Hello.
Welcome to Sleep Stories with Steph,
Your go-to romantic podcast that guarantees you a calm and entertaining transition into a great night's sleep.
Come with me as we immerse ourselves in a romantic journey to a time long since forgotten.
But before we begin,
Let's take a moment to focus on where we are now.
Take a deep breath in through your nose and let it out with a long sigh.
Now close your eyes and feel yourself sink deeper into the support beneath you.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now and nowhere you need to go.
Happy listening.
Chapter 18 How Oliver Passed His Time in the Improving Society of His Reputable Friends About noon next day,
When the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their customary vocations,
Mr.
Fagan took the opportunity of reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude,
Of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty to no ordinary extent in willfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious friends,
And still more in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery.
Mr.
Fagan laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in and cherished him when,
Without his timely aid,
He might have perished with hunger,
And he related the dismal and affecting history of a young lad whom,
In his philanthropy,
He had secured under parallel circumstances,
But who,
Providing unworthy of his confidence and convincing a desire to communicate with the police,
Had unfortunately come to be hanged at the Old Bailey one morning.
Mr.
Fagan did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe,
But lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrongheaded and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question had rendered it necessary he should become the victim of certain evidence for the Crown,
Which,
If it were not precisely true,
Was indispensably necessary for the safety of him,
Mr.
Fagan,
And a few select friends.
Mr.
Fagan concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging,
And with great friendliness and politeness of manner,
Expressed his anxious hopes he might never be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation.
Little Oliver's blood ran cold as he listened to the Jew's words and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them.
That it was possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship,
He knew already,
And that deeply laid plans for the destruction of inconveniently knowing or over-communicative persons had been really devised and carried out by the Jew on more occasions than one,
He thought by no means unlikely.
When he recollected the general nature of the altercations between that gentleman and Mr.
Sykes,
Which seemed to bear reference to some foregone conspiracy of the kind.
As he glanced timidly up and met the Jew's searching look,
He felt his pale face and trembling limbs were neither on notice nor unrelished by that wary old gentleman.
The Jew,
Smiling hideously,
Patted Oliver on the head and said if he kept himself quiet and applied himself to business,
He saw they would be very good friends yet.
Then taking his hat and covering himself with an old patched greatcoat,
He went out and locked the room door behind him.
And so Oliver remained all that day and for the greater part of many subsequent days,
Seeing nobody between early morning and midnight,
And left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts,
Which never failing to revert to his kind friends and the opinion they must long ago have formed of him,
Were sad indeed.
After a lapse of a week or so,
The Jew left the room door unlocked and Oliver was at liberty to wander about the house.
It was a very dirty place.
The rooms upstairs had great high wooden chimney pieces and large doors,
With panelled walls and cornices to the ceiling,
Which although they were black with neglect and dust,
Were ornamented in various ways.
From all of these tokens,
Oliver concluded a long time ago,
Before the old Jew was born,
It had belonged to better people and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome,
Dismal and dreary as it looked now.
Spiders had built their webs at the angles of the walls and ceilings and sometimes when Oliver walked softly into a room,
The mice would scamper across the floor and run back terrified to their holes.
With these exceptions there was neither sight nor sound of any living thing and often when it grew dark and Oliver was tired of wandering from room to room,
He would crouch in the corner of the passage by the street door to be as near to living people as he could and he would remain there listening and counting the hours until the Jew or the boys returned.
In all the rooms the mouldering shutters were fast closed.
The bars which held them were screwed tight into the wood.
The only light which was admitted stealing its way through round holes at the top which made the rooms more gloomy and filled them with strange shadows.
There was a back garret window with rusty bars outside which had no shutter and out of this Oliver often gazed with a melancholy face for hours together but nothing was to be described from it but a confused and crowded mass of housetops,
Blackened chimneys and gable ends.
Sometimes indeed a grizzly head might be seen peering over the parapet wall of a distant house but it was quickly withdrawn again and as the windows of Oliver's observatory were nailed down and dimmed with a rain and smoke of years,
It was as much as he could do to make out the forms of the different objects beyond without making any attempt to be seen or heard which he had as much chance of being as if he had lived inside the ball of St Paul's Cathedral.
One afternoon the Dodger and Master Bates being engaged out that evening,
The first named young gentleman took it into his head to invent some anxiety regarding the decoration to his person and with this end aim he condescendingly commanded Oliver to assist him in his toilet straight away.
Oliver was but too glad to make himself useful,
Too happy to have some faces however bad to look upon,
Too desirous to conciliate those about him when he could honestly do so to throw any objection in the way of this proposal.
So he at once expressed his readiness and kneeling on the floor while the Dodger sat upon the table so he could take his foot in his laps,
He applied himself to a process which Mr Dawkins designated as Japanning his trotter cases.
This phrase rendered into plain English signifieth cleaning his boots.
Whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational animal might be supposed to feel when he sits on a table in an easy attitude smoking a pipe,
Swinging one leg carelessly to and fro and having his boots cleaned all the time without even the past trouble of taking them off or the prospective misery of putting them on to disturb his reflections or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco that soothed the feelings of the Dodger or the mildness of the beer that mollified his thoughts,
He was evidently tinctured for the nonce with a spice of romance and enthusiasm foreign to his general nature.
He looked down on Oliver with a thoughtful countenance for a brief space then raising his head and heaving a gentle sigh he said half in abstraction and half to Master Bates what a pity it is he ain't a prig ah said Master Bates he don't know what's good for him the Dodger sighed again and resumed his pipe as did Charlie Bates they both smoked for some seconds in silence I suppose you don't even know what a prig is said the Dodger mournfully I think I know that replied Oliver looking up it's the your one are you not inquired Oliver checking himself I am replied the Dodger I'd scorn to be anything else Mr Dawkins gave his hat a ferocious cock before delivering this sentiment and looked at Master Bates as if to denote he would feel obliged by his saying anything to the contrary I am repeated the Dodger so's Charlie so's Fagin so's Sykes so's Nancy so's Bette so we all are down to the dog and he's the downiest one of the lot and the least given to peaching added Charlie Bates and the least given to peaching added Charlie Bates he wouldn't so much bark in a witness box for fear of committing himself not if you tied him up in one and left him there without whittles for a fortnight said the Dodger not a bit of it observed Charlie he's a rum dog don't he look fierce at any strange coat that laughs or sings when he's in company pursued the Dodger won't he growl at all when he hears a fiddle playing and only ate other dogs as a feint of his breed oh no he's an out-and-out Christian said Charlie this was merely intended as a tribute to the animal's abilities but it was an appropriate remark in another sense if Master Bates had only known it for there are a good many ladies and gentlemen claiming to be out-and-out Christians between whom and Mr Sykes's dog there exists strong and singular points of resemblance well well said the Dodger recurring to the point from which they'd strayed with that mindfulness of his profession which influenced all his proceedings that hasn't got anything to do with now no more it has said Charlie why don't you put yourself under fake in Oliver and make your fortune out of hand added the Dodger with a grin and so be able to retire on your property and do the genteel as I mean to in the very next leap year before that ever comes and the 42nd Tuesday in Trinity week said Charlie Bates I don't like it rejoined Oliver timidly I wish they would let me go I would rather go and Fagin would rather not rejoined Charlie Oliver knew this too well but thinking it might be dangerous to express his feelings more openly he only sighed and went on with his boot cleaning where's your spirit exclaimed the Dodger don't take any pride out yourself would you go and be dependent on your friends now 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 out of consideration for Fagin because the craps 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 Charlie Master Bates nodded assent and would have spoken but the recollection of Oliver's flight came so suddenly upon him that the smoke he was inhaling got entangled with a laugh and went up into his head and down his throat and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping about five minutes long look here said the Dodger drawing forth a handful of shillings and halfpence it's a jolly life what's the odds where it comes from here catch hold there's plenty more where they would talk from you won't won't you oh you precious flat it's naughty ain't it Oliver inquired Charlie Bates he'll come to be scragged won't he I don't know what that means replied Oliver something in this way old fella said Charlie as he said it Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief and holding it erect in the air dropped his head on his shoulder and joked a curious sound through his teeth thereby indicating by a lively pantomimic representation that scragging and hanging were one and the same thing that's what it means said Charlie oh look how he stares Jack I never did see such prime company as that here boy he'll be the death of me I know he will Master Charlie Bates having laughed heartily again resumed his pipe with tears in his eyes you've been brought up bad said the Dodger surveying his boots with much satisfaction when Oliver had polished them Fagin will make some of you though or you'll be the first he ever had that turned out unprofitable you better begin at once for you'll come to the trade long before you think of it and you're only losing time Oliver you're only losing time
