ain had begun to move, 'who, Mr. Wilson, is the wild gent in the
prespiration, that's been a tearing up and down all this time with a
great box of papers under his arm, a talking to everybody wery
indistinct, and exciting of himself dreadful?' 'Why?' says Mr. Wilson,
with a smile. 'Because, sir,' I says, 'he's being left behind.' 'Good
God!' cries Mr. Wilson, turning pale and putting out his head, 'it's
_your_ beeograffer--the Manager--and he has got the money, Mrs. Gamp!'
Hous'ever, some one chucked him into the train and we went off. At the
first shreek of the whistle, Mrs. Harris, I turned white, for I had took
notice of some of them dear creeturs as was the cause of my being in
company, and I know'd the danger that--but Mr. Wilson, which is a
married man, puts his hand on mine, and says, 'Mrs. Gamp, calm yourself;
it's only the Ingein.'"

Of those of the party with whom these humorous liberties were taken
there are only two now living to complain of their friendly
caricaturist, and Mr. Cruikshank will perhaps join me in a frank
forgiveness not the less heartily for the kind words about himself that
reached me from Broadstairs not many days after Mrs. Gamp. "At
Canterbury yesterday" (2nd of September) "I bought George Cruikshank's
_Bottle_. I think it very powerful indeed: the two last plates most
admirable, except that the boy and girl in the very last are too young,
and the girl more like a circus-phenomenon than that no-phenomenon she
is intended to represent. I question, however, whether anybody else
living could have done it so well. There is a woman in the last plate
but one, garrulous about the murder, with a child in her arms, that is
as good as Hogarth. Also, the man who is stooping down, looking at the
body. The philosophy of the thing, as a great lesson, I think all wrong;
because to be striking, and original too, the drinking should have begun
in sorrow, or poverty, or ignorance--the three things in which, in its
awful aspect, it _does_ begin. The design would then have been a
double-handed sword--but too 'radical' for good old George, I suppose."

The same letter made mention of other matters of interest. His accounts
for the first half-year of _Dombey_ were so much in excess of what had
been expected from the new publishing arrangements, that from this date
all embarrassments connected with money were brought to a close. His
future profits varied of course with his varying sales, but there was
always e