he retired. He really seems a most respectable
man, and he has cleared out this dust-hole of a theatre into something
like decency."

He was to be in London at the end of the month: but I had from him
meanwhile his preface[146] for his first completed book in the popular
edition (_Pickwick_ being now issued in that form, with an illustration
by Leslie); and sending me shortly after (12th of Sept.) the first few
slips of the story of the _Haunted Man_ proposed for his next Christmas
book, he told me he must finish it in less than a month if it was to be
done at all, _Dombey_ having now become very importunate. This prepared
me for his letter of a week's later date. "Have been at work all day,
and am seedy in consequence. _Dombey_ takes so much time, and requires
to be so carefully done, that I really begin to have serious doubts
whether it is wise to go on with the Christmas book. Your kind help is
invoked. What do you think? Would there be any distinctly bad effect in
holding this idea over for another twelvemonth? saying nothing whatever
till November; and then announcing in the _Dombey_ that its occupation
of my entire time prevents the continuance of the Christmas series until
next year, when it is proposed to be renewed. There might not be
anything in that but a possibility of an extra lift for the little book
when it did come--eh? On the other hand, I am very loath to lose the
money. And still more so to leave any gap at Christmas firesides which I
ought to fill. In short I am (forgive the expression) BLOWED if I know
what to do. I am a literary Kitely--and you ought to sympathize and
help. If I had no _Dombey_, I could write and finish the story with the
bloom on--but there's the rub. . . . Which unfamiliar quotation reminds me
of a Shakspearian (put an e before the s; I like it much better)
speculation of mine. What do you say to 'take arms against a sea of
troubles' having been originally written 'make arms,' which is the
action of swimming. It would get rid of a horrible grievance in the
figure, and make it plain and apt. I think of setting up a claim to live
in The House at Stratford, rent-free, on the strength of this
suggestion. You are not to suppose that I am anything but disconcerted
to-day, in the agitation of my soul concerning Christmas; but I have
been brooding, like Dombey himself, over _Dombey_ these two days, until
I really can't afford to be depressed." To his Shakespearian suggestion
I replied th