0 Oliver Twist
in a calmer voice:
‘Well; what about the boy?’
‘Oh!’ replied the undertaker; why, you know, Mr. Bumble,
I pay a good deal towards the poor’s rates.’
‘Hem!’ said Mr. Bumble. ‘Well?’
‘Well,’ replied the undertaker, ‘I was thinking that if I pay
so much towards ‘em, I’ve a right to get as much out of ‘em
as I can, Mr. Bumble; and so—I think I’ll take the boy my-
self.’
Mr. Bumble grasped the undertaker by the arm, and led
him into the building. Mr. Sowerberry was closeted with
the board for five minutes; and it was arranged that Oli-
ver should go to him that evening ‘upon liking’—a phrase
which means, in the case of a parish apprentice, that if the
master find, upon a short trial, that he can get enough work
out of a boy without putting too much food into him, he
shall have him for a term of years, to do what he likes with.
When little Oliver was taken before ‘the gentlemen’ that
evening; and informed that he was to go, that night, as gen-
eral house-lad to a coffin-maker’s; and that if he complained
of his situation, or ever came back to the parish again, he
would be sent to sea, there to be drowned, or knocked on
the head, as the case might be, he evinced so little emotion,
that they by common consent pronounced him a hardened
young rascal, and orered Mr. Bumble to remove him forth-
with.
Now, although it was very natural that the board, of all
people in the world, should feel in a great state of virtuous
astonishment and horror at the smallest tokens of want of