and with these there was a wholesome
fear of tales being carried home to the parents. His personal appearance
at that time is vividly brought home to me in the portrait of him taken
a few years later by Mr. Lawrence. He resided with his friends in a very
small house in a street leading out of Seymour Street, north of Mr.
Judkin's chapel.

"Depend on it, he was quite a self-made man, and his wonderful knowledge
and command of the English language must have been acquired by long and
patient study after leaving his last school.

"I have no recollection of the boy you name. His chief associates were,
I think, Tobin, Mr. Thomas, Bray, and myself. The first-named was his
chief ally, and his acquaintance with him appears to have continued many
years afterwards. At about that time Penny and Saturday Magazines were
published weekly, and were greedily read by us. We kept bees, white
mice, and other living things clandestinely in our desks; and the
mechanical arts were a good deal cultivated, in the shape of
coach-building, and making pumps and boats, the motive power of which
was the white mice.

"I think at that time Dickens took to writing small tales, and we had a
sort of club for lending and circulating them. Dickens was also very
strong in using a sort of lingo, which made us quite unintelligible to
bystanders. We were very strong, too, in theatricals. We mounted small
theatres, and got up very gorgeous scenery to illustrate the _Miller and
his Men_ and _Cherry and Fair Star_. I remember the present Mr.
Beverley, the scene-painter, assisted us in this. Dickens was always a
leader at these plays, which were occasionally presented with much
solemnity before an audience of boys and in the presence of the ushers.
My brother, assisted by Dickens, got up the _Miller and his Men_, in a
very gorgeous form. Master Beverley constructed the mill for us in such
a way that it could tumble to pieces with the assistance of crackers. At
one representation the fireworks in the last scene, ending with the
destruction of the mill, were so very real that the police interfered
and knocked violently at the doors. Dickens's after-taste for
theatricals might have had its origin in these small affairs.

"I quite remember Dickens on one occasion heading us in Drummond Street
in pretending to be poor boys, and asking the passers-by for
charity,--especially old ladies, one of whom told us she 'had no money
for beggar-boys.' On these adventures, wh