With many adieus and good wishes Mr. Fagin went his way; and Noah Claypole, bespeaking his good lady’s attention, proceeded to enlighten her relative to the arrangement he had made, with all that haughtiness and air of superiority becoming not only a member of the sterner sex, but a gentleman who appreciated the dignity of a special appointment on the kinchin lay in London and its vicinity. CHAPTER XLII. WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE. “AND so it was you that was your own friend, was it?” asked Mr. Claypole, otherwise Bolter, when, by virtue of the compact entered into between them, he had removed next day to the Jew’s house. “’Cod, I thought as much last night!” “Every man’s his own friend, my dear,” replied Fagin, with his most insinuating grin. “He hasn’t as good a one as himself anywhere.” “Except sometimes,” replied Morris Bolter, assuming the air of a man of the world. “Some people are nobody’s enemies but their own, yer know.” “Don’t believe that,” said the Jew. “When a man’s his own enemy, it’s only because he’s too much his own friend, not because he’s careful for every body but himself. Pooh! pooh! There ain’t such a thing in nature.” “There oughtn’t to be, if there is,” replied Mr. Bolter. “That stands to reason,” said the Jew. “Some conjurers say that number three is the magic number, and some say number seven. It’s neither, my friend, neither. It’s number one.” “Ha! ha!” cried Mr. Bolter. “Number one for ever.” “In a little community like ours, my dear,” said the Jew, who felt it necessary to qualify this position, “we have a general number one; that is, you can’t consider yourself as number one without considering me too as the same, and all the other young people.” “Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Mr. Bolter. “You see,” pursued the Jew, affecting to disregard this interruption, “we are so mixed up together and identified in our interests that it must be so. For instance, it’s your object to take care of number one—meaning yourself.” “Certainly,” replied Mr. Bolter. “Yer about right there.” “Well, you can’t take care of yourself, number one, without taking care of me, number one.” “Number two, you mean,” said Mr. Bolter, who was largely endowed with the quality of selfishness. “No, I don’t!” retorted the Jew. “I’m of the same importance to you as you are to yourself.” “I say,” interrupted Mr. Bolter, “yer a very nice man, and I’m very fond of yer; but we ain’t quite so thick together as all that comes to.” “Only think,” said the Jew, shrugging his shoulders, and stretching out his hands, “only consider. You’ve done what’s a very pretty thing, and what I love you for doing; but what at the same time would put the cravat round your throat that’s so very easily tied and so very difficult to unloosen—in plain English, the halter!” Mr. Bolter put his hand to his neckerchief as if he felt it inconveniently tight, and murmured an assent, qualified in tone but not in substance.