him, or troubled themselves to inquire
how he came there. He had no heart to beg. And there he sat.

He had been crouching on the step for some time: wondering at the great
number of public-houses (every other house in Barnet was a tavern,
large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches as they passed
through, and thinking how strange it seemed that they could do, with
ease, in a few hours, what it had taken him a whole week of courage and
determination beyond his years to accomplish: when he was roused by
observing that a boy, who had passed him carelessly some minutes
before, had returned, and was now surveying him most earnestly from the
opposite side of the way. He took little heed of this at first; but
the boy remained in the same attitude of close observation so long,
that Oliver raised his head, and returned his steady look. Upon this,
the boy crossed over; and walking close up to Oliver, said,

'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?'

The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, was about his
own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that Oliver had even
seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed, common-faced boy enough; and
as dirty a juvenile as one would wish to see; but he had about him all
the airs and manners of a man. He was short of his age: with rather
bow-legs, and little, sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top
of his head so lightly, that it threatened to fall off every
moment--and would have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a
knack of every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which
brought it back to its old place again. He wore a man's coat, which
reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back, half-way up
his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves: apparently with the
ultimate view of thrusting them into the pockets of his corduroy
trousers; for there he kept them. He was, altogether, as roystering
and swaggering a young gentleman as ever stood four feet six, or
something less, in the bluchers.

'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?' said this strange young gentleman
to Oliver.

'I am very hungry and tired,' replied Oliver: the tears standing in his
eyes as he spoke. 'I have walked a long way. I have been walking these
seven days.'

'Walking for sivin days!' said the young gentleman. 'Oh, I see. Beak's
order, eh? But,' he added, noticing Oliver's look of surprise, 'I
suppose you don't know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on