there's good
people, or he'll kill his dear mother and father, and break my heart!"
With this a man who was Nancy's accomplice, Bill Sikes by name, came to
the rescue, tore the volumes from Oliver's grasp, and struck him on the
head. Weak still, and stupified by the suddenness of the attack,
overpowered and helpless, what could one poor child do? Darkness had set
in; it was a low neighbourhood; no help was near--resistance was useless.
In another moment he was dragged into a labyrinth of dark narrow courts:
and was forced along them, at a pace which rendered the few cries he dared
to give utterance to, unintelligible.

At length they turned into a very filthy street, and stopped at an
apparently untenanted house into which Bill Sikes and Nancy led Oliver,
and there, were his old friends, Charley Bates, the Dodger, and Fagin.

They greeted Oliver with cheers, and at once rifled his pockets of the
five-pound note, and relieved him of the books,--although Oliver pleaded
that the books and money be sent back to Mr. Brownlow. When he found that
all pleading and resistance were useless, he jumped suddenly to his feet
and tore wildly from the room, uttering shrieks for help which made the
bare old house echo to the roof, and then attempted to dart through the
door, opened for a moment, but he was instantly caught, while Sikes' dog
would have sprung upon him, except for Nancy's intervention. She was
struck with Oliver's pallor and great grief and tried to shield him from
violence. But it was of little avail. He was beaten by the Jew, and then
led off by Master Bates into an adjacent kitchen to go to bed. His new
clothes were taken from him and he was given the identical old suit which
he had so congratulated himself upon leaving off at Mr. Brownlow's, and
the accidental display of which to Fagin, by the Jew who purchased them,
had been the first clue to Oliver's whereabouts.

For a week or so the boy was kept locked up, but after that the Jew left
him at liberty to wander about the house; which was a weird, ghostlike
place, with the mouldering shutters fast closed, and no evidence from
outside that it sheltered human creatures. Oliver was constantly with
Charley Bates and the Dodger, who played the old game with the Jew every
day. At times Fagin entertained the boys with stories of robberies he had
committed in his younger days, which made Oliver laugh heartily, and show
that he was amused in spite of his better feelings. In