Oliver Twist. Volume 1 of 3. Чарльз Диккенс

him alone!” said Noah. “Why every body lets him alone enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor mother will ever interfere with him: all his relations let him have his own way pretty well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!”

      “Oh, you queer soul!” said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty laugh, in which she was joined by Noah; after which they 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 all the way back 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 sometimes 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,

      “My dear – ” He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry looking up with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped short.

      “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 – ”

      “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-looking boy that, my dear.”

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

      “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 this idea; but, as it would have been compromising her dignity 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?”

      “For a coffin first, and a porochial funeral afterwards,” replied Mr. Bumble, fastening the strap of the leathern pocket-book, which, like himself, was very corpulent.

      “Bayton,” said the undertaker, looking from the scrap of paper to Mr. Bumble; “I never heard the name before.”

      Bumble shook his head as he replied, “Obstinate people, Mr. Sowerberry, very obstinate; proud, too, I’m afraid, sir.”

      “Proud, eh?” exclaimed Mr. Sowerberry with a sneer. – “Come, that’s too much.”

      “Oh, it’s sickening,” replied the beadle; “perfectly antimonial, Mr. Sowerberry.”

      “So it is,” acquiesced the undertaker.

      “We only heard of them the night before last,” said the beadle; “and we shouldn’t have known anything about them then, only a woman who lodges in the same house made an application to the porochial committee for them to send the porochial surgeon to see a woman as was very bad. He had gone out to dinner; but his ’prentice, which is a very clever lad, sent ’em some medicine in a blacking-bottle, off-hand.”

      “Ah, there’s promptness,” said the undertaker.

      “Promptness, indeed!” replied the beadle. “But what’s the consequence; what’s the ungrateful behaviour of these rebels, sir? Why, the husband sends back word that the medicine won’t suit his wife’s complaint, and so she shan’t take it – says she shan’t take it, sir. Good, strong, wholesome medicine, as was given with great success to two Irish labourers and a coalheaver only a week before – sent ’em for nothing, with a blackin-bottle in, – and he sends back word that she shan’t take it, sir.”

      As the flagrant atrocity presented itself to Mr. Bumble’s mind in full force, he struck the counter sharply with his cane, and became flushed with indignation.

      “Well,” said the undertaker, “I ne – ver – did – ”

      “Never did, sir!” ejaculated the beadle, – “no, nor nobody never did; but, now she’s dead, we’ve got to bury her, and that’s the direction, and the sooner it’s done the better.”

      Thus saying, Mr. Bumble put on his cocked hat wrong side first, in a fever of parochial excitement, and flounced out of the shop.

      “Why, he was so angry, Oliver, that he forgot even to ask after you,” said Mr. Sowerberry, looking after the beadle as he strode down the street.

      “Yes, sir,” replied Oliver, who had carefully kept himself out of sight during the interview, and who was shaking from head to foot at the mere recollection of the sound of Mr. Bumble’s voice. He needn’t have taken the trouble to shrink from Mr. Bumble’s glance, however; for that functionary, on whom the prediction of the gentleman in the white waistcoat had made a very strong impression, thought that now the undertaker had got Oliver upon trial, the subject was better avoided, until such time as he should be firmly bound for seven years, and all danger of his being returned upon the hands of the parish should be thus effectually and legally overcome.