Oliver Twist, Chapter 26 summary

What happens

1. Fagin visits Field Lane and the Three Cripples, where he leaves a message asking Monks to visit him.
2. At Sikes’s home, Nancy says the boy is better dead than within Fagin’s reach, provided Bill remains safe.
3. Fagin threatens to have Sikes hanged and reveals that the boy is worth hundreds of pounds to him.
4. Fagin accepts Nancy’s apparent drunkenness as evidence that she does not understand his disclosures.
5. Monks meets Fagin and complains that the boy should become a thief and face conviction and removal from the country.
6. Monks claims to see a woman’s shadow; a fruitless search follows, and he refuses further discussion that night.

In this chapter

What to notice

Fagin states Monks’s purpose directly. The discussion makes clear that their bargain concerns the boy’s deliberate corruption, although their interests differ.

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