o do
to earn his living, so he trudged stoutly on and before nightfall had
walked twenty miles. He begged a crust of bread at a cottage and slept
under a hayrick. The next day and night he was so very hungry and cold
that when morning came again he could scarcely walk at all.

He sat down finally at the edge of a village, wondering whether he was
going to die, when he saw coming along the queerest-looking boy. He was
about Oliver's age, with a snub nose, bow legs and little sharp eyes.
His face was very dirty and he wore a man's coat, whose ragged tails
came to his heels.

The boy saw Oliver's plight and asked him what the matter was, mixing
his words with such a lot of strange slang that Oliver could hardly
understand him. When Oliver explained that he had been walking a number
of days and was very hungry, the other took him to a shop near by,
bought him some bread and ham, and watched him eat it with great
attention, asking him many questions--whether he had any money or knew
any place in London where he could stay. Oliver answered no.

"Don't fret about that," said the other. "I know a 'spectable old
genelman as lives there wot'll give you lodgings for nothing if I
interduce you."

Oliver did not think his new host looked very respectable himself, but
he thought it might be as well for him to know the old gentleman,
particularly as he had nowhere else to go. So they set off.

It was night when they reached London, and it was so big and crowded
that Oliver kept close to his guide. He noticed, however, that the
streets they passed through were narrow and dirty and the houses old and
hideously filthy. The people, too, seemed low and wretched.

He was just wondering if he had not better run away when the boy pushed
open a door, drew Oliver inside, up a broken stairway and into a back
room.

Here, frying some sausages over a stove, was a shriveled old Jew in a
greasy flannel gown. He was very ugly and his matted red hair hung down
over his villainous face. In a corner stood a clothes-horse on which
hung hundreds of silk handkerchiefs, and four or five boys, as dirty and
oddly dressed as the one who had brought Oliver, sat about a table
smoking pipes like rough, grown men.

Oliver's guide introduced him to the Jew, whose name was Fagin, and the
boys crowded around him, putting their hands into his pockets, which he
thought a queer joke. Fagin grinned horribly as he shook hands with him
and told him he was very we