Oliver's  first job (5)

 

After a few weeks , Mr  Sowerberry decided that he liked Oliver's appearance enough to train him in the undertaking business. Oliver's permanent expression of sadness was very suitable, the undertaker thought, for collecting dead bodies from housesand accompanying the coffins to funerals.

 

One day Mr Bumble came to tell them about a woman who had died in an extremely poor part of the town, and Sowerberry and Oliver went to collect the body. They went dowm dirty narrow streets where the houses on either side were tall and large, but very old. Some of the houses were almostfalling down, and had to be supported by huge blocks of wood . The area was so poor that even the dead rats in the street looked as though they had died of hunger.

 

They found the right house,and climbed the dark stairs to a miserable little room. Some children watched them from the shadows as they entered . Something lay beneath a blanket on the floor in one corner. Aman and an old woman stood near the floor in one corner.  A man and an old woman stood near the body. Oliver was afraid to look at  them . With their thin faces and sharp teeth, they looked like the rats he had seen outside.