clever, quick of temper, ingenuous, and indignant at any want of truth or
candour in others; generous to a fault and tender hearted as a woman. I
was more patient than he, slower in wrath, yet we sometimes quarrelled
over trifles but, like lovers, were quickly reconciled; and after these
little explosions always better friends than ever.

At Derby, for three years or so, we were inseparable. What walks we had,
what talks, "what larks, Pip!" Dickens we adored. How we talked of him
and his books! How we longed to hear him read, but his public readings
had ended, his voice for ever become mute and a nation mourned the loss
of one who had moved it to laughter and to tears. Tom had a wonderful
memory. He would recite page after page from _Pickwick, David
Copperfield, Barnaby Rudge_ or _Great Expectations_, as well as from
_Shakespeare_ and our favourite poets. He was fond of the pathetic, but
the humorous moved him most, and his lively gifts were welcome wherever
we went.

Our favourite walk on Saturday afternoons was to the pleasant village of
Kedleston, some five miles from Derby, and to its fine old inn, which to
us was not simply the _Kedleston Inn_ and nothing more but Dickens'
_Maypole_ and nothing less. We revelled in its resemblance, or its
fancied resemblance to the famous old hostelry kept by old John Willet.
Something in the building itself, though I cannot say that, like the
_Maypole_, it had "more gable ends than a lazy man would like to count on
a sunny day," and something in its situation, and something in the
cronies who gathered in its comfortable bar, and something in the bar
itself combined to form the pleasant illusion in which we indulged. The
bar, like the _Maypole_ bar, was snug and cosy and complete. Its rustic
visitors were not so solemn and slow of speech as old John Willet and Mr.
Cobb and long Phil Parkes and Solomon Daisy, "who would pass two mortal
hours and a half without any of them speaking a single word, and who were
firmly convinced that they were very jovial companions;" but they were as
reticent and stolid and good natured as such simple country gaffers are
wont to be.

I remember in particular one Saturday afternoon in late October. It was
almost the last walk I had with Tom in Derby. The day was perfect; as
clear and bright, as mellow and crisp, as rich in colour, as only an
October day in England can be. We reached the _Maypole_ between five and
six o'clock. No young