There were a good many small shops; but the only stock in trade
appeared to be heaps of children, who, even at that time of
night, were crawling in and out at the doors, or screaming from
the inside. The sole places that seemed to prosper amid the
general blight of the place, were the public-houses; and in them,
the lowest orders of Irish were wrangling with might and main.
Covered ways and yards, which here and there diverged from the
main street, disclosed little knots of houses, where drunken men
and women were positively wallowing in filth; and from several of
the door-ways, great ill-looking fellows were cautiously
emerging, bound, to all appearance, on no very well-disposed or
harmless errands.

Oliver was just considering whether he hadn't better run away,
when they reached the bottom of the hill. His conductor,
catching him by the arm, pushed open the door of a house near
Field Lane; and drawing him into the passage, closed it behind
them.

'Now, then!' cried a voice from below, in reply to a whistle from
the Dodger.

'Plummy and slam!' was the reply.

This seemed to be some watchword or signal that all was right;
for the light of a feeble candle gleamed on the wall at the
remote end of the passage; and a man's face peeped out, from
where a balustrade of the old kitchen staircase had been broken
away.