Oliver Twist (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charles Dickens [194]
There were only a couple of women in the dock, who were nodding to their admiring friends, while the clerk read some depositions to a couple of policemen and a man in plain clothes who leant over the table. A jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose listlessly with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence; or looked sternly up to bid some woman “Take that baby out,” when the gravity of justice was disturbed by feeble cries, half-smothered in the mother’s shawl, from some meagre infant. The room smelt close and unwholesome; the walls were dirt-discoloured; and the ceiling blackened. There was an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the dock—the only thing present, that seemed to go on as it ought; for depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acquaintance with both, had left a taint on all the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it.
Noah looked eagerly about him for the Dodger; but although there were several women who would have done very well for that distinguished character’s mother or sister, and more than one man who might be supposed to bear a strong resemblance to his father, nobody at all answering the description given him of Mr. Dawkins was to be seen. He waited in a state of much suspense and uncertainty until the women, being committed for trial, went flaunting out; and then was quickly relieved by the appearance of another prisoner who he felt at once could be no other than the object of his visit.
It was indeed Mr. Dawkins, who, shuffling into the office with the big coat sleeves tucked up as usual, his left hand in his pocket, and his hat in his right hand, preceded the jailer, with a rolling gait altogether indescribable, and, taking his place in the dock, requested in an audible voice to know what he was placed in that ’ere disgraceful sitivation for.
“Hold your tongue, will you?” said the jailer.
“I’m an Englishman, ain’t I?” rejoined the Dodger. “Where are my priwileges?”
“You’ll get your privileges soon enough,” retorted the jailer, “and pepper with ’em.”
“We’ll see wot the Secretary of State for the Home Affairs has got to say to the beaks, if I don‘t,” replied Mr. Dawkins. “Now then! Wot is this here business? I shall thank the madg’strates to dispose of this here little affair, and not to keep me while they read the paper, for I’ve got an appointment with a genelman in the City, and as I’m a man of my word, and wery punctual in business matters, he’ll go away if I ain’t there to my time, and then pr’aps there won’t be an action for damage against them as kep me away. Oh no, certainly not!”
At this point, the Dodger, with a show of being very particular with a view to proceedings to be had thereafter, desired the jailer to communicate “the names of them two files as was on the bench.” Which so tickled the spectators, that they laughed almost as heartily as Master Bates could have done if he had heard the request.
“Silence there!” cried the jailer.
“What is this?” inquired one of the magistrates.
“A pick-pocketing case, your worship.”
“Has the boy ever been here before?”
“He ought to have been, a many times,” replied the jailer. “He has been pretty well everywhere else. I know him well, your worship.”
“Oh! you know me, do you?” cried the Artful, making a note of the statement. “Wery good. That’s a case of deformation of character, any way.”
Here there was another laugh, and another cry of silence.
“Now then, where are the witnesses?” said the clerk.
“Ah! that’s right,” added the Dodger. “Where are they? I should like to see ’em.”
This wish was immediately gratified, for a policeman stepped forward who had seen the prisoner attempt the pocket of an unknown gentleman in a crowd, and indeed take a handkerchief therefrom, which, being