When Oliver Twist runs away from Sowerberry's undertakers he heads for London. On his way, at Barnet, he meets Jack Dawkins aka 'the artful dodger,' a member of a notorious pick-pocket gang who takes him to meet their ring-leader Fagin. At first, Oliver is naively unaware of their profession -- but not for long! They all live here, in one of the many disused warehouses described by Charles Dickens in the novel:
   'there exists the filthiest, the strangest, the most extraordinary of the many localities that are hidden in London, wholly unknown, even by name, to the great mass of its inhabitants.'
   It is here, in this dingiest of places, that Fagin trains his young apprentices, and now the innocent Oliver, in the art of picking pockets. It is here too that his boys return with their daily ill-gotten 'loot,' and where Fagin hides much of this loot in the provision of his pension fund! A most suitable hideout indeed! Bill Sikes' ill-treated, yet nonetheless devoted dog, Bull's-eye, can be found lurking on the model.