“Ah!” said Fagin, rubbing his hands with great satisfaction. “You’ll do, Bill; you’ll do now.”
“Do!” exclaimed Mr. Sikes; “I might have been done for, twenty times over, afore you’d have done anything to help me. What do you mean by leaving a man in this state, three weeks and more, you false-hearted wagabond?”
“Only hear him, boys!” said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders. “And us come to bring him all these beau-ti-ful things.”
“The things is well enough in their way,” observed Mr. Sikes: a little soothed as he glanced over the table; “but what have you got to say for yourself, why you should leave me here, down in the mouth, health, blunt, and everything else; and take no more notice of me, all this mortal time, than if I was that ’ere dog.—Drive him down, Charley!”
“I never see such a jolly dog as that,” cried Master Bates, doing as he was desired. “Smelling the grub like a old lady a going to market! He’d make his fortun’ on the stage that dog would, and rewive the drayma besides.”
“Hold your din,” cried Sikes, as the dog retreated under the bed: still growling angrily. “What have you got to say for yourself, you withered old fence, eh?”
“I was away from London, a week and more, my dear, on a plant,” replied the Jew.
“And what about the other fortnight?” demanded Sikes. “What about the other fortnight that you’ve left me lying here, like a sick rat in his hole?”
“I couldn’t help it, Bill. I can’t go into a long explanation before company; but I couldn’t help it, upon my honour.”
“Upon your what?” growled Sikes, with excessive disgust. “Here! Cut me off a piece of that pie, one of you boys, to take the taste of that out of my mouth, or it’ll choke me dead.”