“Ha! ha! my dear,” replied the Jew, “you must get up very early in the morning, to win against the Dodger.”
“Morning!” said Charley Bates; “you must put your boots on overnight, and have a telescope at each eye, and a opera-glass between your shoulders, if you want to come over him .”
Mr. Dawkins received these handsome compliments with much philosophy, and offered to cut any gentleman in company, for the first picture-card, at a shilling at a time. Nobody accepting the challenge, and his pipe being by this time smoked out, he proceeded to amuse himself by sketching a ground-plan of Newgate on the table with the piece of chalk which had served him in lieu of counters; whistling, meantime, with peculiar shrillness.
“How precious dull you are, Tommy!” said the Dodger, stopping short when there had been a long silence; and addressing Mr. Chitling. “What do you think he’s thinking of, Fagin?”
“How should I know, my dear?” replied the Jew, looking round as he plied the bellows. “About his losses, maybe; or the little retirement in the country that he’s just left, eh? Ha! ha! Is that it, my dear?”
“Not a bit of it,” replied the Dodger, stopping the subject of discourse as Mr. Chitling was about to reply. “What do you say, Charley?”
“ I should say,” replied Master Bates, with a grin, “that he was uncommon sweet upon Betsy. See how he’s a-blushing! Oh, my eye! here’s a merry-go-rounder! Tommy Chitling’s in love! Oh, Fagin, Fagin! what a spree!”
Thoroughly overpowered with the notion of Mr. Chitling being the victim of the tender passion, Master Bates threw himself back in his chair