Noah was a charity-boy, but not a workhouse orphan. No
chance-child was he, for he could trace his genealogy all the way
back to his parents, who lived hard by; his mother being a
washerwoman, and his father a drunken soldier, discharged with a
wooden leg, and a diurnal pension of twopence-halfpenny and an
unstateable fraction. The shop-boys in the neighbourhood had
long been in the habit of branding Noah in the public streets,
with the ignominious epithets of 'leathers,' 'charity,' and the
like; and Noah had bourne them without reply. But, now that
fortune had cast in his way a nameless orphan, at whom even the
meanest could point the finger of scorn, he retorted on him with
interest. This affords charming food for contemplation. It
shows us what a beautiful thing human nature may be made to be;
and how impartially the same amiable qualities are developed in
the finest lord and the dirtiest charity-boy.

Oliver had been sojourning at the undertaker's some three weeks
or a month. Mr. and Mrs. Sowerberry--the shop being shut
up--were taking their supper in the little back-parlour, when Mr.
Sowerberry, after several deferential glances at his wife, said,

'My dear--' He was going to say more; but, Mrs. Sowerberry
looking up, with a peculiarly unpropitious aspect, he stopped
short.

'Well,' said Mrs. Sowerberry, sharply.

'Nothing, my dear, nothing,' said Mr. Sowerberry.