“Hullo, my covey! What’s the row?” said this strange young gentleman to Oliver.
“I am very hungry and tired,” replied Oliver: the tears standing in his eyes as he spoke. “I have walked a long way. I have been walking these seven days.”
“Walking for sivin days!” said the young gentleman. “Oh, I see. Beak’s order, eh? But,” he added, noticing Oliver’s look of surprise, “I suppose you don’t know what a beak is, my flash com-pan-i-on.”
Oliver mildly replied, that he had always heard a bird’s mouth described by the term in question.
“My eyes, how green!” exclaimed the young gentleman. “Why, a beak’s a madgst’rate; and when you walk by a beak’s order, it’s not straight forerd, but always agoing up, and niver a coming down agin. Was you never on the mill?”
“What mill?” inquired Oliver.
“What mill! Why, the mill—the mill as takes up so little room that it’ll work inside a Stone Jug; and always goes better when the wind’s low with people, than when it’s high; acos then they can’t get workmen. But come,” said the young gentleman; “you want grub, and you shall have it. I’m at low-water-mark myself—only one bob and a magpie; but, as far as it goes, I’ll fork out and stump. Up with you on your pins. There! Now then! Morrice!”
Assisting Oliver to rise, the young gentleman took him to an adjacent chandler’s shop, where he purchased a sufficiency of ready-dressed ham and a half-quartern loaf, or, as he himself expressed it, “a fourpenny