ce was pasted on the gate of the workhouse
offering a reward to anybody who would take poor Oliver away and do what
he liked with him.

The first one who came by was a middle-aged chimney-sweep, who wanted a
boy to climb up the insides of chimneys and clean out the soot. This was
a dangerous thing to do, for sometimes the boys who did it got burned
or choked with the smoke, and when Oliver found what they were going to
do with him and looked at the man's cruel face, he burst out crying, so
that a kind-hearted magistrate interfered and would not let the
chimney-sweep have him.

Mr. Bumble finally gave him to the village undertaker, and there he had
to mind the shop and do all the chores. He slept under the counter among
piles of empty coffins. The undertaker's wife beat him often, and
whenever he was not at work he had to attend funerals, which was by no
means amusing, so that he found life no better than it had been at the
workhouse. The undertaker had an apprentice, too, who kicked him
whenever he came near.

All this wretchedness Oliver bore as well as he could, without
complaining. But one day the cowardly apprentice began to say unkind
things of Oliver's dead mother, and this he could not stand. His anger
made him stronger even than his tormentor, though the latter was more
than a head taller and much older, and he sprang upon him, caught him by
the throat and, after shaking him till his teeth rattled, knocked him
flat on the floor.

The big bully screamed for help and cried that he was being murdered, so
that the undertaker and his wife came running in. Oliver told them what
the apprentice had said, but that made no difference. The undertaker
sent for Mr. Bumble, and between them they flogged him till he could
hardly stand and sent him to bed without anything to eat.

Till then Oliver had not shed a tear, but now, alone in the dark, he
felt so miserable that he cried for a long time.

There was nothing to do, he thought at last, but to run away. So he tied
up his few belongings in a handkerchief and, waiting till the first beam
of sunrise, he unbarred the door and ran away as fast as he could,
through the town into the country.

He hid behind hedges whenever he saw anybody, for fear the undertaker or
Mr. Bumble were after him, and before long he found a road that he knew
led to London. Oliver had never seen a city, but he thought where there
were so many people there would certainly be something for a boy t