AND MRS.
BUMBLE, AND MR. MONKS, AT THEIR NOCTURNAL INTERVIEW
XXXIX INTRODUCES SOME RESPECTABLE CHARACTERS WITH WHOM THE READER IS
ALREADY ACQUAINTED, AND SHOWS HOW MONKS AND THE JEW LAID THEIR
WORTHY HEADS TOGETHER
XL A STRANGE INTERVIEW, WHICH IS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST CHAMBER
XLI CONTAINING FRESH DISCOVERIES, AND SHOWING THAT SUPRISES, LIKE
MISFORTUNES, SELDOM COME ALONE
XLII AN OLD ACQUAINTANCE OF OLIVER'S, EXHIBITING DECIDED MARKS OF
GENIUS, BECOMES A PUBLIC CHARACTER IN THE METROPOLIS
XLIII WHEREIN IS SHOWN HOW THE ARTFUL DODGER GOT INTO TROUBLE
XLIV THE TIME ARRIVES FOR NANCY TO REDEEM HER PLEDGE TO ROSE MAYLIE.
SHE FAILS.
XLV NOAH CLAYPOLE IS EMPLOYED BY FAGIN ON A SECRET MISSION
XLVI THE APPOINTMENT KEPT
XLVII FATAL CONSEQUENCES
XLVIII THE FLIGHT OF SIKES
XLIX MONKS AND MR. BROWNLOW AT LENGTH MEET. THEIR CONVERSATION,
AND THE INTELLIGENCE THAT INTERRUPTS IT
L THE PURSUIT AND ESCAPE
LI AFFORDING AN EXPLANATION OF MORE MYSTERIES THAN ONE, AND
COMPREHENDING A PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE WITH NO WORD OF SETTLEMENT
OR PIN-MONEY
LII FAGIN'S LAST NIGHT ALIVE
LIII AND LAST

CHAPTER I

TREATS OF THE PLACE WHERE OLIVER TWIST WAS BORN AND OF THE
CIRCUMSTANCES ATTENDING HIS BIRTH

Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons
it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will
assign no fictitious name, there is one anciently common to most towns,
great or small: to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on
a day and date which I need not trouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as
it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of
the business at all events; the item of mortality whose name is
prefixed to the head of this chapter.

For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and
trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable
doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which
case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never
have appeared; or, if they had, that being comprised within a couple of
pages, they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the
most concise and faithful specimen of biography, extant in the
literature of any age or country.

Although I am not disposed to maintain that the