Oliver went home with the elderly gentleman and his family and for the first time in his life, Oliver found himself in a situation where someone cared for him.

Oliver's moral character was somewhat better than Moll's. Despite the fact that he had no moral guidance, he recognized that stealing was wrong. Dickens writes,

What was Oliver's horror and alarm as he stood a few paces off, looking on with his eyelids as wide open as they would possibly go, to see the Dodger plunge his hand into the old gentleman's pocket, and draw from thence a handkerchief…in an instant, the whole mystery of the handkerchief, and the watches, and the jewels, and the Jew, rushed upon the boy's mind (82).

Moll, on the other hand, turned to theft deliberately when she was too old to turn the heads of men. Unlike the young Oliver who was too young to...
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