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and heavy countenance, to look dignified under any circumstances;
but it is more especially so, when superadded to these personal
attractions are a red nose and yellow smalls.

Oliver, having taken down the shutters, and broken a pane of
glass in his effort to stagger away beneath the weight of the
first one to a small court at the side of the house in which they
were kept during the day, was graciously assisted by Noah: who
having consoled him with the assurance that 'he'd catch it,'
condescended to help him. Mr. Sowerberry came down soon after.
Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Sowerberry appeared. Oliver having
'caught it,' in fulfilment of Noah's prediction, followed that
young gentleman down the stairs to breakfast.

'Come near the fire, Noah,' said Charlotte. 'I saved a nice
little bit of bacon for you from master's breakfast. Oliver,
shut that door at Mister Noah's back, and take them bits that
I've put out on the cover of the bread-pan. There's your tea;
take it away to that box, and drink it there, and make haste, for
they'll want you to mind the shop. D'ye hear?'

'D'ye hear, Work'us?' said Noah Claypole.

'Lor, Noah!' said Charlotte, 'what a rum creature you are! Why
don't you let the boy alone?'

'Let him alone!' said Noah. 'Why everybody lets him alone
enough, for the matter of that. Neither his father nor his
mother will ever interfere with him. All his relations let him
have his own way pretty well. Eh, Charlotte? He! he! he!'

'Oh, you queer soul!' said Charlotte, bursting into a hearty
laugh, in which she was joined by Noah; after which they both
looked scornfully at poor Oliver Twist, as he sat shivering on
the box in the coldest corner of the room, and ate the stale
pieces which had been specially reserved for him.

Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No
chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way
back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a
washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a
wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an
unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had
long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public streets,
with the ignominious epithets of 'leathers,' 'charity,' and the
like; and Noah had bourne them without reply. But, now that
fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the
meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with
interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It
shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be;
and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in
the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.

Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker's some three weeks
or a month. Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry--the shop being shut
up--were taking their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr.
Sowerberry, after several deferential glances at his wife, said,

'My dear--' He was going to say more; but, Mrs.

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