WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE.
“AND so it was you that was your own friend, was it?” asked Mr.
Claypole, otherwise Bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into
between them, he had removed next day to the Jew’s house. “’Cod, I
thought as much last night!”
“Every man’s his own friend, my dear,” replied Fagin, with his most
insinuating grin. “He hasn’t as good a one as himself anywhere.”
“Except sometimes,” replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of
the world. “Some people are nobody’s enemies but their own, yer know.”
“Don’t believe that,” said the Jew. “When a man’s his own enemy, it’s
only because he’s too much his own friend, not because he’s careful for
every body but himself. Pooh! pooh! There ain’t such a thing in nature.”
“There oughtn’t to be, if there is,” replied Mr. Bolter.
“That stands to reason,” said the Jew. “Some conjurers say that number
three is the magic number, and some say number seven. It’s neither, my
friend, neither. It’s number one.”
“Ha! ha!” cried Mr. Bolter. “Number one for ever.”
“In a little community like ours, my dear,” said the Jew, who felt it
necessary to qualify this position, “we have a general number one; that
is, you can’t consider yourself as number one without considering me
too as the same, and all the other young people.”
“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Mr. Bolter.
“You see,” pursued the Jew, affecting to disregard this interruption,
“we are so mixed up together and identified in our interests that
it must be so. For instance, it’s your object to take care of number
one—meaning yourself.”
“Certainly,” replied Mr. Bolter. “Yer about right there.”
“Well, you can’t take care of yourself, number one, without taking care
of me, number one.”
“Number two, you mean,” said Mr. Bolter, who was largely endowed with
the quality of selfishness.
“No, I don’t!” retorted the Jew. “I’m of the same importance to you as
you are to yourself.”
“I say,” interrupted Mr. Bolter, “yer a very nice man, and I’m very
fond of yer; but we ain’t quite so thick together as all that comes to.”
“Only think,” said the Jew, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching
out his hands, “only consider. You’ve done what’s a very pretty thing,
and what I love you for doing; but what at the same time would put
the cravat round your throat that’s so very easily tied and so very
difficult to unloosen—in plain English, the halter!”
Mr. Bolter put his hand to his neckerchief as if he felt it
inconveniently tight, and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not
in substance.
“The gallows,” continued Fagin, “the gallows, my dear, is an ugly
finger-post, which points out a very short and sharp turning that has
stopped many a bold fellow’s career on the broad highway. To keep in
the easy road, and keep it at a distance, is object number one with
you.”
“Of course it is,” replied Mr. Bolter. “What do yer talk about such
things for?”
“Only to show you my meaning clearly,” said the Jew, raising his
eyebrows. “To be able to do that, you depend upon me; to keep my little
business all snug, I depend upon you. The first is your number one,
the second my number one. The more you value your number one, the more
careful you must be of mine; so we come at last to what I told you at
first—that a regard for number one holds us all together, and must do
so unless we would all go to pieces in company.”
“That’s true,” rejoined Mr. Bolter, thoughtfully. “Oh! yer a’ cunning
old codger!”
Mr. Fagin saw with delight that this tribute to his powers was no
mere compliment, but that he had really impressed his recruit with
a sense of his wily genius, which it was most important that he
should entertain in the outset of their acquaintance. To strengthen
an impression so desirable and useful, he followed up the blow by
acquainting him in some detail with the magnitude and extent of his
operations; blending truth and fiction together as best served his
purpose, and bringing both to bear with so much art, that Mr. Bolter’s
respect visibly increased, and became tempered, at the same time, with
a degree of wholesome fear, which it was highly desirable to awaken.
“It’s this mutual trust we have in each other that consoles me under
heavy losses,” said the Jew. “My best hand was taken from me yesterday
morning.”
“Yer don’t mean to say he died?” cried Mr. Bolter.
“No, no,” replied Fagin, “not so bad as that. Not quite so bad.”
“What, I suppose he was——”
“Wanted,” interposed the Jew. “Yes, he was wanted.”
“Very particular?” inquired Mr. Bolter.
“No,” replied the Jew, “not very. He was charged with attempting to
pick a pocket, and they found a silver snuff-box on him,—his own, my
dear, his own, for he took snuff himself, and was very fond of it. They
remanded him till to-day, for they thought they knew the owner. Ah! he
was worth fifty boxes and I’d give the price of as many to have him
back. You should have known the Dodger, my dear; you should have known
the Dodger.”
“Well, but I shall know him, I hope; don’t yer think so?” said Mr.
Bolter.
“I’m doubtful about it,” replied the Jew, with a sigh. “If they don’t
get any fresh evidence it’ll only be a summary conviction, and we shall
have him back again after six weeks or so; but, if they do, it’s a
case of lagging. They know what a clever lad he is; he’ll be a lifer:
they’ll make the Artful nothing less than a lifer.”
“What do yer mean by lagging, and a lifer?” demanded Mr. Bolter.
“What’s the good of talking in that way to me? why don’t yer speak so
as I can understand yer?”
Fagin was about to translate these mysterious expressions into
the vulgar tongue, and, being interpreted, Mr. Bolter would have
been informed, that they represented that combination of words,
“transportation for life,” when the dialogue was cut short by the entry
of Master Bates, with his hands in his breeches’ pockets, and his face
twisted into a look of semi-comical woe.
“It’s all up, Fagin,” said Charley; when he and his new companion had
been made known to each other.
“What do you mean?” asked the Jew, with trembling lips.
“They’ve found the gentleman as owns the box; two or three more’s a
coming to ’dentify him, and the Artful’s booked for a passage out,”
replied Master Bates. “I must have a full suit of mourning, Fagin, and
a hatband, to wisit him in, afore he sets out upon his travels. To
think of Jack Dawkins—lummy Jack—the Dodger—the Artful Dodger—going
abroad for a common twopenny-halfpenny sneeze-box! I never thought he’d
ha’ done it under a gold watch, chain, and seals, at the lowest. Oh,
why didn’t he rob some rich old gentleman, of all his walables, and go
out _as_ a gentleman, and not like a common prig, without no honour nor
glory!”
With this expression of feeling for his unfortunate friend, Master
Bates sat himself on the nearest chair, with an aspect of chagrin and
despondency.
“What do you talk about his having neither honour nor glory for?”
exclaimed Fagin, darting an angry look at his pupil. “Wasn’t he always
top-sawyer among you all?—is there one of you that could touch him, or
come near him on any scent—eh?”
“Not one!” replied Master Bates, in a voice rendered husky by
regret—“not one!”
“Then what do you talk of?” replied the Jew, angrily; “what are you
blubbering for?”
“’Cause it isn’t on the rec-ord, is it?” said Charley, chafed into
perfect defiance of his venerable friend by the current of his regrets;
“’cause it can’t come out in the indictment; ’cause nobody will never
know half of what he was. How will he stand in the Newgate Calendar?
P’raps not be there at all. Oh, my eye, my eye, wot a blow it is!”
“Ha! ha!” cried the Jew, extending his right hand, and turning to Mr.
Bolter, in a fit of chuckling which shook him as though he had the
palsy; “see what a pride they take in their profession, my dear. Isn’t
it beautiful?”
Mr. Bolter nodded assent; and the Jew, after contemplating the grief of
Charley Bates for some seconds, with evident satisfaction, stepped up
to that young gentleman, and patted him on the shoulder.
“Never mind, Charley,” said Fagin, soothingly; “it’ll come out, it’ll
be sure to come out. They’ll all know what a clever fellow he was;
he’ll shew it himself, and not disgrace his old pals and teachers.
Think how young he is, too! What a distinction, Charley, to be lagged
at his time of life!”
“Well, it is a honour,—that is!” said Charley, a little consoled.
“He shall have all he wants,” continued the Jew. “He shall be kept in
the Stone Jug, Charley, like a gentleman—like a gentleman, with his
beer every day, and money in his pocket to pitch and toss with, if he
can’t spend it.”
“No, shall he though?” cried Charley Bates.
“Ay, that he shall,” replied the Jew; “and we’ll have a big-wig,
Charley,—one that’s got the greatest gift of the gab,—to carry
on his defence, and he shall make a speech for himself, too, if he
likes, and we’ll read it all in the papers—‘Artful Dodger—shrieks of
laughter—here the court was convulsed’—eh, Charley, eh?”
“Ha! ha!” laughed Master Bates, “what a lark that would be, wouldn’t
it, Fagin? I say, how the Artful would bother ’em, wouldn’t he?”
“Would!” cried the Jew. “He shall—he will!”
“Ah, to be sure, so he will!” repeated Charley, rubbing his hands.
“I think I see him now,” cried the Jew, bending his eyes upon his pupil.
“So do I,” cried Charley Bates—“ha! ha! ha! so do I. I see it all
afore me, upon my soul I do, Fagin. What a game! what a regular game!
All the big-wigs trying to look solemn, and Jack Dawkins addressing of
’em as intimate and comfortable as if he was the judge’s own son making
a speech arter dinner—ha! ha! ha!”
In fact the Jew had so well humoured his young friend’s eccentric
disposition, that Master Bates, who had at first been disposed to
consider the imprisoned Dodger rather in the light of a victim, now
looked upon him as the chief actor in a scene of most uncommon and
exquisite humour, and felt quite impatient for the arrival of the time
when his old companion should have so favourable an opportunity of
displaying his abilities.
“We must know how he gets on to-day by some handy means or other,” said
Fagin. “Let me think.”
“Shall I go?” asked Charley.
“Not for the world,” replied the Jew. “Are you mad, my dear?—stark
mad, that you’d walk into the very place where—No, Charley, no—one is
enough to lose at a time.”
“You don’t mean to go yourself, I suppose?” said Charley with a
humorous leer.
“That wouldn’t quite fit,” replied Fagin, shaking his head.
“Then why don’t you send this new cove?” asked Master Bates, laying his
hand on Noah’s arm; “nobody knows him.”
“Why, if he didn’t mind,” observed the Jew.
“Mind!” interposed Charley. “What should _he_ have to mind?”
“Really nothing, my dear,” said Fagin, turning to Mr. Bolter, “really
nothing.”
“Oh, I dare say about that, yer know,” observed Noah, backing towards
the door, and shaking his head with a kind of sober alarm. “No,
no—none of that. It’s not in my department, that isn’t.”
“Wot department has he got, Fagin?” inquired Master Bates, surveying
Noah’s lank form with much disgust. “The cutting away when there’s
anything wrong, and the eating all the wittles when there’s everything
right; is that his branch?”
“Never mind,” retorted Mr. Bolter; “and don’t yer take liberties with
yer superiors, little boy, or yer’ll find yerself in the wrong shop.”
Master Bates laughed so vehemently at this magnificent threat, that it
was some time before Fagin could interpose and represent to Mr. Bolter
that he incurred no possible danger in visiting the police-office;
that, inasmuch as no account of the little affair in which he had been
engaged, nor any description of his person, had yet been forwarded to
the metropolis, it was very probable that he was not even suspected
of having resorted to it for shelter; and that, if he were properly
disguised, it would be as safe a spot for him to visit as any in
London, inasmuch as it would be of all places the very last to which he
could be supposed likely to resort of his own free will.
Persuaded in part, by these representations, but overborne in a much
greater degree by his fear of the Jew, Mr. Bolter at length consented,
with a very bad grace, to undertake the expedition. By Fagin’s
directions he immediately substituted for his own attire a waggoner’s
frock, velveteen breeches, and leather leggings, all of which articles
the Jew had at hand. He was likewise furnished with a felt hat well
garnished with turnpike tickets, and a carter’s whip. Thus equipped
he was to saunter into the office as some country fellow from Covent
Garden market might be supposed to do for the gratification of his
curiosity; and as he was as awkward, ungainly, and raw-boned a fellow
as need be, Mr. Fagin had no fear but that he would look the part to
perfection.
These arrangements completed, he was informed of the necessary signs
and tokens by which to recognise the Artful Dodger, and was conveyed
by Master Bates through dark and winding ways to within a very short
distance of Bow-street. Having described the precise situation of the
office, and accompanied it with copious directions how he was to walk
straight up the passage, and when he got into the yard take the door up
the steps on the right-hand side, and pull off his hat as he went into
the room, Charley Bates bade him hurry on alone, and promised to bide
his return on the spot of their parting.
Noah Claypole, or Morris Bolter, as the reader pleases, punctually
followed the directions he had received, which—Master Bates being
pretty well acquainted with the locality—were so exact that he was
enabled to gain the magisterial presence without asking any question
or meeting with any interruption by the way. He found himself jostled
among a crowd of people, chiefly women, who were huddled together in
a dirty frowsy room, at the upper end of which was a raised platform
railed off from the rest, with a dock for the prisoners on the left
hand against the wall, a box for the witnesses in the middle, and a
desk for the magistrates on the right; the awful locality last-named
being screened off by a partition which concealed the bench from the
common gaze, and left the vulgar to imagine (if they could) the full
majesty of justice.
There were only a couple of women in the dock, who were nodding to
their admiring friends, while the clerk read some depositions to a
couple of policemen and a man in plain clothes who leant over the
table. A jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose
listlessly with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency
to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence; or looked
sternly up to bid some woman “Take that baby out,” when the gravity of
justice was disturbed by feeble cries, half-smothered in the mother’s
shawl, from some meagre infant. The room smelt close and unwholesome,
the walls were dirt-discoloured, and the ceiling blackened. There was
an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the
dock—the only thing present that seemed to go on as it ought; for
depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acquaintance with both, had left
a taint on all the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the
thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it.
Noah looked eagerly about him for the Dodger, but although there were
several women who would have done very well for that distinguished
character’s mother or sister, and more than one man who might be
supposed to bear a strong resemblance to his father, nobody at all
answering the description given him of Mr. Dawkins was to be seen. He
waited in a state of much suspense and uncertainty until the women,
being committed for trial, went flaunting out, and then was quickly
relieved by the appearance of another prisoner whom he felt at once
could be no other than the object of his visit.
It was indeed Mr. Dawkins, who, shuffling into the office with the big
coat sleeves tucked up as usual, his left hand in his pocket and his
hat in his right, preceded the jailer with a rolling gait altogether
indescribable, and taking his place in the dock, requested in an
audible voice to know what he was placed in that ’ere disgraceful
sitivation for.
“Hold your tongue, will you?” said the jailer.
“I’m an Englishman, an’t I?” rejoined the Dodger. “Where are my
priwileges?”
“You’ll get your privileges soon enough,” retorted the jailer, “and
pepper with ’em.”
“We’ll see wot the Secretary of State for the Home Affairs has got to
say to the beaks, if I don’t,” replied Mr. Dawkins. “Now then, wot is
this here business? I shall thank the madg’strates to dispose of this
here little affair, and not to keep me while they read the paper, for
I’ve got an appointment with a genelman in the city, and as I’m a man
of my word and wery punctual in business matters, he’ll go away if I
ain’t there to my time, and then pr’aps there won’t be an action for
damage against those as kept me away. Oh no, certainly not!”
At this point the Dodger, with a show of being very particular with
a view to proceedings to be had thereafter, desired the jailer to
communicate “the names of them two old files as was on the bench,”
which so tickled the spectators that they laughed almost as heartily
as Master Bates could have done if he had heard the request.
“Silence there!” cried the jailer.
“What is this?” inquired one of the magistrates.
“A pick-pocketing case, your worship.”
“Has that boy ever been here before?”
“He ought to have been a many times,” replied the jailer. “He has been
pretty well everywhere else. _I_ know him well, your worship.”
“Oh! you know me, do you?” cried the Artful, making a note of the
statement. “Wery good. That’s a case of deformation of character, any
way.”
Here there was another laugh, and another cry of silence.
“Now then, where are the witnesses?” said the clerk.
“Ah! that’s right,” added the Dodger. “Where are they? I should like to
see ’em.”
This wish was immediately gratified, for a policeman stepped forward
who had seen the prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown gentleman
in a crowd, and indeed take a handkerchief therefrom, which being a
very old one, he deliberately put back again, after trying it on his
own countenance. For this reason he took the Dodger into custody as
soon as he could get near him, and the said Dodger being searched had
upon his person a silver snuff-box with the owner’s name engraved upon
the lid. This gentleman had been discovered on reference to the Court
Guide, and being then and there present, swore that the snuff-box was
his, and that he had missed it on the previous day, the moment he had
disengaged himself from the crowd before referred to. He had also
remarked a young gentleman in the throng particularly active in making
his way about, and that young gentleman was the prisoner before him.
“Have you anything to ask this witness, boy?” said the magistrate.
“I wouldn’t abase myself by descending to hold any conversation with
him,” replied the Dodger.
“Have you anything to say at all?”
“Do you hear his worship ask if you’ve anything to say?” inquired the
jailer nudging the silent Dodger with his elbow.
“I beg your pardon,” said the Dodger, looking up with an air of
abstraction. “Did you address yourself to me, my man?”
“I never see such an out-and-out young wagabond, your worship,”
observed the officer with a grin. “Do you mean to say anything, you
young shaver?”
“No,” replied the Dodger, “not here, for this ain’t the shop for
justice; besides which my attorney is a-breakfasting this morning with
the Wice President of the House of Commons; but I shall have something
to say elsewhere, and so will he, and so will a wery numerous and
respectable circle of acquaintance as’ll make them beaks wish they’d
never been born, or that they’d got their footman to hang ’em up to
their own hat-pegs, ’afore they let ’em come out this morning to try it
upon me. I’ll——”
“There, he’s fully committed!” interposed the clerk. “Take him away.”
“Come on,” said the jailer.
“Oh ah! I’ll come on,” replied the Dodger, brushing his hat with
the palm of his hand. “Ah! (to the Bench) it’s no use your looking
frightened; I won’t show you no mercy, not a ha’porth of it. _You’ll_
pay for this, my fine fellers; I wouldn’t be you for something. I
wouldn’t go free now if you was to fall down on your knees and ask me.
Here, carry me off to prison. Take me away.”
With these last words the Dodger suffered himself to be led off by the
collar, threatening till he got into the yard to make a parliamentary
business of it; and then grinning in the officer’s face with great glee
and self-approval.
Having seen him locked up by himself in a little cell, Noah made the
best of his way back to where he had left Master Bates. After waiting
here some time he was joined by that young gentleman, who had prudently
abstained from showing himself until he had looked carefully abroad
from a snug retreat, and ascertained that his new friend had not been
followed by any impertinent person.
The two hastened back together to bear to Mr. Fagin the animating
news that the Dodger was doing full justice to his bringing-up, and
establishing for himself a glorious reputation.