"Well?"

"Hem!" said Mr. Bumble. "Well," replied the undertaker, "I was thinking that if I pay so much towards 'em, I've a right to get as much out of 'em as I can, Mr. Bumble; and so--and so-I think I'll take the boy myself."

Mr. Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led him into the building. Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with the board for five minutes, and then it was arranged that Oliver should go to him that evening "upon liking,"-a phrase which means, in the case of a parish ap prentice, that if the master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work out of a boy without putting too much food in him, he shall have him for a term of years, to do what he likes with.

When little Oliver was taken before "the gentlemen" that evening, and informed that he was to go that night as general house-lad to a coffin-maker's, and that if he complained of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he would be sent to sea, there to be drowned, or knocked on the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion, that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened young rascal, and ordered Mr. Bumble to remove him forthwith.

Now, although it was very natural that the board, of all people in the world, should feel in a great state of virtuous astonishment and horror at the smallest tokens of want of feeling on the part of anybody, they were rather out, in this particular instance. The simple fact was, that Oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather too much, and was in a fair way of being reduced to a state of brutal stupidity and sullenness for life, by the ill usage he had received. He heard the news of his destination in perfect silence, and, having had his luggage put into his hand,-which was not very difficult to carry, inasmuch as it was all comprised within the limits of a brown paper parcel, about half a foot square by three inches deep,-he pulled his cap over bis eyes, and once more attaching himself to Mr. Bumble's coat cuff, was led away by that dignitary to a new scene of suffering.

For some time Mr. Bumble drew Oliver along, without notice or remark, for the beadle carried his head very erect, as a

beadle always should; and. it being a windy day, little Oliver was completely enshrouded by the skirts of Mr. Bumble's coat as they blew open, and disclosed to great advantage his flapped waistcoat and drab plush knee-breeches. As they drew near to their destination, however, Mr. Bumble thought it expedient to look down and see that the boy was in good order for inspection by his new master, which he accordingly did, with a fit and becoming air of gracious patronage.

"Oliver!" said Mr. Bumble.

"Yes, sir," replied Oliver, in a low, tremulous voice.

"Pull that cap off of your eyes, and hold up your head, sir."

Although Oliver did as he was desired at once, and passed the back of his unoccupied hand briskly across his eyes, he left a tear in them when he looked up at his conductor. As Mr. Bumble gazed sternly upon him, it rolled down his cheek. It was followed by another, and another. The child made a strong effort, but it was an unsuccessful one; and, withdrawing his other hand from Mr. Bumble's, he covered his face with both, and wept till the tears sprung out from between his thin and bony fingers.

"Well!" exclaimed Mr. Bumble, stopping short, and darting at his little charge a look of intense malignity," well, of all the ungratefullest, and worst-disposed boys as ever I see, Oliver, you are the

"No, no, sir," sobbed Oliver, clinging to the hand which held the well-known cane; "no, no, sir; I will be good indeed indeed, indeed, I will, sir! I am a very little boy, sir; and it is so-so-"

"So what?" inquired Mr. Bumble in

amazement.

"So lonely, sir-so very lonely," cried the child. "Everybody hates me. Oh! sir, don't be cross to me. I feel as if I had been cut here, sir, and it was all bleeding away;" and the child beat his hand upon his heart, and looked into his com. panion's face with tears of real agony.

Mr. Bumble regarded Oliver's piteous and helpless look with some astonishment for a few seconds, hemmed three or four times in a husky manner, and after muttering something about "that troublesome cough," bid Oliver dry his eyes, and be a good boy; and, once more taking his hand, walked on with him in silence.

The undertaker had just put up the shutters of his shop, and was making some entries in his day-book by the light of a most appropriately dismal candie, vho Mr. Bumble entered,

"Aha!" said the undertaker, looking up from the book, and pausing in the middle of a word; "is that you, Bumble?" "No one else, Mr. Sowerberry," replied the beadle. 66 Here, I've brought the boy." Oliver made a bow.

"Oh! that's the boy, is it?" said the undertaker, raising the candle above his head to get a full glimpse of Oliver. "Mrs. Sowerberry! will you come here a moment, my dear?"

Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, thin, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance.

"My dear," said Mr. Sowerberry, deferentially, "this is the boy from the workhouse that I told you of." Oliver bowed again.

"Dear me!" said the undertaker's wife, "He's very small."

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Why, he is rather small," replied Mr. Bumble, looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he wasn't bigger; "he is small, there's no denying it. But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry,-he'll grow."

"Ah! I dare say he will," replied the lady pettishly, "on our victuals and our drink. I see no saving in parish children, not I; for they always cost more to keep than they're worth: however, men always think they know best. There, get down stairs, little bag o' bones." With this, the undertaker's wife opened a side door, and pushed Oliver down a steep flight of stairs into a stone cell, damp and dark, forming the ante-room to the coal-cellar, and denominated "the kitchen," wherein sat a slatternly girl in shoes down at heel, and blue worsted stockings very much out of repair.

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"Here, Charlotte," said Mrs. Sowerberry, who had followed Oliver down, give this boy some of the cold bits that were put by for Trip: he hasn't come home since the morning, so he may go without 'em. I dare say he isn't too dainty to eat em, are you, boy?"

Oliver, whose eyes had glistened at the mention of meat, and who was trembling with eagerness to devour it, replied in the negative; and a plateful of coarse broken victuals was set before him.

I wish some well-fed philosopher, whose meat and drink turn to gall within him, whose blood is ice, and whose heart is iron, could have seen Oliver Twist clutching at the dainty viands that the dog had neglected, and witnessed the horrible avidity with which he tore the bits asunder with

the ferocity of famine:-there is only une thing I should like better; and that

would be to see him making the same sort of meal himself, with the same relish.

Well," said the undertaker's wife, when Oliver had finished his supper, which she had regarded in silent horror, and with fearful auguries of his future appetite, “have you done?"

There being nothing eatable within his reach, Oliver replied in the affirmative.

"Then come with me," said Mrs. Sowerberry, taking up a dim and dirty lamp, and leading the way up stairs; "your bed's under the counter. You won't mind sleeping among the coffins, I suppose?—but it doesn't much matter whether you will or not, for you won't sleep any where else. Come; don't keep me here all night."

Oliver lingered no longer, but meekly followed his new mistress.

CHAPTER THE FIFTH.

Oliver mingles with new associates, and, going to a funeral for the first time, forms an unfavoura ble notion of his master's business.

OLIVER being left to himself in the undertaker's shop, set the lamp down on a workman's bench, and gazed timidly about him with a feeling of awe and dread, which many people a good deal older than Oliver will be at no loss to understand. An unfinished coffin on black tressels, which stood in the middle of the shop, looked so gloomy and death-like, that a cold tremble came over him every time his eyes wandered in the direction of the dismal object, from which he almost expected to see some frightful form slowly rear its head to drive him mad with terror. Against the wall were ranged in regular array a long row of elm boards cut into the same shape, and looking in the dim light like high-shouldered ghosts with their hands in their breeches-pockets. Coffin-plates, elm-chips, bright-headed nails, and shreds of black cloth, lay scattered on the floor; and the wall above the counter was ornamented with a lively representation of two mutes in very stif neckcloths, on duty at a large private door, with a hearse drawn by four black steeds approaching in the distance. The shop was close and hot, and 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-semembered face sunk 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 laid 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; and, when he began to undo the chain, the legs left off their volleys, 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, a'nt 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 monysyllable 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 Oliver see but a big charity-boy sitting on the 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 stand in need of 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 assu rance that "he'd catch it," condescended to help him. Mr. Sowerberry came down soon after, and, shortly afterwards, Mrs. Sowerberry appeared; and Oliver having “caught it," in fulfilment of Noah's prediction, followed that young gentleman down stairs to breakfast.

"Come near the fire, Noah," said Charlotte. "I saved a nice little piece 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.

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

both looked scornfully at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering upon 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 back all the way 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-halfpenny 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 had 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 is, 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, and 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,

"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

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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.” And 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, and, 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-look ing boy that, my dear."

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

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There's an expression of melancholy in his face, my dear," resumed Mr. Sowerberry, "which is very interesting. He would make a delightful mute, my dear."

Mrs. Sowerberry looked up with an expression of considerable wonderment. Mr. Sowerberry remarked it, and, without allowing time for any observation on the good lady's part, proceeded.

"I don't mean a regular mute to attend grown-up people, my dear, but only for children's practice. It would be very new to have a mute in proportion, my dear. You may depend upon it that it would have a superb effect."

Mrs. Sowerberry, who had a good deal of taste in the undertaking way, was much struck by the novelty of the idea; but, as it would have been compromising her dig. nity to have said so under existing circumstances, she merely inquired with much sharpness why such an obvious suggestion had not presented itself to her husband's mind before. Mr. Sowerberry rightly construed this as an acquiescence in his proposition: it was speedily determined that Oliver should be at once initiated into the mysteries of the profession, and, with this view, that he should accompany his master on the very next occasion of his services being required.

The occasion was not long in coming; for, half an hour after breakfast next morning, Mr. Bumble entered the shop, and supporting his cane against the counter, drew forth his large leathern pocket-book, from which he selected a small scrap of paper which he handed over to Sowerberry.

"Aha!" said the undertaker, glancing over it with a lively countenance; "an order for a coffin, eh?"

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For a coffin first, and a porochial fu neral afterwards," replied Mr. Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket. book, which, like himself, was very cor pulent.

"Bayton," said the undertaker, looking