Whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational animal may be supposed to feel when he sits on a table in an easy attitude smoking a pipe, swinging one leg carelessly to and fro, and having his boots cleaned all the time, without even the past trouble of having taken them off, or the prospective misery of putting them on, to disturb his reflections; or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco that soothed the feelings of the Dodger, or the mildness of the beer that mollified his thoughts; he was evidently tinctured, for the nonce, with a spice of romance and enthusiasm, foreign to his general nature. He looked down on Oliver, with a thoughtful countenance, for a brief space; and then, raising his head, and heaving a gentle sigh, said, half in abstraction, and half to Master Bates:
“What a pity it is he isn’t a prig!”
“Ah!” said Master Charles Bates;“he don’t know what’s good for him.”
The Dodger sighed again, and resumed his pipe:as did Charley Bates. They both smoked,for some seconds, in silence.
“I suppose you don’t even know what a prig is?” said the Dodger mournfully.
“I think I know that,” replied Oliver, looking up.“It’s a the—; you’re one, are you not?” inquired Oliver, checking himself.
“I am,” replied the Dodger.“I’d scorn to be anything else.” Mr.Dawkins gave his hat a ferocious cock,after delivering this sentiment,and looked at Master Bates,as if to denote that he would feel obliged by his saying anything to the contrary.
“I am,” repeated the Dodger. “So’s Charley. So’s Fagin.So’s Sikes. So’s Nancy. So’s Bet. So we all are,down to the dog. And he’s the downiest one of the lot!”
“And the least given to peaching,” added Charley Bates.
“He wouldn’t so much as bark in a witness-box,for fear of committing himself; no,not if you tied him up in one,and left him there without wittles for a fortnight, ” said the Dodger.
“Not a bit of it,” observed Charley.
“He’s a rum dog. Don’t he look fierce at any strange cove that laughs or sings when he’s in company!” pursued the Dodger. “Won’t he growl at all,when he hears a fiddle playing!And don’t he hate other dogs as ain’t of his breed!Oh, no!”
“He’s an out-and-out Christian,” said Charley.
This was merely intended as a tribute to the animal’s abilities,but it was an appropriate remark in another sense,if Master Bates had only known it;for there are a good many ladies and gentlemen,claiming to be out-and-out Christians, between whom,and Mr. Sikes’ dog,there exist strong and singular points of resemblance.
“Well, well,” said the Dodger,recurring to the point from which they had strayed:with that mindfulness of his profession which influenced all his proceedings.“This hasn’t got anything to do with young Green here.”
“No more it has,” said Charley.“Why don’t you put yourself under Fagin, Oliver?”
“And make your fortun’ out of hand?” added the Dodger, with a grin.
“And so be able to retire on your property,and do the gen-teel: as I mean to,in the very next leap-year but four that ever comes,and the forty-second Tuesday in Trinity-week,” said Charley Bates.
“I don’t like it,” rejoined Oliver, timidly;“I wish they would let me go. I—I—would rather go.”
“And Fagin would _rather_ not!” rejoined Charley.
Oliver knew this too well;but thinking it might be dangerous to express his feelings more openly,he only sighed, and went on with his boot-cleaning.
“Go!” exclaimed the Dodger. “Why, where’s your spirit?Don’t you take any pride out of yourself?Would you go and be dependent on your friends?”
“Oh, blow that!” said Master Bates:drawing two or three silk handkerchiefs from his pocket,and tossing them into a cupboard, “that’s too mean; that is.”
“_I_ couldn’t do it,” said the Dodger,with an air of haughty disgust.
“You can leave your friends, though,” said Oliver with a half smile;“and let them be punished for what you did.”
“That,” rejoined the Dodger, with a wave of his pipe,“That was all out of consideration for Fagin,’cause the traps know that we work together,and he might have got into trouble if we hadn’t made our lucky;that was the move, wasn’t it, Charley?”
Master Bates nodded assent, and would have spoken,but the recollection of Oliver’s flight came so suddenly upon him,that the smoke he was inhaling got entangled with a laugh,and went up into his head, and down into his throat:and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping,about five minutes long.
“Look here!” said the Dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and halfpence.“Here’s a jolly life!What’s the odds where it comes from?Here, catch hold; there’s plenty more where they were took from.You won’t, won’t you?Oh, you precious flat!”
“It’s naughty, ain’t it, Oliver?” inquired Charley Bates. “He’ll come to be scragged, won’t he?”
“I don’t know what that means,” replied Oliver.
“Something in this way, old feller,” said Charley.As he said it, Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief;and, holding it erect in the air,dropped his head on his shoulder,and jerked a curious sound through his teeth;thereby indicating,by a lively pantomimic representation,that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing.
“That’s what it means,” said Charley.“Look how he stares, Jack!I never did see such prime company as that ’ere boy;he’ll be the death of me, I know he will.” Master Charley Bates, having laughed heartily again,resumed his pipe with tears in his eyes.
“You’ve been brought up bad,” said the Dodger,surveying his boots with much satisfaction when Oliver had polished them.“Fagin will make something of you, though,or you’ll be the first he ever had that turned out unprofitable.You’d better begin at once;for you’ll come to the trade long before you think of it;and you’re only losing time, Oliver.”
Master Bates backed this advice with sundry moral admonitions of his own:which, being exhausted, he and his friend Mr.Dawkins launched into a glowing description of the numerous pleasures incidental to the life they led, interspersed with a variety of hints to Oliver that the best thing he could do, would be to secure Fagin’s favour without more delay, by the means which they themselves had employed to gain it.
“And always put this in your pipe, Nolly,” said the Dodger, as the Jew was heard unlocking the door above,“if you don’t take fogels and tickers—”
“What’s the good of talking in that way?” interposed Master Bates; “he don’t know what you mean. ”
“If you don’t take pocket-handkechers and watches,” said the Dodger, reducing his conversation to the level of Oliver’s capacity,“some other cove will;so that the coves that lose ’em will be all the worse,and you’ll be all the worse, too,and nobody half a ha’p’orth the better,except the chaps wot gets them—and you’ve just as good a right to them as they have.”
“To be sure, to be sure!” said the Jew, who had entered unseen by Oliver.“It all lies in a nutshell my dear; in a nutshell,take the Dodger’s word for it. Ha!ha!ha!He understands the catechism of his trade.”
The old man rubbed his hands gleefully together,as he corroborated the Dodger’s reasoning in these terms;and chuckled with delight at his pupil’s proficiency.
The conversation proceeded no farther at this time,for the Jew had returned home accompanied by Miss Betsy,and a gentleman whom Oliver had never seen before,but who was accosted by the Dodger as Tom Chitling;and who, having lingered on the stairs to exchange a few gallantries with the lady, now made his appearance.