‘A many boys,’ observed Mr. Bumble, shaking his head, despondingly.

‘A murrain on the young devils!’ cried the stranger; ‘I speak of one; a meek-looking, pale-faced boy, who was apprenticed down here, to a coffin-maker — I wish he had made his coffin, and screwed his body in it — and who afterwards ran away to London, as it was supposed.

‘Why, you mean Oliver! Young Twist!’ said Mr. Bumble; ‘I remember him, of course. There wasn’t a obstinater young rascal — ‘

‘It’s not of him I want to hear; I’ve heard enough of him,’ said the stranger, stopping Mr. Bumble in the outset of a tirade on the subject of poor Oliver’s vices. ‘It’s of a woman; the hag that nursed his mother. Where is she?’