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"What!' said the master at length, in a faint voice. "Please, sir,' replied Oliver, 'I want some more.' "The master aimed a blow at Oliver's head with the ladle, pinioned him in his arms, and shrieked aloud for the beadle.

"The board was sitting in solemn conclave, when Mr. Bumble rushed into the room in great excitement, and, addressing the gentleman in the high-chair, said,

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“Mr. Limbkins, I beg your pardon, sir! Oliver Twist has asked for more!'

"There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.

"For more!' said Mr. Limbkins.

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Compose your

self, Bumble, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that he asked for more, after he had eaten the supper allotted by the dietary?'

"He did, sir,' replied Bumble.

"That boy will be hung,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. I know that boy will be hung.'

"Nobody controverted the prophetic gentleman's opinion. An animated discussion took place. Oliver was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and Oliver Twist were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any trade, business, or calling.".

The pen of the novelist was not lacking in power when he portrayed the abject wretchedness of some of the miserable dwellers in crowded haunts of poverty, and showed, with a noble fearlessness, the heartless treatment they sometimes received from those whose duty it was to aid them to the extent of their power, or, at least, to manifest a Christian sympathy for them. Here is an example of such pen-pictures, horrible in its truthfulness. Oliver had been requested by his employer, the undertaker, to accompany him:—

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They walked on, for some time, through the most crowded and densely-inhabited part of the town; and then, striking down a narrow street more dirty and miserable than any they had yet passed through, paused to look for the house which was the object of their search. The houses on either side were high and large, but very old, and tenanted by people of the poorest class, as their neglected appearance would have sufficiently denoted, without the concurrent testimony afforded by the squalid looks of the few men and women, who, with folded arms and bodies half-doubled, occasionally skulked along. A great many of the tenements had shop-fronts; but these were fast closed, and mouldering away, only the upper rooms being inhabited. Some houses which had become insecure from age and decay were prevented from falling into the street by huge beams of wood reared against the walls, and firmly

planted in the road: but even these crazy dens seemed to have been selected as the nightly haunts of some homeless wretches; for many of the rough boards, which supplied the place of door and window, were wrenched from their positions to afford an aperture wide enough for the passage of a human body. The kennel was stagnant and filthy. The very rats, which here and there lay putrefying in its rottenness, were hideous with famine.

"There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the

open door where Oliver and his master stopped: so, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him, and not be afraid, the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs. Stumbling against a door on the landing, he rapped at it with his knuckles.

"It was opened by a young girl of thirteen or fourteen. The undertaker at once saw enough of what the room contained to know it was the apartment to which he had been directed. He stepped in. Oliver followed him.

"There was no fire in the room; but a man was crouching mechanically over the empty stove. An old woman, too, had drawn a low stool to the cold hearth, and was sitting beside him. There were some ragged children in another corner; and in a small recess, opposite the door, there lay upon the ground something covered with an old blanket. Oliver shuddered as he cast his eyes towards the place, and crept involuntarily closer

to his master; for, though it was covered up, the boy felt that it was a corpse.

“The man's face was thin and very pale; his hair and beard were grizzly; his eyes were bloodshot. The old woman's face was wrinkled; her two remaining teeth protruded over her underlip; and her eyes were bright and piercing. Oliver was afraid to look at either her or the man: they seemed so like the rats he had seen outside.

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'Nobody shall go near her,' said the man, starting fiercely up, as the undertaker approched.

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Keep back!

d―n you, keep back, if you've a life to lose!' "Nonsense, my good man,' said the undertaker, who was pretty well used to misery in all its shapes. Nonsense!'

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"I tell you,' said the man, clinching his hands, and stamping furiously on the floor, 'I tell you I won't have her put into the ground. She couldn't rest there. The worms would worry her, not eat her,she is so worn away.'

"The undertaker offered no reply to this raving; but, producing a tape from his pocket, knelt down for a moment by the side of the body.

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'Ah!' said the man, bursting into tears, and sinking on his knees at the feet of the dead woman: kel down, kneel down, kneel round her, every one of you, and mark my words! I say she was starved to death. I never knew how bad she was, till the fever came upon her; and then her bones were starting

through the skin.

There was neither fire nor candle: she died in the dark, in the dark! She couldn't even see her children's faces, though we heard her gasping out their names. I begged for her in the streets; and they sent me to prison. When I came back, she was dying; and all the blood in my heart has dried up, for they starved her to death. I swear it before the God that saw it! They starved her!' He twined his hands in his hair; and, with a loud scream, rolled grovelling upon the floor, his eyes fixed, and the foam covering his lips.

"The terrified children cried bitterly; but the old woman, who had hitherto remained as quiet as if she had been wholly deaf to all that passed, menaced them into silence. Having unloosed the cravat of the man, who still remained extended on the ground, she tottered towards the undertaker.

"She was my daughter,' said the old woman, nodding her head in the direction of the corpse, and speaking with an idiotic leer, more ghastly than even the presence of death in such a place. 'Lord, Lord! Well, it is strange that I, who gave birth to her, and was a woman then, should be alive and merry now, and she lying there, so cold and stiff! Lord, Lord! to think of it: it's as good as a play, -as good as a play!'

"As the wretched creature mumbled and chuckled in her hideous merriment, the undertaker turned to go away.

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