"Why! what the blazes is in the wind now?" growled a deep voice. "Whe pitched that 'ere at me? It's well it 's the beer, and not the pot, as hit me, or I'd have settled somebody. . . Wot 's it all about, Fagin? D-me, if my neckanke cher ain't lined with beer!- Come in, you sneaking warmint: wot are you stopping outside for, as if you was ashamed of your master? Come in!"

The man who growled out these words was a stoutly-built fellow of about five and forty, in a black velveteen coat, very soiled drab breeches, lace-up half-boots, and gray cotton stockings, which enclosed a very bulky pair of legs, with large swelling calves,—the kind of legs which in such costume always look in an unfinIshed and incomplete state without a set of fetters to garnish them. He had a brown hat on his head, and a dirty belcher handkerchief round his neck, with the long frayed ends of which he smeared the beer from his face as he spoke, disclosing, when he had done so, a broad heavy countenance with a beard of three days' growth, and two scowling eyes, one of which displayed various party-colored symp toms of having been recently damaged by a blow.

"Come in, d' ye hear?" growled this engaging-looking ruffian. A white shaggy dog, with his face scratched and torn in twenty different places, skulked into the

room.

"Why did n't you come in afore?" said the man. to own me afore company; are you? Lie down!"

"You 're getttng too proud

This command was accompanied with a kick which sent the animal to the other end of the room. He appeared well used to it, however; for he coiled himself up in a corner very quietly, without uttering a sound, and, winking his very ill-looking eyes about twenty times in a minute, appeared to occupy himself in taking a survey of the apartment.

"What are you up to? Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious, in-sa-tia-ble old fence?" said the man, seating himself deliberately. "I wonder they don't murder you: I would if I was them. If I'd been your 'prentice, I'd have done it long ago; and no, I could n't have sold you arterwards, though; for you 're fit for nothing but keeping as a curiosity of ugliness in a glass bottle; and I suppose they don't blow them large enough."

"Hush, hush! Mr. Sikes," said the Jew, trembling. "Don't speak so loud." "None of your mistering," replied the ruffian: "you always mean mischief when you come that. You know my name: out with it. I shan't disgrace it when the time comes."

"Well, well, then, Bill Sikes," said the Jew with abject humility. "You seem out of humor, Bill."

"Perhaps I am," replied Sikes. "I should think you were rather out of sorts too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw pewter pots about, as you dɔ when you blab and "—

"Are you mad?" said the Jew, catching the man by the sleeve, and pointing towards the boys.

Mr. Sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb show which the Jew appeared to understand perfectly. He then in cant terms, with which his whole conversation was plentifully besprinkled, but which would be quite unintelligible If they were recorded here, demanded a glass of liquor.

“And mind you don't poison it," said Mr. Sikes, laying his hat upon the table. This was said in jest; but, if the speaker could have seen the evil leer with which he Jew bit his pale lip as he turned round to the cupboard, he might have thought the caution not wholly unnecessary, or the wish, at all events, to improve upon the distiller's ingenuity, not very far from the old gentleman's merry heart.

After swallowing two or three glassfuls of spirits, Mr. Sikes condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen; which gracious act led to a conversation, In which the cause and manner of Oliver's capture were circumstantially detailed, with such alterations, and improvements on the truth, as to the Dodger appeared most advisable under the circumstances.

"I'm afraid," said the Jew, "that he may say something which will get us into trouble."

"That's very likely," returned Sikes with a malicious grin. "You 're blowed upon, Fagin."

"And I'm afraid, you see," added the Jew, speaking as if he had not noticed the interruption, and regarding the other closely as he did so. — “I'm afraid, that, If the game was up with us, it might be up with a good many more; and that it would come out rather worse for you than it would for me, my dear."

The man started, and turned fiercely round upon the Jew; but the old gentlemau's shoulders were shrugged up to his ears, and his eyes were vacantly staring on the opposite wall.

There was a long pause. Every member of the respectable coterie appeared plunged in his own reflections, not excepting the dog, who, by a certain malicious licking of his lips, seemed to be meditating an attack upon the legs of the first gen. tleman or lady he might encounter in the street when he went out.

"Somebody must find out what's been done at the office," said Mr. Sikes in a much lower tone than he had taken since he came in.

The Jew nodded assent.

"If he has n't peached, and is committed, there's no fear till he comes out again," said Mr. Sikes; and then he must be taken care on. You must get hold

of him somehow."

Again the Jew nodded.

The prudence of this line of action, indeed, was obvious: but, unfortunately, there was one very strong objection to its being adopted; and this was, that the Dodger and Charley Bates and Fagin and Mr. William Sikes happened one and all to entertain a most violent and deep-rooted antipathy to going near a policeoffice on any ground or pretext whatever.

How long they might have sat and looked at each other, in a state of uncertainty not the most pleasant of its kind, it is difficult to say. It is not necessary to make any guesses on the subject, however; for the sudden entrance of the two young ladies whom Oliver had seen on a former occasion caused the conversation to flow afresh.

"The very thing!" said the Jew. "Bet will go; won't you, my dear?" "Wheres?" inquired the young lady.

"Only just up to the office, my dear," said the Jew coaxingly.

It is due to the young lady to say that she did not positively affirm that she would not, but that she merely expressed an emphatic and earnest desire to be "jiggered" if she would,- -a polite and delicate evasion of the request, which shows the young lady to have been possessed of that natural good-breeding that cannot bear to inflict upon a fellow-creature the pain of a direct and pointed refusal.

The Jew's countenance fell; and he turned to the other young lady, who was gayly, not to say gorgeously attired, in a red gown, green boots, and yellow curl papers.

"Nancy, my dear," said the Jew in a soothing manner, "what do you say?" That it won't do: so it's no use a-trying it on, Fagin," replied Nancy.

66

"What do you mean by that?" said Mr. Sikes. looking up in a surly manner.

"What I say, Bill," replied the lady collectedly.

"Why, you 're just the very person for it," reasoned Mr. Sikes: "nobody about here knows any thing of you."

"And as I don't want 'em to, neither," replied Miss Nancy in the same composed manner, "it's rayther more no than yes with me, Bill."

"She'll go, Fagin," said Sikes.

"No, she won't, Fagin," bawled Nancy.

"Yes, she will, Fagin," said Sikes.

And Mr. Sikes was right. By dint of alternate threats, promises, and bribes, the engaging female in question was ultimately prevailed upon to undertake the commission. She was not indeed withheld by the same considerations as her agreeable friend; for, having very recently removed into the neighborhood of Field. lane from the remote but genteel suburb of Ratcliffe, she was not under the same apprehension of being recognized by any of her numerous acquaintance.

Accordingly, with a clean white apron tied over the red gown, and the yellow curl-papers tucked up under a straw bonnet, - both articles of dress being provided from the Jew's inexhaustible stock, Miss Nancy prepared to issue forth on her

errand.

"Stop a minute, my dear," said the Jew, producing a little covered basket. "Carry that in one hand: it looks more respectable, my dear."

"Give her a door-key to carry in her t'other one, Fagin," said Sikes: "it looks real and genivine like."

"Yes, yes, my dear: so it does," said the Jew, hanging the large street-door-key on the forefinger of the young lady's right hand. "There; very good, — very good indeed, my dear," said the Jew, rubbing his hands.

"Oh, my brother! my poor, dear, sweet, innocent little brother!" exclaimed Miss Nancy, bursting into tears, and wringing the little basket and the street-doorkey in an agony of distress. "What has become of him? Where have they taken him to? Oh! do have pity, and tell me what's been done with the dear boy, gentlemen: do, gentlemen; if you please, gentlemen."

Having uttered these words in a most lamentable and heart-broken tone, to the immeasurable delight of her hearers, Miss Nancy paused, winked to the company, nodded smilingly round, and disappeared.

She finally discovers Oliver on the street, bent upon executing a commission with which Mr. Brownlow has intrusted him.

He was walking along, thinking how happy and contented he ought to feel, and how much he would give for only one look at poor little Dick, who, starved and beaten, might be lying dead at that very moment, when he was startled by a young woman screaming out very loud, "Oh, my dear brother!" and he had hardly looked up to see what the matter was, when he was stopped by having a pair of arms thrown tight round his neck.

"Don't!” cried Oliver, struggling. "Let go of me! Who is it? What are you stopping me for?"

The only reply to this was a great number of loud lamentations from the young woman who had embraced him, and who had got a little basket and a street-door key in her hand.

"Oh, my gracious!" said the young woman, "I've found him! O Oliver, Gliver! Oh, you naughty boy, to make me suffer such distress on your account Come homie, dear, come. Oh, I've found him! Thank gracious goodness heav ns, I've found him!" With these incoherent exclamations the young woman burst into another fit of crying, and got so dreadfully hysterical, that a couple of

women who came up at the moment asked a butcher's boy, with a shiny head of hair anointed with suet, who was also looking on, whether he did n't think he had better run for the doctor. To which the butcher's boy, who appeared of a lour ging, not to say indolent disposition, replied that he thought not.

"Oh, no, no! never mind," said the young woman, grasping Oliver's hand: "I'm better now. Come home directly, you cruel boy, come!"

"What's the matter, ma'am?" inquired one of the women.

"O ma'am!" replied the young woman, "he ran away near a month ago from his parents, who are hard-working and respectable people, and joined a set of thieves and bad characters, and almost broke his mother's heart."

"Young wretch!" said one woman.

"Go home, do, you little brute!" said the other.

"I'm not," replied Oliver, greatly alarmed. "I don't know her. I haven't got any sister, or father and mother, either. I'm an orphan: I live at Pentonville."

"Olt, only hear him! how he braves it out!" cried the young woman.

"Why, it's Nancy!" exclaimed Oliver, who now saw her face for the first time, and started back in irrepressible astonishment.

"You see he knows me," cried Nancy, appealing to the by-standers. "He can't help himself. Make him come home, there's good people, or he'll kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!"

"What the devil's this?" said a man bursting out of a beer-shop, with a white dog at his heels. "Young Oliver! Come home to your poor mother, you young dog! come home directly."

"I don't belong to them; I don't know them. Help, help!" cried Oliver, struggling in the man's powerful grasp.

"Help!" repeated the man. "Yes; I'll help you, you young rascal! What books are these? You've been a-stealing 'em; have you? Give 'em here!" With these words the man tore the volumes from his grasp, and struck him violently on the head.

"That's right!" cried a looker-on from a garret-window. "That's the only way of bringing him to his senses!"

"To be sure!" cried a sleepy-faced carpenter, casting an approving look at the garret-window.

"It'll do him good!" said the two women..

"And he shall have it too!" rejoined the man, administering another blow, and seizing Oliver by the collar. "Come on, you young villain! Here, Bull's-eye, mind him, boy! mind him!"

Weak with recent illness, stupefied by the blows and the suddenness of the attack, terrified by the fierce growling of the dog and the brutality of the man, and overpowered by the conviction of the by-standers that he was really the hardened little wretch he was described to be, what could one poor child do? Darkness had set in; it was a low neighborhood; no help was near; resistance was useless. In another moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark, narrow courts, and forced along them at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared give utterance to, wholly unintelligible. It was of little moment, indeed, whether they were in. telligible or not; for there was nobody to care for them had they been ever so plain.

After taking he boy back to the Jew's den, Nancy, struck with his pale face and great grief, tries to shield him from violence. Oliver, letermined to escape, watches for an opportunity, and, when the door

is opened for a moment, he darts through it, followed by the Jew and his two pupils. Sikes's dog is also about to dash after bim, when Nancy springs to the door, and closes it, crying, Keep back the dog, Bill, keep back the dog! He'll tear the child to pieces."

"Serve him right!" cried Sikes, struggling to disengage himself from the girl's grasp. "Stand off from me, or I'll split your skull against the wall!"

"I don't care for that, Bill; I don't care for that!" screamed the girl, strug. gling violently with the man. "The child shan't be torn down by the dog unless you kill me first."

"Shan't he!" said Sikes, setting his teeth fiercely. "I'll soon do that, if you don't keep off."

The housebreaker flung tne girl from him to the farther end of the room, just as the Jew and the two boys returned, dragging Oliver among them.

"What's the matter here?" said the Jew, looking round.

"The girl's gone mad, I think,” replied Sikes savagely.

"No, she has n't!" said Nancy, pale and breathless from the scuffle: "no, she has n't, Fagin! don't think it."

"Then keep quiet, will you?" said the Jew with a threatening look.

"No: I won't do that, either," replied Nancy, speaking very loud. "Come, what do you think of that?"

Mr. Fagin was sufficiently well acquainted with the manners and customs of that particular species of humanity to which Miss Nancy belonged to feel tolerably certain that it would be rather unsafe to prolong any conversation with her at present. With the view of diverting the attention of the company, he turned to Oliver.

"So you wanted to get away, my dear, did you?" said the Jew, taking up a jagged and knotted club which lay in a corner of the fireplace; "eh!"

Oliver made no reply; but he watched the Jew's motions, and breathed quickly "Wanted to get assistance; called for the police, did you?" sneered the Jew, catching the boy by the arm. "We'll cure you of that, my dear!"

The Jew inflicted a smart blow on Oliver's shoulders with the club, and was raising it for a second; when the girl, rushing forward, wrested it from his hand, and flung it into the fire with a force that brought some of the glowing coala whirling out into the room.

"I won't stand by and see it done, Fagin!" cried the girl. "You've got the boy; and what more would you have? Let him be, let him be, or I shall put the mark on some of you that will bring me to the gallows before my time!"

The girl stamped her foot violently on the floor as she vented this threat; and with her lips compressed, and her hands clinched, looked alternately at the Jew and the other robber, her face quite colorless from the passion of rage into which she had gradually worked herself.

"Why, Nancy!" said the Jew in a soothing tone, after a pause, during which ke and Mr. Sikes had stared at one another in a disconcerted manner, " you you 're more clever than ever to-night. Ha, ha! my dear, you are acting beautifully."

"Am I?" said the girl. "Take care I don't overdo it; you will be the worse for it, Fagin, if I do: and so I tell you in good time to keep clear of me."

There is something about a roused woman, especially if she add to all Lei other strong passions the fierce impulses of recklessness and despair, which few men like to provoke. The Jew saw that it would be hopeless to affect any further