Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 1.djvu/325

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OLIVER TWIST.
301

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, eh?"

"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