Oliver Meets the Artful Dodger

After a week of walking, starving, and begging, Oliver limps into the town of Barnet, exhausted and desperate. He is approached by a strange, streetwise boy his own age, who introduces himself as Jack Dawkins, better known as the Artful Dodger. The Dodger, recognizing Oliver's naivety, offers to buy him food and take him to a 'spectable old gentleman' in London who will provide him with lodging. Oliver, grateful and trusting, accepts the offer, unaware that he is being recruited into a gang of child thieves. This encounter is the beginning of Oliver's descent into the criminal underworld of London.