Oliver Twist (53 page)

“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 paleness 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 whole. 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 has 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.”

“What’s that?” demanded Mr. Claypole.

“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 neighbourhoods 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 tomorrow 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 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, 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.

 

“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 Fagin’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 Fagin. “When a man’s his own enemy, it’s only because he’s too much his own friend, not because he’s careful for everybody 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. 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 Fagin, 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 Fagin, 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 Fagin. “I’m of the same importance as 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 Fagin, 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 unloose—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 operation, 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 Fagin. “My best hand was taken from me, yesterday morning.”

“You 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 Fagin. “Yes, he was wanted.”

“Very particular?” inquired Mr. Bolter.

“No,” replied Fagin, “not very. He was charged with attempting to pick a pocket, and they found a silver snuffbox on him—his own, my dear, his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it. They remanded him till today, 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.:”