‘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 spoken, but the recollection of Oliver’s