Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 1.djvu/326

302 spoken, but that the recollection of Oliver's flight came so suddenly upon him, that the smoke he was inhaling got entangled with a laugh, and went up into his head, and down into his throat, and brought on a fit of coughing and stamping about five minutes long. "Look here," said the Dodger, drawing forth a handful of shillings and halfpence. "Here's a jolly life!—what's the odds where it comes from? Here, catch hold; there's plenty more where they were took from. You won't, won't you?—Oh, you precious flat!" "It's naughty, ain't it, Oliver?" inquired Charley Bates. "He'll come to be scragged, won't he?" "I don't know what that means," replied Oliver, looking round. "Something in this way, old feller," said Charley. As he said it, Master Bates caught up an end of his neckerchief, and, holding it erect in the air, dropped his head on his shoulder, and jerked a curious sound through his teeth, thereby indicating, by a lively