CHAPTER XXX

Conclusion

The fortunes of those who have figured in this tale are nearly closed. The little that remains is told in a few and simple words.

Mr. Brownlow adopted Oliver as his son, and moved with him and the old housekeeper to within a mile of the house of Mrs. Maylie and Rose. Thus the only remaining wish of Oliver's warm heart, to be near his friends, was fulfilled.

Monks, still bearing that assumed name, retired with the share of the money Mr. Brownlow allowed him to keep to a distant part of the New World. Here he quickly wasted his wealth and once more fell into his old life of crime and ended in prison, where he died. In the same manner died the chief remaining members of Fagin's band. But Charlie Bates, shocked by Sikes's crime, turned his back upon his past life, and succeeded at last in becoming a farmer's boy and is now the merriest young labourer in the south of England.

Mr. Grimwig and Dr. Losberne became very close friends. Mr. Brownlow often joked with Grimwig and reminded him of the night on which they sat with the watch between them, waiting for Oliver's return. But Mr. Grimwig always insisted that Oliver did not come back. At this the two old gentlemen laughed aloud.

Mr. and Mrs. Bumble, deprived of their posts as masters of the workhouse, were gradually reduced to great poverty, and finally became paupers in that very same workhouse of which they had once been masters. As to Mr. Giles and Brittles, they still remain in their old posts, although the former is bald, and the last-named boy quite grey. They divide their attentions so equally between the households of the Maylies and Mr. Brownlow that to this day the villagers have never been able to discover to which household they properly belong.