"From nowhere particular," answered the boy; "and my name's Antony; Tony,
for short. I used to have another name; mother told it me afore she died,
but it's gone clean out o' my head. Tony I am, anyhow, and you can call
me by it, if you choose."

"How old are you, Tony?" inquired Oliver, still lingering on the
threshold, and looking up and down with his dim eyes.

"Bless yer! I don't know," replied Tony; "I weren't much bigger nor
her when mother died, and I've found myself ever since. I never had
any father."

"Found yourself!" repeated the old man, absently.

"Ah, it's not bad in the summer," said Tony, more earnestly than before:
"and I could find for the little 'un easy enough. I sleep anywhere, in
Covent Garden sometimes, and the parks--anywhere as the p'lice 'ill let
me alone. You won't go to give her up to them p'lice, will you now, and
she so pretty?"

He spoke in a beseeching tone, and old Oliver looked down upon him
through his spectacles, with a closer survey than he had given to him
before. The boy's face was pale and meagre, with an unboyish sharpness
about it, though he did not seem more than nine or ten years old. His
glittering eyes were filled with tears, and his colourless lips quivered.
He wiped away the tears roughly upon the ragged sleeve of his jacket.

"I never were such a baby before," said Tony, "only she is such a nice
little thing, and such a tiny little 'un. You'll keep her, master, won't