old, and caused a tingling sensation to pervade his frame, by repeated
applications of the cane. As for society, he was carried every other
day into the hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged as a
public warning and example. And so for from being denied the
advantages of religious consolation, he was kicked into the same
apartment every evening at prayer-time, and there permitted to listen
to, and console his mind with, a general supplication of the boys,
containing a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the
board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented,
and obedient, and to be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver
Twist: whom the supplication distinctly set forth to be under the
exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and an
article direct from the manufactory of the very Devil himself.

It chanced one morning, while Oliver's affairs were in this auspicious
and comfortable state, that Mr. Gamfield, chimney-sweep, went his way
down the High Street, deeply cogitating in his mind his ways and means
of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his landlord had become
rather pressing. Mr. Gamfield's most sanguine estimate of his finances
could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount;
and, in a species of arithmetical desperation, he was alternately
cudgelling his brains and his donkey, when passing the workhouse, his
eyes encountered the bill on the gate.

'Wo--o!' said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey.

The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction: wondering, probably,
whether he was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two when
he had disposed of the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was
laden; so, without noticing the word of command, he jogged onward.

Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but
more particularly on his eyes; and, running after him, bestowed a blow
on his head, which would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a
donkey's. Then, catching hold of the bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp
wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his own master; and
by these means turned him round. He then gave him another blow on the
head, just to stun him till he came back again. Having completed these
arrangements, he walked up to the gate, to read the bill.

The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with
his hands behind him, after having de