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at him as they hurried by; but none relieved him, or troubled
themselves to inquire how he came there. He had no heart to beg.
And there he sat.

He had been crouching on the step for some time: wondering at
the great number of public-houses (every other house in Barnet
was a tavern, large or small), gazing listlessly at the coaches
as they passed through, and thinking how strange it seemed that
they could do, with ease, in a few hours, what it had taken him a
whole week of courage and determination beyond his years to
accomplish: when he was roused by observing that a boy, who had
passed him carelessly some minutes before, had returned, and was
now surveying him most earnestly from the opposite side of the
way. He took little heed of this at first; but the boy remained
in the same attitude of close observation so long, that Oliver
raised his head, and returned his steady look. Upon this, the
boy crossed over; and walking close up to Oliver, said,

'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?'

The boy who addressed this inquiry to the young wayfarer, was
about his own age: but one of the queerest looking boys that
Oliver had even seen. He was a snub-nosed, flat-browed,
common-faced boy enough; and as dirty a juvenile as one would
wish to see; but he had about him all the airs and manners of a
man. He was short of his age: with rather bow-legs, and little,
sharp, ugly eyes. His hat was stuck on the top of his head so
lightly, that it threatened to fall off every moment--and would
have done so, very often, if the wearer had not had a knack of
every now and then giving his head a sudden twitch, which brought
it back to its old place again. He wore a man's coat, which
reached nearly to his heels. He had turned the cuffs back,
half-way up his arm, to get his hands out of the sleeves:
apparently with the ultimate view of thrusting them into the
pockets of his corduroy trousers; for there he kept them. He
was, altogether, as roystering and swaggering a young gentleman
as ever stood four feet six, or something less, in the bluchers.

'Hullo, my covey! What's the row?' said this strange young
gentleman to Oliver.

'I am very hungry and tired,' replied Oliver: the tears standing
in his eyes as he spoke. 'I have walked a long way. I have been
walking these seven days.'

'Walking for sivin days!' said the young gentleman. 'Oh, I see.
Beak's order, eh? But,' he added, noticing Oliver's look of
surprise, 'I suppose you don't know what a beak is, my flash
com-pan-i-on.'

Oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird's mouth
described by the term in question.

'My eyes, how green!' exclaimed the young gentleman. 'Why, a
beak's a madgst'rate; and when you walk by a beak's order, it's
not straight forerd, but always agoing up, and niver a coming
down agin. Was you never on the mill?'

'What mill?' inquired Oliver.

'What mill! Why, _the_ mill--the mill as takes up so little room
that it'll work inside a Stone Jug; and always goes better when

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