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 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 mustn’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 arning 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.