“What are you up to? Ill-treating the boys, you covetous, avaricious in-sa-ti-a-ble old fence?” said the man, seating himself deliberately. “I wonder they don’t murder you; I would if I was them. If I’d been your ’prentice, I’d have done it long ago; and—no, I couldn’t have sold you arterwards, though; for you’re fit for nothing but keeping as a curiosity of ugliness in a glass bottle, and I suppose they don’t blow them large enough.”
“Hush! hush! Mr. Sikes,” said the Jew, trembling; “don’t speak so loud.”
“None of your mistering,” replied the ruffian; “you always mean mischief when you come that. You know my name: out with it. I shan’t disgrace it when the time comes.”
“Well, well, then—Bill Sikes,” said the Jew with abject humility. “You seem out of humour, Bill.”
“Perhaps I am,” replied Sikes. “I should think you were rather out of sorts too, unless you mean as little harm when you throw pewter pots about, as you do when you blab and——”
“Are you mad?” said the Jew, catching the man by the sleeve, and pointing towards the boys.
Mr. Sikes contented himself with tying an imaginary knot under his left ear, and jerking his head over on the right shoulder; a piece of dumb show which the Jew appeared to understand perfectly. He then in cant terms, with which his whole conversation was plentifully besprinkled, but which would be quite unintelligible if they were recorded here, demanded a glass of liquor.
“And mind you don’t poison it,” said Mr. Sikes, laying his hat upon the table.
This was said in jest; but if the speaker could have seen the evil leer with which the Jew bit his pale lip as he turned round to the cupboard, he might have thought the caution not wholly unnecessary, or the wish (at all events,) to improve upon the distiller’s ingenuity not very far from the old gentleman’s merry heart.
After swallowing two or three glassfulls of spirits, Mr. Sikes condescended to take some notice of the young gentlemen; which gracious act led to a conversation in which the cause and manner of Oliver’s capture were circumstantially detailed, with such alterations and improvements on the truth as to the Dodger appeared most advisable under the circumstances.