e air!" "Nonsense! he don't deserve it!"
"Where's the gentleman?" "Here he is, coming down the street." "Make
room there for the gentleman!" "Is this the boy, sir?"

Oliver lay covered with mud and dust, and bleeding from the mouth,
looking wildly round upon the heap of faces that surrounded him, when
the old gentleman was officiously dragged and pushed into the circle by
the foremost of the pursuers.

"Yes," said the gentleman, "I am afraid it is the boy."

"Afraid!" murmured the crowd. "That's a good 'un!"

"Poor fellow!" said the gentleman, "he has hurt himself."

"I did that, sir," said a great lubberly fellow, stepping forward; "and
preciously I cut my knuckle agin his mouth. I stopped him, sir."

The fellow touched his hat with a grin, expecting something for his
pains; but the old gentleman, eyeing him with an expression of dislike,
looked anxiously round, as if he contemplated running away himself;
which it is very possible he might have attempted to do, and thus have
afforded another chase, had not a police officer (who is generally the
last person to arrive in such cases) at that moment made his way through
the crowd, and seized Oliver by the collar.

"Come, get up," said the man, roughly.

"It wasn't me, indeed, sir. Indeed, indeed, it was two other boys," said
Oliver, clasping his hands passionately and looking round. "They are
here somewhere."

"Oh no, they ain't," said the officer. He meant this to be ironical, but
it was true besides; for the Dodger and Charley Bates had filed off down
the first convenient court they came to. "Come, get up!"

"Don't hurt him," said the old gentleman, compassionately.

"Oh no, I won't hurt him," replied the officer, tearing his jacket half
off his back, in proof thereof. "Come, I know you; it won't do. Will you
stand upon your legs, you young devil?"

Oliver, who could hardly stand, made a shift to raise himself on his
feet, and was at once lugged along the streets by the jacket-collar at a
rapid pace. The gentleman walked on with them by the officer's side.

At last they came to a place called Mutton Hill. Here he was led beneath
a low archway, and up a dirty court, where they saw a stout man with a
bunch of whiskers on his face and a bunch of keys in his hand.

"What's the matter now?" said the man carelessly.

"A young fogle-hunter," replied the officer who had Oliver in charge.

"Are you the party that's been robbed, sir?" inquired the man with the
ke