Oliver Twist-CHAPTER XVIII Đây là một tác phẩm anh ngữ dành cho trẻ em nổi tiếng của nhà văn Charles Dicken với những từ vựng quen thuộc. Nhằm giúp các em và các bạn yêu thich tiếng anh luyện tập và củng cố thêm kỹ năng đọc tiếng anh | Oliver Twist Charles Dickens CHAPTER XVIII HOW OLIVER PASSED HIS TIME IN THE IMPROVING SOCIETY OF HIS REPUTABLE FRIENDS About noon next day when the Dodger and Master Bates had gone out to pursue their customary avocations Mr. Fagin took the opportunity of reading Oliver a long lecture on the crying sin of ingratitude of which he clearly demonstrated he had been guilty to no ordinary extent in wilfully absenting himself from the society of his anxious friends and still more in endeavouring to escape from them after so much trouble and expense had been incurred in his recovery. Mr. Fagin laid great stress on the fact of his having taken Oliver in and cherished him when without his timely aid he might have perished with hunger and he related the dismal and affecting history of a young lad whom in his philanthropy he had succoured under parallel circumstances but who proving unworthy of his confidence and evincing a desire to communicate with the police had unfortunately come to be hanged at the Old Bailey one morning. Mr. Fagin did not seek to conceal his share in the catastrophe but lamented with tears in his eyes that the wrong-headed and treacherous behaviour of the young person in question had rendered it necessary that he should become the victim of certain evidence for the crown which if it were not precisely true was indispensably necessary for the safety of him Mr. Fagin and a few select friends. Mr. Fagin concluded by drawing a rather disagreeable picture of the discomforts of hanging and with great friendliness and politeness of manner expressed his anxious hopes that he might never be obliged to submit Oliver Twist to that unpleasant operation. Little Oliver s blood ran cold as he listened to the Jew s words and imperfectly comprehended the dark threats conveyed in them. That it was possible even for justice itself to confound the innocent with the guilty when they were in accidental companionship he knew already and that deeply-laid plans for the .
