The Jew shook his head, and was about to reply, when the stranger, interrupting him, motioned to the house before which they had by this time arrived, and remarked, that he had better say what he had got to say under cover, for his blood was chilled with standing about so long, and the wind blew through him. Fagin looked as if he could have willingly excused himself from taking home a visiter at that unseasonable hour, and muttered something about having no fire; but his companion repeating his request in a peremptory manner, he unlocked the door, and requested him to close it softly, while he got a light. “It’s as dark as the grave,” said the man, groping forward a few steps. “Make haste. I hate this!” “Shut the door,” whispered Fagin from the end of the passage. As he spoke, it closed with a loud noise. “That wasn’t my doing,” said the other man, feeling his way. “The wind blew it to, or it shut of its own accord; one or the other. Look sharp with the light, or I shall knock my brains out against something in this confounded hole.” Fagin stealthily descended the kitchen stairs, and, after a short absence, returned with a lighted candle, and the intelligence that Toby Crackit was asleep in the back-room below, and the boys in the front one. Beckoning the other man to follow him, he led the way up stairs. “We can say the few words we’ve got to say in here, my dear,” said the Jew, throwing open a door on the first floor; “and as there are holes in the shutters, and we never shew lights to our neighbours, we’ll set the candle on the stairs. There!” With these words, the Jew, stooping down, placed the candle on an upper flight of stairs, exactly opposite the room door, and led the way into the apartment, which was destitute of all moveables save a broken arm-chair, and an old couch or sofa without covering, which stood behind the door. Upon this piece of furniture the stranger flung himself with the air of a weary man, and the Jew drawing up the arm-chair opposite, they sat face to face. It was not quite dark, for the door was partially open, and the candle outside threw a feeble reflection on the opposite wall. They conversed for some time in whispers; although nothing of the conversation was distinguishable beyond a few disjointed words here and there; a listener might easily have perceived that Fagin appeared to be defending himself against some remarks of the stranger, and that the latter was in a state of considerable irritation. They might have been talking thus for a quarter of an hour or more, when Monks—by which name the Jew had designated the strange man several times in the course of their colloquy—said, raising his voice a little, “I tell you again it was badly planned. Why not have kept him here among the rest, and made a sneaking, snivelling pickpocket of him at once?” “Only hear him!” exclaimed the Jew, shrugging his shoulders.