Oliver Twist | Page 8

applications of the cane. As for society, he
was carried every other day into the hall where the boys dined, and there sociably flogged
as a public warning and example. And so for from being denied the advantages of
religious consolation, he was kicked into the same apartment every evening at
prayer-time, and there permitted to listen to, and console his mind with, a general
supplication of the boys, containing a special clause, therein inserted by authority of the
board, in which they entreated to be made good, virtuous, contented, and obedient, and to
be guarded from the sins and vices of Oliver Twist: whom the supplication distinctly set
forth to be under the exclusive patronage and protection of the powers of wickedness, and
an article direct from the manufactory of the very Devil himself.

It chanced one morning, while Oliver's affairs were in this auspicious and comfortable
state, that Mr. Gamfield, chimney-sweep, went his way down the High Street, deeply
cogitating in his mind his ways and means of paying certain arrears of rent, for which his
landlord had become rather pressing. Mr. Gamfield's most sanguine estimate of his
finances could not raise them within full five pounds of the desired amount; and, in a
species of arthimetical desperation, he was alternately cudgelling his brains and his
donkey, when passing the workhouse, his eyes encountered the bill on the gate.
'Wo--o!' said Mr. Gamfield to the donkey.
The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction: wondering, probably, whether he was
destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two when he had disposed of the two sacks
of soot with which the little cart was laden; so, without noticing the word of command, he
jogged onward.
Mr. Gamfield growled a fierce imprecation on the donkey generally, but more
particularly on his eyes; and, running after him, bestowed a blow on his head, which
would inevitably have beaten in any skull but a donkey's. Then, catching hold of the
bridle, he gave his jaw a sharp wrench, by way of gentle reminder that he was not his
own master; and by these means turned him round. He then gave him another blow on the
head, just to stun him till he came back again. Having completed these arrangements, he
walked up to the gate, to read the bill.
The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with his hands behind
him, after having delivered himself of some profound sentiments in the board-room.
Having witnessed the little dispute between Mr. Gamfield and the donkey, he smiled
joyously when that person came up to read the bill, for he saw at once that Mr. Gamfield
was exactly the sort of master Oliver Twist wanted. Mr. Gamfield smiled, too, as he
perused the document; for five pounds was just the sum he had been wishing for; and, as
to the boy with which it was encumbered, Mr. Gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the
workhouse was, well knew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing for
register stoves. So, he spelt the bill through again, from beginning to end; and then,
touching his fur cap in token of humility, accosted the gentleman in the white waistcoat.
'This here boy, sir, wot the parish wants to 'prentis,' said Mr. Gamfield.
'Ay, my man,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat, with a condescending smile.
'What of him?'
'If the parish vould like him to learn a right pleasant trade, in a good 'spectable
chimbley-sweepin' bisness,' said Mr. Gamfield, 'I wants a 'prentis, and I am ready to take
him.'
'Walk in,' said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. Mr. Gamfield having lingered
behind, to give the donkey another blow on the head, and another wrench of the jaw, as a
caution not to run away in his absence, followed the gentleman with the white waistcoat
into the room where Oliver had first seen him.

'It's a nasty trade,' said Mr. Limbkins, when Gamfield had again stated his wish.
'Young boys have been smothered in chimneys before now,' said another gentleman.
'That's acause they damped the straw afore they lit it in the chimbley to make 'em come
down again,' said Gamfield; 'that's all smoke, and no blaze; vereas smoke ain't o' no use
at all in making a boy come down, for it only sinds him to sleep, and that's wot he likes.
Boys is wery obstinit, and wery lazy, Gen'l'men, and there's nothink like a good hot blaze
to make 'em come down vith a run. It's humane too, gen'l'men, acause, even if they've
stuck in the chimbley, roasting their feet makes 'em struggle to hextricate theirselves.'
The gentleman in the white waistcoat appeared very much amused by this explanation;
but his mirth was speedily checked by