Chapter 25 - Summary, Oliver Twist | Oliver Twist - Summary, Themes & Characters - Novels PDF Download

"Wherein this History Reverts to Mr. Fagin and Company"

• Fagin’s back in the old den, thinking about something in front of the fire.
• The Artful Dodger, Charley, and Chitling are playing whist (a game of cards usually played with four people), and the Dodger is surreptitiously looking at Chitling’s hand.
• Unsurprisingly, the Dodger wins every time.
• Chitling has finally had enough, and seems amazed at the Dodger’s luck.
• Fagin is less amazed.
• After killing time for a while, the Dodger asks Chitling why he seems so down.
• Before Chitling can answer, the Dodger asks Fagin and Charley for their opinion.
• Fagin diplomatically declines to answer, but Charley thinks it’s because Chitling’s in love with Betsy, and starts laughing like crazy because Chitling is in looooooove.
• Fagin comforts Chitling, and says that Betsy’s "a fine girl," and that if he does as she tells him to do, he’ll be a successful thief and make his fortune.
• Of course, the reason Chitling went to jail was because he’d followed Betsy’s advice, but he says he’d do it again if Betsy told him to.
• He’s so angry with Charley (who continues to laugh this whole while), that he runs across the room to slug him. Charley dodges, and he hits Fagin in the chest, instead.
• Just then, the Dodger hears the bell downstairs, and grabs the candle to go see who it is.
• He comes back up and whispers to Fagin.
• Someone has come back "alone;" the news makes Fagin nervous.
• Charley and Chitling leave the room to make way for the —it’s Toby Crackit, looking rather the worse for wear.
• He won’t tell them what happened until he’s eaten something.
• Finally, he asks how Bill Sikes is doing.
• Obviously, Fagin and the Dodger don’t know, and were expecting that Toby would.
• Toby says that the job failed, but Fagin already knew that from the newspaper (maybe that’s what he was brooding about at the beginning of the chapter).
• Toby tells the story: in short, they ran away from the house, but there were dogs after them and the whole country seemed to be awake, and eventually Sikes had left Oliver alone in a ditch. Toby doesn’t know what’s happened to either of them since—it was each man for himself.
• Fagin yells, tears at his hair, and runs out of the house.