reediness from the very bottom of his heart.

'Oh yes, I can talk. I get on better when I talk,' said Noah, cutting
a monstrous slice of bread. 'Where's Charlotte?'

'Out,' said Fagin. 'I sent her out this morning with the other young
woman, because I wanted us to be alone.'

'Oh!' said Noah. 'I wish yer'd ordered her to make some buttered toast
first. Well. Talk away. Yer won't interrupt me.'

There seemed, indeed, no great fear of anything interrupting him, as he
had evidently sat down with a determination to do a great deal of
business.

'You did well yesterday, my dear,' said Fagin. 'Beautiful! Six
shillings and ninepence halfpenny on the very first day! The kinchin
lay will be a fortune to you.'

'Don't you forget to add three pint-pots and a milk-can,' said Mr.
Bolter.

'No, no, my dear. The pint-pots were great strokes of genius: but the
milk-can was a perfect masterpiece.'

'Pretty well, I think, for a beginner,' remarked Mr. Bolter
complacently. 'The pots I took off airy railings, and the milk-can was
standing by itself outside a public-house. I thought it might get
rusty with the rain, or catch cold, yer know. Eh? Ha! ha! ha!'

Fagin affected to laugh very heartily; and Mr. Bolter having had his
laugh out, took a series of large bites, which finished his first hunk
of bread and butter, and assisted himself to a second.

'I want you, Bolter,' said Fagin, leaning over the table, 'to do a
piece of work for me, my dear, that needs great care and caution.'

'I say,' rejoined Bolter, 'don't yer go shoving me into danger, or
sending me any more o' yer police-offices. That don't suit me, that
don't; and so I tell yer.'

'That's not the smallest danger in it--not the very smallest,' said the
Jew; 'it's only to dodge a woman.'

'An old woman?' demanded Mr. Bolter.

'A young one,' replied Fagin.

'I can do that pretty well, I know,' said Bolter. 'I was a regular
cunning sneak when I was at school. What am I to dodge her for? Not
to--'

'Not to do anything, but to tell me where she goes, who she sees, and,
if possible, what she says; to remember the street, if it is a street,
or the house, if it is a house; and to bring me back all the
information you can.'

'What'll yer give me?' asked Noah, setting down his cup, and looking
his employer, eagerly, in the face.

'If you do it well, a pound, my dear. One pound,' said Fagin, wishing
to interest him in the scent as much as possible.