Emma D. E. N. Southworth - "Capitola The Madcap"

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New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Oliver Twist

C >> Charles Dickens >> Oliver Twist




One afternoon, the Dodger and Master Bates being engaged out that
evening, the first-named young gentleman took it into his head to
evince some anxiety regarding the decoration of his person (to do
him justice, this was by no means an habitual weakness with him);
and, with this end and aim, he condescendingly commanded Oliver
to assist him in his toilet, straightway.

Oliver was but too glad to make himself useful; too happy to have
some faces, however bad, to look upon; too desirous to conciliate
those about him when he could honestly do so; to throw any
objection in the way of this proposal. So he at once expressed
his readiness; and, kneeling on the floor, while the Dodger sat
upon the table so that he could take his foot in his laps, he
applied himself to a process which Mr. Dawkins designated as
'japanning his trotter-cases.' The phrase, rendered into plain
English, signifieth, cleaning his boots.

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 sign, 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 Doger. '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 go 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 Charly. 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.

Mr. Chitling was older in years than the Dodger: having perhaps
numbered eighteen winters; but there was a degree of deference in
his deportment towards that young gentleman which seemed to
indicate that he felt himself conscious of a slight inferiority
in point of genius and professional aquirements. He had small
twinkling eyes, and a pock-marked face; wore a fur cap, a dark
corduroy jacket, greasy fustian trousers, and an apron. His
wardrobe was, in truth, rather out of repair; but he excused
himself to the company by stating that his 'time' was only out an
hour before; and that, in consequence of having worn the
regimentals for six weeks past, he had not been able to bestow
any attention on his private clothes. Mr. Chitling added, with
strong marks of irritation, that the new way of fumigating
clothes up yonder was infernal unconstitutional, for it burnt
holes in them, and there was no remedy against the County. The
same remark he considered to apply to the regulation mode of
cutting the hair: which he held to be decidedly unlawful. Mr.
Chitling wound up his observations by stating that he had not
touched a drop of anything for forty-two moral long hard-working
days; and that he 'wished he might be busted if he warn't as dry
as a lime-basket.'

'Where do you think the gentleman has come from, Oliver?'
inquired the Jew, with a grin, as the other boys put a bottle of
spirits on the table.

'I--I--don't know, sir,' replied Oliver.

'Who's that?' inquired Tom Chitling, casting a contemptuous look
at Oliver.

'A young friend of mine, my dear,' replied the Jew.

'He's in luck, then,' said the young man, with a meaning look at
Fagin. 'Never mind where I came from, young 'un; you'll find
your way there, soon enough, I'll bet a crown!'

At this sally, the boys laughed. After some more jokes on the
same subject, they exchanged a few short whispers with Fagin; and
withdrew.

After some words apart between the last comer and Fagin, they
drew their chairs towards the fire; and the Jew, telling Oliver
to come and sit by him, led the conversation to the topics most
calculated to interest his hearers. These were, the great
advantages of the trade, the proficiency of the Dodger, the
amiability of Charley Bates, and the liberality of the Jew
himself. At length these subjects displayed signs of being
thoroughly exhausted; and Mr. Chitling did the same: for the
house of correction becomes fatiguing after a week or two. Miss
Betsy accordingly withdrew; and left the party to their repose.

From this day, Oliver was seldom left alone; but was placed in
almost constant communication with the two boys, who played the
old game with the Jew every day: whether for their own
improvement or Oliver's, Mr. Fagin best knew. At other times the
old man would tell them stories of robberies he had committed in
his younger days: mixed up with so much that was droll and
curious, that Oliver could not help laughing heartily, and
showing that he was amused in spite of all his better feelings.

In short, the wily old Jew had the boy in his toils. Having
prepared his mind, by solitude and gloom, to prefer any society
to the companionship of his own sad thoughts in such a dreary
place, he was now slowly instilling into his soul the poison
which he hoped would blacken it, and change its hue for ever.




CHAPTER XIX

IN WHICH A NOTABLE PLAN IS DISCUSSED AND DETERMINED ON

It was a chill, damp, windy night, when the Jew: buttoning his
great-coat tight round his shrivelled body, and pulling the
collar up over his ears so as completely to obscure the lower
part of his face: emerged from his den. He paused on the step
as the door was locked and chained behind him; and having
listened while the boys made all secure, and until their
retreating footsteps were no longer audible, slunk down the
street as quickly as he could.

The house to which Oliver had been conveyed, was in the
neighborhood of Whitechapel. The Jew stopped for an instant at
the corner of the street; and, glancing suspiciously round,
crossed the road, and struck off in the direction of the
Spitalfields.

The mud lay thick upon the stones, and a black mist hung over the
streets; the rain fell sluggishly down, and everything felt cold
and clammy to the touch. It seemed just the night when it
befitted such a being as the Jew to be abroad. As he glided
stealthily along, creeping beneath the shelter of the walls and
doorways, the hideous old man seemed like some loathsome reptile,
engendered in the slime and darkness through which he moved:
crawling forth, by night, in search of some rich offal for a
meal.

He kept on his course, through many winding and narrow ways,
until he reached Bethnal Green; then, turning suddenly off to the
left, he soon became involved in a maze of the mean and dirty
streets which abound in that close and densely-populated quarter.

The Jew was evidently too familiar with the ground he traversed
to be at all bewildered, either by the darkness of the night, or
the intricacies of the way. He hurried through several alleys
and streets, and at length turned into one, lighted only by a
single lamp at the farther end. At the door of a house in this
street, he knocked; having exchanged a few muttered words with
the person who opened it, he walked upstairs.

A dog growled as he touched the handle of a room-door; and a
man's voice demanded who was there.

'Only me, Bill; only me, my dear,' said the Jew looking in.

'Bring in your body then,' said Sikes. 'Lie down, you stupid
brute! Don't you know the devil when he's got a great-coat on?'

Apparently, the dog had been somewhat deceived by Mr. Fagin's
outer garment; for as the Jew unbuttoned it, and threw it over
the back of a chair, he retired to the corner from which he had
risen: wagging his tail as he went, to show that he was as well
satisfied as it was in his nature to be.

'Well!' said Sikes.

'Well, my dear,' replied the Jew.--'Ah! Nancy.'

The latter recognition was uttered with just enough of
embarrassment to imply a doubt of its reception; for Mr. Fagin
and his young friend had not met, since she had interfered in
behalf of Oliver. All doubts upon the subject, if he had any,
were speedily removed by the young lady's behaviour. She took
her feet off the fender, pushed back her chair, and bade Fagin
draw up his, without saying more about it: for it was a cold
night, and no mistake.

'It is cold, Nancy dear,' said the Jew, as he warmed his skinny
hands over the fire. 'It seems to go right through one,' added
the old man, touching his side.

'It must be a piercer, if it finds its way through your heart,'
said Mr. Sikes. 'Give him something to drink, Nancy. Burn my
body, make haste! It's enough to turn a man ill, to see his lean
old carcase shivering in that way, like a ugly ghost just rose
from the grave.'

Nancy quickly brought a bottle from a cupboard, in which there
were many: which, to judge from the diversity of their
appearance, were filled with several kinds of liquids. Sikes
pouring out a glass of brandy, bade the Jew drink it off.

'Quite enough, quite, thankye, Bill,' replied the Jew, putting
down the glass after just setting his lips to it.

'What! You're afraid of our getting the better of you, are you?'
inquired Sikes, fixing his eyes on the Jew. 'Ugh!'

With a hoarse grunt of contempt, Mr. Sikes seized the glass, and
threw the remainder of its contents into the ashes: as a
preparatory ceremony to filling it again for himself: which he
did at once.

The Jew glanced round the room, as his companion tossed down the
second glassful; not in curiousity, for he had seen it often
before; but in a restless and suspicious manner habitual to him.
It was a meanly furnished apartment, with nothing but the
contents of the closet to induce the belief that its occupier was
anything but a working man; and with no more suspicious articles
displayed to view than two or three heavy bludgeons which stood
in a corner, and a 'life-preserver' that hung over the
chimney-piece.

'There,' said Sikes, smacking his lips. 'Now I'm ready.'

'For business?' inquired the Jew.

'For business,' replied Sikes; 'so say what you've got to say.'

'About the crib at Chertsey, Bill?' said the Jew, drawing his
chair forward, and speaking in a very low voice.

'Yes. Wot about it?' inquired Sikes.

'Ah! you know what I mean, my dear,' said the Jew. 'He knows
what I mean, Nancy; don't he?'

'No, he don't,' sneered Mr. Sikes. 'Or he won't, and that's the
same thing. Speak out, and call things by their right names;
don't sit there, winking and blinking, and talking to me in
hints, as if you warn't the very first that thought about the
robbery. Wot d'ye mean?'

'Hush, Bill, hush!' said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to
stop this burst of indignation; 'somebody will hear us, my dear.
Somebody will hear us.'

'Let 'em hear!' said Sikes; 'I don't care.' But as Mr. Sikes DID
care, on reflection, he dropped his voice as he said the words,
and grew calmer.

'There, there,' said the Jew, coaxingly. 'It was only my
caution, nothing more. Now, my dear, about that crib at
Chertsey; when is it to be done, Bill, eh? When is it to be
done? Such plate, my dear, such plate!' said the Jew: rubbing
his hands, and elevating his eyebrows in a rapture of
anticipation.

'Not at all,' replied Sikes coldly.

'Not to be done at all!' echoed the Jew, leaning back in his
chair.

'No, not at all,' rejoined Sikes. 'At least it can't be a put-up
job, as we expected.'

'Then it hasn't been properly gone about,' said the Jew, turning
pale with anger. 'Don't tell me!'

'But I will tell you,' retorted Sikes. 'Who are you that's not
to be told? I tell you that Toby Crackit has been hanging about
the place for a fortnight, and he can't get one of the servants
in line.'

'Do you mean to tell me, Bill,' said the Jew: softening as the
other grew heated: 'that neither of the two men in the house can
be got over?'

'Yes, I do mean to tell you so,' replied Sikes. 'The old lady
has had 'em these twenty years; and if you were to give 'em five
hundred pound, they wouldn't be in it.'

'But do you mean to say, my dear,' remonstrated the Jew, 'that
the women can't be got over?'

'Not a bit of it,' replied Sikes.

'Not by flash Toby Crackit?' said the Jew incredulously. 'Think
what women are, Bill,'

'No; not even by flash Toby Crackit,' replied Sikes. 'He says
he's worn sham whiskers, and a canary waistcoat, the whole
blessed time he's been loitering down there, and it's all of no
use.'

'He should have tried mustachios and a pair of military trousers,
my dear,' said the Jew.

'So he did,' rejoined Sikes, 'and they warn't of no more use than
the other plant.'

The Jew looked blank at this information. After ruminating for
some minutes with his chin sunk on his breast, he raised his head
and said, with a deep sigh, that if flash Toby Crackit reported
aright, he feared the game was up.

'And yet,' said the old man, dropping his hands on his knees,
'it's a sad thing, my dear, to lose so much when we had set our
hearts upon it.'

'So it is,' said Mr. Sikes. 'Worse luck!'

A long silence ensued; during which the Jew was plunged in deep
thought, with his face wrinkled into an expression of villainy
perfectly demoniacal. Sikes eyed him furtively from time to
time. Nancy, apparently fearful of irritating the housebreaker,
sat with her eyes fixed upon the fire, as if she had been deaf to
all that passed.

'Fagin,' said Sikes, abruptly breaking the stillness that
prevailed; 'is it worth fifty shiners extra, if it's safely done
from the outside?'

'Yes,' said the Jew, as suddenly rousing himself.

'Is it a bargain?' inquired Sikes.

'Yes, my dear, yes,' rejoined the Jew; his eyes glistening, and
every muscle in his face working, with the excitement that the
inquiry had awakened.

'Then,' said Sikes, thrusting aside the Jew's hand, with some
disdain, 'let it come off as soon as you like. Toby and me were
over the garden-wall the night afore last, sounding the panels of
the door and shutters. The crib's barred up at night like a
jail; but there's one part we can crack, safe and softly.'

'Which is that, Bill?' asked the Jew eagerly.

'Why,' whispered Sikes, 'as you cross the lawn--'

'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. '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's a panel, eh?'

'Never mind wot it is!' replied Sikes. 'I want a boy, and he
musn'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 earning
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
haven't,) 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. 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. These seemed 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!'

'Ha! 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 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 crowbar, which he had drawn
from under the bedstead.