In all the rooms, the mouldering shutters were fast closed: the bars which held them were screwed tight into the wood; the only light which was admitted, stealing its way through round holes at the top: which made the rooms more gloomy, and filled them with strange shadows. There was a back-garret window with rusty bars outside, which had no shutter; and out of this, Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together; but nothing was to be descried from it but a confused and crowded mass of housetops, blackened chimneys, and gable-ends. Sometimes, indeed, a grizzly head might be seen, peering over the parapet-wall of a distant house; but it was quickly withdrawn again; and as the window of Oliver’s observatory was nailed down, and dimmed with the rain and smoke of years, it was as much as he could do to make out the forms of the different objects beyond, without making any attempt to be seen or heard—which he had as much chance of being, as if he had lived inside the ball of St. Paul’s Cathedral.
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 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 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 genteel: 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
