it. He really desires to cheat you. And don't buy at auctions where
the best plated goods are being knocked down for next to nothing. These,
too, are delusions. If you wish to go to the play to see real good
acting (though a little more subdued than perfect tragedy should be), I
would recommend you to see ---- at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane.
Anybody will show it to you. It is near the Strand, and you may know it
by seeing no company whatever at any of the doors. Cab fares are
eightpence a mile. A mile London measure is half a Dorsetshire mile,
recollect. Porter is twopence per pint; what is called stout is
fourpence. The Zoological Gardens are in the Regent's Park, and the
price of admission is one shilling. Of the streets, I would recommend
you to see Regent Street and the Quadrant, Bond Street, Piccadilly,
Oxford Street, and Cheapside. I think these will please you after a
time, though the tumult and bustle will at first bewilder you. If I can
serve you in any way, pray command me. And with my best regards to your
happy family, so remote from this Babel.

Believe me, my dear Friend,

Ever affectionately yours.

[CHARLES DICKENS]

P.S. I forgot to mention just now that the black equestrian figure you
will see at Charing Cross, as you go down to the House, is a statue of
_King Charles the First_.[129]

51. TO MR. EDMUND YATES

TAVISTOCK HOUSE,
Tuesday, Feb. 2nd. 1858.

My dear Yates,

Your quotation is, as I supposed, all wrong. The text _is not_ "Which
his 'owls was organs." When Mr. Harris went into an empty dog-kennel, to
spare his sensitive nature the anguish of overhearing Mrs. Harris's
exclamations on the occasion of the birth of her first child (the
Princess Royal of the Harris family), "he never took his hands away from
his ears, or came out once, till he was showed the baby." On
encountering that spectacle, he was (being of a weakly constitution)
"took with fits." For this distressing complaint he was medically
treated; the doctor "collared him, and laid him on his back upon the
airy stones"--please to observe what follows--"and she was told, to ease
her mind, his 'owls was organs."

That is to say, Mrs. Harris, lying exhausted on her bed, in the first
sweet relief of freedom from pain, merely covered with the counterpane,
and not yet "put comfortable," hears a noise apparently proceeding from
the backyard, and says, in a flushed and hysterical manner: "What 'owls
are those? Who is a-'owling?