And so be able to retire on your property, and do the gen-teel: as I
mean to, in the very next leap-year but four that ever comes, and the
forty-second Tuesday in Trinity-week,' said Charley Bates.

'I don't like it,' rejoined Oliver, timidly; 'I wish they would let me
go. I--I--would rather go.'

'And Fagin would RATHER not!' rejoined Charley.

Oliver knew this too well; but thinking it might be dangerous to
express his feelings more openly, he only sighed, and went on with his
boot-cleaning.

'Go!' exclaimed the Dodger. 'Why, where's your spirit?' Don't you take
any pride out of yourself? Would you go and be dependent on your
friends?'

'Oh, blow that!' said Master Bates: drawing two or three silk
handkerchiefs from his pocket, and tossing them into a cupboard,
'that's too mean; that is.'

'_I_ couldn't do it,' said the Dodger, with an air of haughty disgust.

'You can leave your friends, though,' said Oliver with a half smile;
'and let them be punished for what you did.'

'That,' rejoined the Dodger, with a wave of his pipe, 'That was all out
of consideration for Fagin, 'cause the traps know that we work
together, and he might have got into trouble if we hadn't made our
lucky; that was the move, wasn't it, Charley?'

Master Bates nodded assent, and would have spoken, but the recollection
of Oliver's flight came so suddenly upon him, that the smoke he was
inhaling got entangled with a laugh, and went up into his head, and
down into his throat: and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping,
about five minutes long.

'Look here!' said the Dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and
halfpence. 'Here's a jolly life! What's the odds where it comes from?
Here, catch hold; there's plenty more where they were took from. You
won't, won't you? Oh, you precious flat!'

'It's naughty, ain't it, Oliver?' inquired Charley Bates. 'He'll come
to be scragged, won't he?'

'I don't know what that means,' replied Oliver.

'Something in this way, old feller,' said Charly. As he said it,
Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief; and, holding it erect
in the air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious
sound through his teeth; thereby indicating, by a lively pantomimic
representation, that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing.

'That's what it means,' said Charley. 'Look how he stares, Jack!

I never did see such prime company as that 'ere boy; he'll be the death
of me, I k