Oliver Twist

by Charles Dickens

They talked of hope and comfort. They had been strangers too long.

If he could have known that he was an orphan, left to the tender mercies of church-wardens and overseers, perhaps he would have cried the louder.

Oliver Twist's ninth birthday found him a pale thin child, somewhat diminutive in stature, and decidedly small in circumference.

had been locked up for atrociously presuming to be hungry,

'What is it?' inquired the beadle. 'Why, it's what I'm obliged to keep a little of in the house, to put into the blessed infants' Daffy, when they ain't well, Mr. Bumble,' replied Mrs. Mann as she opened a corner cupboard, and took down a bottle and glass. 'It's gin. I'll not deceive you, Mr. B. It's gin.'

We name our fondlings in alphabetical order. The last was a S,—Swubble, I named him. This was a T,—Twist, I named him.

'Please, sir, I want some more.'

a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take Oliver Twist off the hands of the parish.

The simple fact was, that Oliver, instead of possessing too little feeling, possessed rather too much;

What have paupers to do with soul or spirit? It's quite enough that we let 'em have live bodies. If you had kept the boy on gruel, ma'am, this would never have happened.'

He was still the same gentle, attached, affectionate creature that he had been when pain and suffering had wasted his strength, and when he was dependent for every slight attention, and comfort on those who tended him.