‘Oh, the devil!’ exclaimed Mr. Bolter.
‘You see,’ pursued Fagin, affecting to disregard this interruption, ‘we are so mixed up together, and identified in our interests, that it must be so. For instance, it’s your object to take care of number one—meaning yourself.’
‘Certainly,’ replied Mr. Bolter. ‘Yer about right there.’
‘Well! You can’t take care of yourself, number one, without taking care of me, number one.’
‘Number two, you mean,’ said Mr. Bolter, who was largely endowed with the quality of selfishness.
‘No, I don’t!’ retorted Fagin. ‘I’m of the same importance to you, as you are to yourself.’
‘I say,’ interrupted Mr. Bolter, ‘yer a very nice man, and I’m very fond of yer; but we ain’t quite so thick together, as all that comes to.’
‘Only think,’ said Fagin, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching out his hands; ‘only consider. You’ve done what’s a very pretty thing, and what I love you for doing; but what at the same time would put the cravat round your throat, that’s so very easily tied and so very difficult to unloose—in plain English, the halter!’
Mr. Bolter put his hand to his neckerchief, as if he felt it inconveniently tight; and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not in substance.
‘The gallows,’ continued Fagin, ‘the gallows, my dear, is an ugly finger-post, which points out a very short and sharp turning that has stopped many a bold fellow’s career on the broad highway. To keep in the easy road, and keep it at a distance, is object number one with you.’