“Fair, or not fair,” retorted Sikes, “hand over, I tell you! Do you think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter, and kidnapping, every young boy as gets grabbed through you? Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton, give it here!”
With this gentle remonstrance, Mr. Sikes plucked the note from between the Jew’s finger and thumb; and looking the old man coolly in the face, folded it up small, and tied it in his neckerchief.
“That’s for our share of the trouble,” said Sikes; “and not half enough, neither. You may keep the books, if you’re fond of reading. If you ain’t, sell ’em.”
“They’re very pretty,” said Charley Bates: who, with sundry grimaces, had been affecting to read one of the volumes in question: “beautiful writing, isn’t it, Oliver?” At sight of the dismayed look with which Oliver regarded his tormentors, Master Bates, who was blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ecstasy, more boisterous than the first.
“They belong to the old gentleman,” said Oliver, wringing his hands; “to the good, kind, old gentleman who took me into his house, and had me nursed, when I was near dying of the fever. Oh, pray send them back; send him back the books and money. Keep me here all my life long; but pray, pray send them back. He’ll think I stole them; the old lady: all of them who were so kind to me: will think I stole them. Oh, do have mercy upon me, and send them back!”
With those words, which were uttered with all the energy of passionate grief, Oliver fell upon his knees at the Jew’s feet; and beat his hands together, in perfect desperation.
“The boy’s right,” remarked Fagin, looking covertly round, and knitting his shaggy eyebrows into a hard knot. “You’re right, Oliver, you’re right; they will think you have stolen ’em. Ha! ha!” chuckled the Jew, rubbing his hands; “it couldn’t have happened better, if we had chosen our time!”
“Of course it couldn’t,” replied Sikes; “I know’d that, directly I see him coming through Clerkenwell, with the books under his arm. It’s all right enough. They’re soft-hearted psalm-singers, or they wouldn’t have taken him in at all; and they’ll ask no questions after him, fear they should be obliged to prosecute, and so get him lagged. He’s safe enough.”
Oliver looked from the one to the other, while these words were being spoken, as if he were bewildered, and could scarcely understand what passed; but when Bill Sikes concluded, he jumped suddenly to his feet, and tore wildly from the room: uttering shrieks for help, which made the bare old house echo to the roof.
“Keep back the dog, Bill!” cried Nancy, springing before the door, and closing it, as the Jew and his two pupils darted out in pursuit. “Keep back the dog; he’ll tear the boy 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 head against the wall.”
“I don’t care for that, Bill, I don’t care for that,” screamed the girl, struggling 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. “I’ll soon do that, if you don’t keep off.”
The housebreaker flung the girl from him to the further end of the room, just as the Jew and the two boys returned, dragging Oliver among them.
“What’s the matter here!” said Fagin, looking round.
“The girl’s gone mad, I think,” replied Sikes, savagely.
“No, she hasn’t,” said Nancy, pale and breathless from the scuffle; “no, she hasn’t, Fagin; don’t think it.”
“Then keep quiet, will you?” said the Jew, with a threatening look.
“No, I won’t do that, neither,” 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 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.