Artful: A Novel Read Free

transportation to Australia: Clever Jack, Jack B. Nimble, Jack-of-All-Hands. But none of them were as apt as the old standby of the Artful Dodger, and so Artful it remained and shall be, especially as it’s best to avoid any possible confusion with the notorious Spring-Heeled Jack, of which more later.
    The streets of London to which he returned were remarkably different from those that he had left not very long before, which simply goes to prove how quickly life can and does change. At the point when he was hauled in and thrown into the choky, Fagin and his band of young thieves still ranged about at will, snatching gentlemen’s handkerchiefs and whatnot whenever and wherever they chose. The formidable Bill Sikes glowered and menaced and planned robberies. Oliver Twist—to the best of Dodger’s knowledge—was lying in a ditch somewhere and might well be dead. And Nancy, that tragic woman whose fundamental goodness of femininity had been diminished and dimmed, but not destroyed, by her life as a slattern whore, was still practicing her trade while worrying that her devotion to Bill Sikes would end tragically in her demise.
    So it was that when the Artful emerged from his aborted incarceration, he discovered the following circumstances had transpired.
    Fagin had been arrested, tried, convicted, and hung before a courtyard full of entertained well-wishers.
    Having been the center of gravity for his band of rapscallions, the youngsters had quickly dispersed, most of them putting London to their back as hurriedly as possible lest their association with the late overseer of cutpurses and pickpockets wind up with their sharing his fate. One of them, Charley Bates, had been so appalled by what he had witnessed that he absented himself from the life of a criminal. We will currently not trouble ourselves on bringing up his occupation save to say that, if it becomes relevant, we shall inform you of it thusly: “There stood Master Bates.”
    Nancy, she who had represented the ultimate in female pulchritude to Dodger, despite the fact that any true gentleman—as opposed to the faux gentleman that the Artful made himself out to be—would have taken one look at her and been repulsed because of her low office—unless, of course, he was prone to take advantage of her services and thus employ her briefly for higher office . . . alas, poor Nancy’s premonitions had been all too real, and she had been bludgeoned to death by the man in whom she had misplaced her trust and faith. She had always believed he would be the ruin of a woman already ruined, and in that regard, her trust and faith in him were, in fact, well placed.
    That man, of course, was Bill Sikes, whose escape attempt from the mob baying at his heels went amiss when he inadvertently hung himself with the very rope he hoped to use to scamper to safety amidst the rooftops. This greatly frustrated his pursuers because failing to capture him alive meant that he could not be executed at their convenience and on their schedule —this being the same crowd that would not have given a halfpenny for Nancy’s life while she was living it. Thus it has always been: Only in death do worthless people have worth.
    And then there was young Oliver, whose entire association with Fagin and his band was the result of Dodger’s own actions, when he had come upon the lad in the little town of Barnet on the outskirts of London. Dodger had seen possibilities in the boy, perceiving the perpetual sorrow Oliver wore around him like a greatcoat as a distinct advantage, and was sure he would make a splendid beggar and even better source of distraction. The plan had been, as Dodger hatched it in his constantly scheming mind, that young Master Twist would stand at curbside or accost pedestrians while looking limpid-eyed and pathetic, making them easy pickings for Dodger to relieve them of their valuables. As you well know, matters did not pan out for Dodger as he had planned, though—a rare misfire