With this irrepressible ebullition of mirth, Master Bates laid himself flat on the floor, and kicked convulsively for five minutes in an ecstasy of facetious joy. Then, jumping to his feet, he snatched the cleft stick from the Dodger, and, advancing to Oliver, viewed him round and round, while the Jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number of low bows to the bewildered boy; the Artful meantime, who was of a rather saturnine disposition, and seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifling his pockets with steady assiduity. “Look at his togs, Fagin!” said Charley, putting the light so close to Oliver’s new jacket as nearly to set him on fire. “Look at his togs!—superfine cloth, and the heavy-swell cut! Oh, my eye, what a game! And his books, too;—nothing but a gentleman, Fagin!” “Delighted to see you looking so well, my dear,” said the Jew, bowing with mock humility. “The Artful shall give you another suit, my dear, for fear you should spoil that Sunday one. Why didn’t you write, my dear, and say you were coming?—we’d have got something warm for supper.” At this, Master Bates roared again: so loud that Fagin himself relaxed, and even the Dodger smiled, but as the Artful drew forth the five-pound note at that instant, it is doubtful whether the sally or the discovery awakened his merriment. “Hallo! what’s that?” inquired Sikes, stepping forward as the Jew seized the note. “That’s mine, Fagin.” “No, no, my dear,” said the Jew. “Mine, Bill, mine. You shall have the books.” “If that ain’t mine!” said Sikes, putting on his hat with a determined air,—“mine and Nancy’s, that is,—I’ll take the boy back again.” The Jew started, and Oliver started too, though from a very different cause, for he hoped that the dispute might really end in his being taken back. “Come, hand over, will you?” said Sikes. “This is hardly fair, Bill; hardly fair, is it, Nancy?” inquired the Jew. “Fair, or not fair,” retorted Sikes, “hand it over, I tell you! Do you think Nancy and me has got nothing else to do with our precious time but to spend it in scouting arter and kidnapping every young boy as gets grabbed through you? Give it here, you avaricious old skeleton; give it here!” With this gentle remonstrance, Mr. Sikes plucked the note from between the Jew’s finger and thumb; and, looking the old man coolly in the face, folded it up small, and tied it in his neckerchief. “That’s for our share of the trouble,” said Sikes; “and not half enough, neither. You may keep the books, if you’re fond of reading, and if not, you can sell ’em.” “They’re very pretty,” said Charley Bates, who with sundry grimaces had been affecting to read one of the volumes in question; “beautiful writing, isn’t it, Oliver?” and at sight of the dismayed look with which Oliver regarded his tormentors, Master Bates, who was blessed with a lively sense of the ludicrous, fell into another ecstasy more boisterous than the first.