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“What’s that?” said the Jew. “What do you watch me for? Why are you awake? What have you seen? Speak out, boy! Quick–quick! for your life!”

“I wasn’t able to sleep any longer, sir,” replied Oliver meekly. “I am very sorry if I have disturbed you, sir.”

“You were not awake an hour ago?” said the Jew, scowling fiercely.

“No! No indeed!” replied Oliver.

“Are you sure?” cried the Jew, with a still fiercer look than before, and a threatening attitude.

“Upon my word I was not, sir,” replied Oliver, earnestly. “I was not, indeed, sir.”

“Tush, tush, my dear!” said the Jew, abruptly resuming his old manner. “Of course I know that, my dear, I only tried to frighten you. You’re a brave boy. Ha! ha! you’re a brave boy, Oliver!”

The Jew rubbed his hands with a chuckle, but glanced uneasily at the box, notwithstanding.

“Did you see any of these pretty things, my dear?” said the Jew.

“Yes, sir,” replied Oliver.

“Ah!” said Fagin, turning rather pale. “They–they’re mine, Oliver; my little property. All I have to live upon in my old age. The folks call me a miser, my dear. Only a miser; that’s all.”

Oliver thought the old gentleman must be a decided miser to live in such a dirty place, with so many watches; but thinking that perhaps his fondness for the Dodger and the other boys, cost him a good deal of money, he only cast a deferential look at the Jew, and asked if he might get up. Permission being granted him, he got up, walked across the room, and stooped for an instant to raise the water-pitcher. When he turned his head, the box was gone.

Presently the Dodger returned with a friend, Charley Bates, and the four sat down to a breakfast of coffee, and some hot rolls, and ham, which the Dodger had brought home in the crown of his hat.

“Well,” said the Jew, “I hope you’ve been at work this morning, my dears?”

“Hard,” replied the Dodger.

“As Nails,” added Charley Bates.

“Good boys, good boys!” said the Jew. “What have you got, Dodger?”

“A couple of pocket-books,” replied the young gentleman.

“Lined?” inquired the Jew, with eagerness.

“Pretty well,” replied the Dodger, producing two pocket-books.

“And what have you got, my dear?” said Fagin to Charley Bates.

“Wipes,” replied Master Bates; at the same time producing four pocket-handkerchiefs.

“Well,” said the Jew, inspecting them closely; “they ‘re very good ones, very. You haven’t marked them well, though, Charley; so the marks shall be picked out with a needle, and we’ll teach Oliver how to do it. Shall us, Oliver, eh?”

“If you please, sir,” said Oliver.

“You’d like to be able to make pocket-handkerchiefs as easy as Charley Bates, wouldn’t you, my dear?” said the Jew.

“Very much indeed, if you’ll teach me, sir,” replied Oliver.

Master Bates saw something so exquisitely ludicrous in this reply, that he burst into a laugh; which laugh, meeting the coffee he was drinking, and carrying it down some wrong channel, very nearly terminated in his suffocation.

“He is so jolly green!” said Charley, when he recovered, as an apology to the company for his unpolite behaviour.

When the breakfast was cleared away, the merry old gentleman and the two boys played at a very curious and uncommon game, which was performed in this way. Fagin, placing a snuff-box in one pocket of his trousers, a notecase in the other, and a watch in his waistcoat pocket, with a guard-chain round his neck, and sticking a mock diamond pin in his shirt, buttoned his coat tight round him, and putting his spectacle-case and handkerchief in his pockets, trotted up and down with a stick, in imitation of the manner in which old gentlemen walk about the streets. Sometimes he stopped at the fire-place, and sometimes at the door, making believe that he was staring with all his might into shop windows. At such times he would look constantly round him, for fear of thieves, and would keep slapping all his pockets in turn, to see that he hadn’t lost anything, in such a very funny and natural manner, that Oliver laughed till the tears ran down his face.