Fallout Shelter Handbook By Chuck West Pdf Downloadl
Argimiro Krishnamoorthy
Among other public buildings in a certain town, which for many reasons it willbe prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitiousname, there is one anciently common to most towns, great or small: to wit, aworkhouse; and in this workhouse was born; on a day and date which I need nottrouble myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence tothe reader, in this stage of the business at all events; the item of mortalitywhose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter.
For a long time after it was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, bythe parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether thechild would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat morethan probable that these memoirs would never have appeared; or, if they had,that being comprised within a couple of pages, they would have possessed theinestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography,extant in the literature of any age or country.
Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a greattheory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who demonstrated itso well, that he had got his own horse down to a straw a day, and wouldunquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal onnothing at all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to havehad his first comfortable bait of air. Unfortunately for the experimentalphilosophy of the female to whose protecting care Oliver Twist was deliveredover, a similar result usually attended the operation of her system; forat the very moment when the child had contrived to exist upon the smallestpossible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen ineight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want and cold,or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in anyone of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned intoanother world, and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this.
Mrs. Mann ushered the beadle into a small parlour with a brick floor; placed aseat for him; and officiously deposited his cocked hat and cane on the tablebefore him. Mr. Bumble wiped from his forehead the perspiration which his walkhad engendered, glanced complacently at the cocked hat, and smiled. Yes, hesmiled. Beadles are but men: and Mr. Bumble smiled.
Oliver had not been within the walls of the workhouse a quarter of an hour, andhad scarcely completed the demolition of a second slice of bread, when Mr.Bumble, who had handed him over to the care of an old woman, returned; and,telling him it was a board night, informed him that the board had said he wasto appear before it forthwith.
Not having a very clearly defined notion of what a live board was, Oliver wasrather astounded by this intelligence, and was not quite certain whether heought to laugh or cry. He had no time to think about the matter, however; forMr. Bumble gave him a tap on the head, with his cane, to wake him up: andanother on the back to make him lively: and bidding him to follow, conductedhim into a large white-washed room, where eight or ten fat gentlemen weresitting round a table. At the top of the table, seated in an arm-chair ratherhigher than the rest, was a particularly fat gentleman with a very round, redface.
Oliver was frightened at the sight of so many gentlemen, which made himtremble: and the beadle gave him another tap behind, which made him cry. Thesetwo causes made him answer in a very low and hesitating voice; whereupon agentleman in a white waistcoat said he was a fool. Which was a capital way ofraising his spirits, and putting him quite at his ease.
For the combination of both these blessings in the one simple process ofpicking oakum, Oliver bowed low by the direction of the beadle, and was thenhurried away to a large ward; where, on a rough, hard bed, he sobbed himself tosleep. What a novel illustration of the tender laws of England! They let thepaupers go to sleep!
Poor Oliver! He little thought, as he lay sleeping in happy unconsciousness ofall around him, that the board had that very day arrived at a decision whichwould exercise the most material influence over all his future fortunes. Butthey had. And this was it:
The master was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed instupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung forsupport to the copper. The assistants were paralysed with wonder; the boys withfear.
As I purpose to show in the sequel whether the white waistcoated gentleman wasright or not, I should perhaps mar the interest of this narrative (supposing itto possess any at all), if I ventured to hint just yet, whether the life ofOliver Twist had this violent termination or no.
The donkey was in a state of profound abstraction: wondering, probably, whetherhe was destined to be regaled with a cabbage-stalk or two when he had disposedof the two sacks of soot with which the little cart was laden; so, withoutnoticing the word of command, he jogged onward.
The gentleman with the white waistcoat was standing at the gate with his handsbehind him, after having delivered himself of some profound sentiments in theboard-room. Having witnessed the little dispute between Mr. Gamfield and thedonkey, he smiled joyously when that person came up to read the bill, for hesaw at once that Mr. Gamfield was exactly the sort of master Oliver Twistwanted. Mr. Gamfield smiled, too, as he perused the document; for five poundswas just the sum he had been wishing for; and, as to the boy with which it wasencumbered, Mr. Gamfield, knowing what the dietary of the workhouse was, wellknew he would be a nice small pattern, just the very thing for register stoves.So, he spelt the bill through again, from beginning to end; and then, touchinghis fur cap in token of humility, accosted the gentleman in the whitewaistcoat.
As Mr. Gamfield did happen to labour under the slight imputation of havingbruised three or four boys to death already, it occurred to him that the boardhad, perhaps, in some unaccountable freak, taken it into their heads that thisextraneous circumstance ought to influence their proceedings. It was veryunlike their general mode of doing business, if they had; but still, as he hadno particular wish to revive the rumour, he twisted his cap in his hands, andwalked slowly from the table.
Mr. Gamfield gave an arch look at the faces round the table, and, observing asmile on all of them, gradually broke into a smile himself. The bargain wasmade. Mr. Bumble, was at once instructed that Oliver Twist and his indentureswere to be conveyed before the magistrate, for signature and approval, thatvery afternoon.
In pursuance of this determination, little Oliver, to his excessiveastonishment, was released from bondage, and ordered to put himself into aclean shirt. He had hardly achieved this very unusual gymnastic performance,when Mr. Bumble brought him, with his own hands, a basin of gruel, and theholiday allowance of two ounces and a quarter of bread. At this tremendoussight, Oliver began to cry very piteously: thinking, not unnaturally, that theboard must have determined to kill him for some useful purpose, or they neverwould have begun to fatten him up in that way.
On their way to the magistrate, Mr. Bumble instructed Oliver that all he wouldhave to do, would be to look very happy, and say, when the gentleman asked himif he wanted to be apprenticed, that he should like it very much indeed; bothof which injunctions Oliver promised to obey: the rather as Mr. Bumble threw ina gentle hint, that if he failed in either particular, there was no tellingwhat would be done to him. When they arrived at the office, he was shut up in alittle room by himself, and admonished by Mr. Bumble to stay there, until hecame back to fetch him.
That same evening, the gentleman in the white waistcoat most positively anddecidedly affirmed, not only that Oliver would be hung, but that he would bedrawn and quartered into the bargain. Mr. Bumble shook his head with gloomymystery, and said he wished he might come to good; whereunto Mr. Gamfieldreplied, that he wished he might come to him; which, although he agreed withthe beadle in most matters, would seem to be a wish of a totally oppositedescription.
In great families, when an advantageous place cannot be obtained, either inpossession, reversion, remainder, or expectancy, for the young man who isgrowing up, it is a very general custom to send him to sea. The board, inimitation of so wise and salutary an example, took counsel together on theexpediency of shipping off Oliver Twist, in some small trading vessel bound toa good unhealthy port. This suggested itself as the very best thing that couldpossibly be done with him: the probability being, that the skipper would floghim to death, in a playful mood, some day after dinner, or would knock hisbrains out with an iron bar; both pastimes being, as is pretty generally known,very favourite and common recreations among gentleman of that class. The morethe case presented itself to the board, in this point of view, the moremanifold the advantages of the step appeared; so, they came to the conclusionthat the only way of providing for Oliver effectually, was to send him to seawithout delay.
Mr. Bumble had been despatched to make various preliminary inquiries, with theview of finding out some captain or other who wanted a cabin-boy without anyfriends; and was returning to the workhouse to communicate the result of hismission; when he encountered at the gate, no less a person than Mr. Sowerberry,the parochial undertaker.
Mr. Sowerberry was a tall gaunt, large-jointed man, attired in a suit ofthreadbare black, with darned cotton stockings of the same colour, and shoes toanswer. His features were not naturally intended to wear a smiling aspect, buthe was in general rather given to professional jocosity. His step was elastic,and his face betokened inward pleasantry, as he advanced to Mr. Bumble, andshook him cordially by the hand.
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