LITMIR.BIZ

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black steeds, approaching in the distance. The shop was close and hot. The atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. The recess beneath the counter in which his flock mattress was thrust, looked like a grave.

      Nor were these the only dismal feelings which depressed Oliver. He was alone in a strange place; and we all know how chilled and desolate the best of us will sometimes feel in such a situation. The boy had no friends to care for, or to care for him. The regret of no recent separation was fresh in his mind; the absence of no loved and well-remembered face sank heavily into his heart. But his heart was heavy, notwithstanding; and he wished, as he crept into his narrow bed, that that were his coffin, and that he could be lain in a calm and lasting sleep in the churchyard ground, with the tall grass waving gently above his head, and the sound of the old deep bell to soothe him in his sleep.

      Oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of the shop-door; which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times. When he began to undo the chain, the legs desisted, and a voice began.

      ‘Open the door, will yer?’ cried the voice which belonged to the legs which had kicked at the door.

      ‘I will, directly, sir,’ replied Oliver: undoing the chain, and turning the key.

      ‘I suppose yer the new boy, ain’t yer?’ said the voice through the key-hole.

      ‘Yes, sir,’ replied Oliver.

      ‘How old are yer?’ inquired the voice.

      ‘Ten, sir,’ replied Oliver.

      ‘Then I’ll whop yer when I get in,’ said the voice; ‘you just see if I don’t, that’s all, my work’us brat!’ and having made this obliging promise, the voice began to whistle.

      Oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very expressive monosyllable just recorded bears reference, to entertain the smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be, would redeem his pledge, most honourably. He drew back the bolts with a trembling hand, and opened the door.

      For a second or two, Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street, and over the way: impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had addressed him through the key-hole, had walked a few paces off, to warm himself; for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp knife, and then consumed with great dexterity.

      ‘I beg your pardon, sir,’ said Oliver at length: seeing that no other visitor made his appearance; ‘did you knock?’

      ‘I kicked,’ replied the charity-boy.

      ‘Did you want a coffin, sir?’ inquired Oliver, innocently.

      At this the charity-boy looked monstrous fierce; and said that Oliver would want one before long, if he cut jokes with his superiors in that way.

      ‘Yer don’t know who I am, I suppose, Work’us?’ said the charity-boy, in continuation: descending from the top of the post, meanwhile, with edifying gravity.

      ‘No, sir,’ rejoined Oliver.

      ‘I’m Mister Noah Claypole,’ said the charity-boy, ‘and you’re under me. Take down the shutters, yer idle young ruffian!’ With this, Mr. Claypole administered a kick to Oliver, and entered the shop with a dignified air, which did him great credit. It is difficult for a large-headed, small-eyed youth, of lumbering make and heavy countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances; but it is more especially so, when superadded to these personal attractions are a red nose and yellow smalls.

      Oliver, having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of glass in his efforts to stagger away beneath the weight of the first one to a small court at the side of the house in which they were kept during the day, was graciously assisted by Noah: who having consoled him with the assurance that ‘he’d catch it,’ condescended to help him. Mr. Sowerberry came down soon after. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Sowerberry appeared. Oliver having ‘caught it,’ in fulfilment of Noah’s prediction, followed that young gentleman down the stairs to breakfast.

      ‘Come near the fire, Noah,’ said Charlotte. ‘I saved a nice little bit of bacon for you from master’s breakfast. Oliver, shut that door at Mister Noah’s back, and take them bits that I’ve put out on the cover of the bread pan. There’s your tea; take it away to that box, and drink it there, and make haste, for they’ll want you to mind the shop. D’ye hear?’

      ‘D’ye hear, Work’us?’ said Noah Claypole.

      ‘Lor, Noah!’ said Charlotte, ‘what a rum creature you are! Why don’t you let the boy alone?’

      ‘Let him alone!’ said Noah. ‘Why everybody lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor his mother will ever interfere with him. All his relations let him have his own way pretty well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!’

      ‘Oh, you queer soul!’ said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in which she was joined by Noah; after which they both looked scornfully at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering on the box in the coldest corner of the room, and ate the stale pieces which had been specially reserved for him.

      Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of twopence-half-penny and an unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had long been in the habit of branding Noah, in the public streets, with the ignominious epithets of ‘leathers’ ‘charity,’ and the like; and Noah had borne them without reply. But, now that fortune has cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be; and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.

      Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker’s some three weeks or a month. Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry—the shop being shut up—were taking their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr. Sowerberry, after several deferential glances at his wife, said,

      ‘My dear—’ He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up, with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short.

      ‘Well,’ said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply.

      ‘Nothing, my dear, nothing,’ said Mr. Sowerberry.

      ‘Ugh, you brute!’ said Mrs. Sowerberry.

      ‘Not at all, my dear,’ said Mr. Sowerberry humbly. ‘I thought you didn’t want to hear, my dear. I was only going to say—’

      ‘Oh, don’t tell me what you were going to say,’ interposed Mrs. Sowerberry. ‘I am nobody; don’t consult me, pray. I don’t want to intrude upon your secrets.’ As Mrs. Sowerberry said this, she gave an hysterical laugh, which threatened violent consequences.

      ‘But, my dear,’ said Sowerberry, ‘I want to ask your advice.’

      ‘No, no, don’t ask mine,’ replied Mrs. Sowerberry, in an affecting manner: ‘ask somebody else’s.’ Here, there was another hysterical laugh, which frightened Mr. Sowerberry very much. This is a very common and much-approved matrimonial course of treatment, which is often very effective. It at once reduced Mr. Sowerberry to begging, as a special favour, to be allowed to say what Mrs. Sowerberry was most curious to hear. After a short altercation of less than three quarters of an hour’s duration, the permission was most graciously conceded.

      ‘It’s only about young Twist, my dear,’ said Mr. Sowerberry. ‘A very good-looking boy, that, my dear.’

      ‘He need be, for he eats enough,’ observed the lady.

      ‘There’s an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear,’ resumed Mr. Sowerberry, ‘which

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