper.

'Ah! Ad rub uds too,' added Barney. 'Frob the cuttry, but
subthig in your way, or I'b bistaked.'

Fagin appeared to receive this communication with great
interest.

Mounting a stool, he cautiously applied his eye to the pane of
glass, from which secret post he could see Mr. Claypole taking cold
beef from the dish, and porter from the pot, and administering
homoepathic doses of both to Charlotte, who sat patiently by, eating
and drinking at his pleasure.

'Aha!' he whispered, looking round to Barney, 'I like that
fellow's looks. He'd be of use to us; he knows how to train the girl
already. Don't make as much noise as a mouse, my dear, and let me
hear 'em talk--let me hear 'em.'

He again applied his eye to the glass, and turning his ear to
the partition, listened attentively: with a subtle and eager look
upon his face, that might have appertained to some old goblin.

'So I mean to be a gentleman,' said Mr. Claypole, kicking out
his legs, and continuing a conversation, the commencement of which
Fagin had arrived too late to hear. 'No more jolly old coffins,
Charlotte, but a gentleman's life for me: and, if yer like, yer
shall be a lady.'

'I should like that well enough, dear,' replied Charlotte; 'but
tills ain't to be emptied every day, and people to get clear off
after it.'

'Tills be blowed!' said Mr. Claypole; 'there's more things
besides tills to be emptied.'

'What do you mean?' asked his companion.

'Pockets, women's ridicules, houses, mail-coaches, banks!' said
Mr. Claypole, rising with the porter.

'But you can't do all that, dear,' said Charlotte.

'I shall look out to get into company with them as can,' replied
Noah. 'They'll be able to make us useful some way or another. Why,
you yourself are worth fifty women; I never see such a precious sly
and deceitful creetur as yer can be when I let yer.'

'Lor, how nice it is to hear yer say so!' exclaimed Charlotte,
imprinting a kiss upon his ugly face.

'There, that'll do: don't yer be too affectionate, in case I'm
cross with yer,' said Noah, disengaging himself with great gravity.
'I should like to be the captain of some band, and have the whopping
of 'em, and follering 'em about, unbeknown to themselves. That would
suit me, if there was good profit; and if we could only get in with
some gentleman of this sort, I say it would be cheap at that
twenty-pound note you've got,--especially as we don't very well know
how to get rid of it ourselves.'

After expressing this opinion, Mr. Claypole looked into the
porter-pot with an aspect of deep wisdom; and having well shaken its
contents, nodded condescendingly to Charlotte, and took a draught,
wherewith he appeared greatly refreshed. He was meditating another,
when the sudden opening of the door, and the appearance of a
stranger, interrupted him.

The stranger was Mr. Fagin. And very amiable he looked, and a
very low bow he made, as he advanced, and setting himself down at the
nearest table, ordered something to drink of the grinning Barney.

'A pleasant night, sir, but cool for the time of year,' said
Fagin, rubbing his hands. 'From the country, I see, sir?'

'How do yer see that?' asked Noah Claypole.

'We have not so much dust as that in London,' replied Fagin,
pointing from Noah's shoes to those of his companion, and from them
to the two bundles.

'Yer a sharp feller,' said Noah. 'Ha! ha! only hear that,
Charlotte!'

'Why, one need be sharp in this town, my dear,' replied the Jew,
sinking his voice to a confidential whisper; 'and that's the
truth.'

Fagin followed up this remark by striking the side of his nose
with his right forefinger,--a gesture which Noah attempted to
imitate, though not with complete success, in consequence of his own
nose not being large enough for the purpose. However, Mr. Fagin
seemed to interpret the endeavour as expressing a perfect coincidence
with his opinion, and put about the liquor which Barney reappeared
with, in a very friendly manner.

'Good stuff that,' observed Mr. Claypole, smacking his lips.

'Dear!' said Fagin. 'A man need be always emptying a till, or a
pocket, or a woman's reticule, or a house, or a mail-coach, or a
bank, if he drinks it regularly.'

Mr. Claypole no sooner heard this extract from his own remarks
than he fell back in his chair, and looked from the Jew to Charlotte
with a countenance of ashy palences and excessive terror.

'Don't mind me, my dear,' said Fagin, drawing his chair closer.
'Ha! ha! it was lucky it was only me that heard you by chance. It
was very lucky it was only me.'

'I didn't take it,' stammered Noah, no longer stretching out his
legs like an independent gentleman, but coiling them up as well as he
could under his chair; 'it was all her doing; yer've got it now,
Charlotte, yer know yer have.'

'No matter who's got it, or who did it, my dear,' replied Fagin,
glancing, nevertheless, with a hawk's eye at the girl and the two
bundles. 'I'm in that way myself, and I like you for it.'

'In what way?' asked Mr. Claypole, a little recovering.

'In that way of business,' rejoined Fagin; 'and so are the
people of the house. You've hit the right nail upon the head, and
are as safe here as you could be. There is not a safer place in all
this town than is the Cripples; that is, when I like to make it so.
And I have taken a fancy to you and the young woman; so I've said the
word, and you may make your minds easy.'

Noah Claypole's mind might have been at ease after this
assurance, but his body certainly was not; for he shuffled and
writhed about, into various uncouth positions: eyeing his new friend
meanwhile with mingled fear and suspicion.

'I'll tell you more,' said Fagin, after he had reassured the
girl, by dint of friendly nods and muttered encouragements. 'I have
got a friend that I think can gratify your darling wish, and put you
in the right way, where you can take whatever department of the
business you think will suit you best at first, and be taught all the
others.'

'Yer speak as if yer were in earnest,' replied Noah.

'What advantage would it be to me to be anything else?' inquired
Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. 'Here! Let me have a word with you
outside.'

'There's no occasion to trouble ourselves to move,' said Noah,
getting his legs by gradual degrees abroad again. 'She'll take the
luggage upstairs the while. Charlotte, see to them bundles.'

This mandate, which had been delivered with great majesty, was
obeyed without the slightest demur; and Charlotte made the best of
her way off with the packages while Noah held the door open and
watched her out.

'She's kept tolerably well under, ain't she?' he asked as he
resumed his seat: in the tone of a keeper who had tamed some wild
animal.

'Quite perfect,' rejoined Fagin, clapping him on the shoulder.
'You're a genius, my dear.'

'Why, I suppose if I wasn't, I shouldn't be here,' replied Noah.
'But, I say, she'll be back if yer lose time.'

'Now, what do you think?' said Fagin. 'If you was to like my
friend, could you do better than join him?'

'Is he in a good way of business; that's where it is!' responded
Noah, winking one of his little eyes.

'The top of the tree; employs a power of hands; has the very
best society in the profession.'

'Regular town-maders?' asked Mr. Claypole.

'Not a countryman among 'em; and I don't think he'd take you,
even on my recommendation, if he didn't run rather short of
assistants just now,' replied Fagin.

'Should I have to hand over?' said Noah, slapping his
breeches-pocket.

'It couldn't possibly be done without,' replied Fagin, in a most
decided manner.

'Twenty pound, though--it's a lot of money!'

'Not when it's in a note you can't get rid of,' retorted Fagin.
'Number and date taken, I suppose? Payment stopped at the Bank? Ah!
It's not worth much to him. It'll have to go abroad, and he
couldn't sell it for a great deal in the market.'

'When could I see him?' asked Noah doubtfully.

'To-morrow morning.'

'Where?'

'Here.'

'Um!' said Noah. 'What's the wages?'

'Live like a gentleman--board and lodging, pipes and spirits
free--half of all you earn, and half of all the young woman earns,'
replied Mr. Fagin.

Whether Noah Claypole, whose rapacity was none of the least
comprehensive, would have acceded even to these glowing terms, had he
been a perfectly free agent, is very doubtful; but as he recollected
that, in the event of his refusal, it was in the power of his new
acquaintance to give him up to justice immediately (and more unlikely
things had come to pass), he gradually relented, and said he thought
that would suit him.

'But, yer see,' observed Noah, 'as she will be able to do a good
deal, I should like to take something very light.'

'A little fancy work?' suggested Fagin.

'Ah! something of that sort,' replied Noah. 'What do you think
would suit me now? Something not too trying for the strength, and
not very dangerous, you know. That's the sort of thing!'

'I heard you talk of something in the spy way upon the others,
my dear,' said Fagin. 'My friend wants somebody who would do that
well, very much.'

'Why, I did mention that, and I shouldn't mind turning my hand
to it sometimes,' rejoined Mr. Claypole slowly; 'but it wouldn't pay
by itself, you know.'

'That's true!' observed the Jew, ruminating or pretending to
ruminate. 'No, it might not.'

'What do you think, then?' asked Noah, anxiously regarding him.
'Something in the sneaking way, where it was pretty sure work, and
not much more risk than being at home.'

'What do you think of the old ladies?' asked Fagin. 'There's a
good deal of money made in snatching their bags and parcels, and
running round the corner.'

'Don't they holler out a good deal, and scratch sometimes?'
asked Noah, shaking his head. 'I don't think that would answer my
purpose. Ain't there any other line open?'

'Stop!' said Fagin, laying his hand on Noah's knee. 'The
kinchin lay.'

'The kinchins, my dear,' said Fagin, 'is the young children
that's sent on errands by their mothers, with sixpences and
shillings; and the lay is just to take their money away--they've
always got it ready in their hands,--then knock 'em into the kennel,
and walk off very slow, as if there were nothing else the matter but
a child fallen down and hurt itself. Ha! ha! ha!'

'Ha! ha!' roared Mr. Claypole, kicking up his legs in an
ecstasy.

'Lord, that's the very thing!'

'To be sure it is,' replied Fagin; 'and you can have a few good
beats chalked out in Camden Town, and Battle Bridge, and
neighborhoods like that, where they're always going errands; and you
can 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 Fagin, adding, as Mr. Claypole nodded
assent, 'What name shall I tell my good friend.'

'Mr. Bolter,' replied Noah, who had prepared himself for such
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, Charlotte?' 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 Fagin. '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. 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.