ssing at Sandhurst had been living with the family in Bayham Street in
the hope of obtaining a commission in the army. This did not come until
long afterwards, when, in consideration of his father's services, he
received it, and relinquished it then in favor of a younger brother; but
he had meanwhile, before the family removed from Camden-town, ceased to
live with them. The husband of a sister of his (of the same name as
himself, being indeed his cousin, George Lamert), a man of some
property, had recently embarked in an odd sort of commercial
speculation, and had taken him into his office and his house, to assist
in it. I give now the fragment of the autobiography of Dickens:

"This speculation was a rivalry of 'Warren's Blacking, 30, Strand,'--at
that time very famous. One Jonathan Warren (the famous one was Robert),
living at 30, Hungerford Stairs, or Market, Strand (for I forget which
it was called then), claimed to have been the original inventor or
proprietor of the blacking-recipe, and to have been deposed and ill used
by his renowned relation. At last he put himself in the way of selling
his recipe, and his name, and his 30, Hungerford Stairs, Strand (30,
Strand, very large, and the intermediate direction very small), for an
annuity; and he set forth by his agents that a little capital would make
a great business of it. The man of some property was found in George
Lamert, the cousin and brother-in-law of James. He bought this right and
title, and went into the blacking-business and the blacking-premises.

"--In an evil hour for me, as I often bitterly thought. Its chief
manager, James Lamert, the relative who had lived with us in Bayham
Street, seeing how I was employed from day to day, and knowing what our
domestic circumstances then were, proposed that I should go into the
blacking-warehouse, to be as useful as I could, at a salary, I think, of
six shillings a week. I am not clear whether it was six or seven. I am
inclined to believe, from my uncertainty on this head, that it was six
at first, and seven afterwards. At any rate, the offer was accepted very
willingly by my father and mother, and on a Monday morning I went down
to the blacking-warehouse to begin my business life.

"It is wonderful to me how I could have been so easily cast away at such
an age. It is wonderful to me that, even after my descent into the poor
little drudge I had been since we came to London, no one had compassion
enough on me--a ch