Page:Oliver Twist (1838) vol. 2.djvu/199

Rh after that a lantern to trace the footsteps with, and after that a pitchfork to poke the bushes with. This done amidst the breathless interest of all beholders, they came in again, and Mr. Giles and Brittles were put through a melodramatic representation of their share in the previous night's adventures, which they performed some six times over, contradicting each other in not more than one important respect the first time, and in not more than a dozen the last. This consummation being arrived at, Blathers and Duff cleared the room, and held a long council together, compared with which, for secrecy and solemnity, a consultation of great doctors on the knottiest point in medicine would be mere child's play.

Meanwhile, the doctor walked up and down the next room in a very uneasy state, and Mrs. Maylie and Rose looked on with anxious faces.

"Upon my word," he said, making a halt after a great number of very rapid turns, "I hardly know what to do."

"Surely," said Rose, "the poor child's story