im and found he had not a friend in the world, said,
"Neither have I. Not one!" and gave him the price of a supper and a
night's lodging. That the man had often spoken to him since, and asked
him if he slept of a night, and how he bore cold and hunger, or if he
ever wished to die; and would say in passing "I am as poor as you
to-day, Jo" when he had no money, but when he had any would always give
some. "He wos wery good to me," says the boy, wiping his eyes with his
wretched sleeve. "Wen I see him a-layin' so stritched out just now, I
wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos werry good to me, he
wos!" The inquest over, the body is flung into a pestiferous churchyard
in the next street, houses overlooking it on every side, and a reeking
little tunnel of a court giving access to its iron gate. "With the
night, comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court, to the outside
of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands, and looks in within
the bars; stands looking in, for a little while. It then, with an old
broom it carries, softly sweeps the step, and makes the archway clean.
It does so, very busily, and trimly; looks in again, a little while; and
so departs." These are among the things in Dickens that cannot be
forgotten; and if _Bleak House_ had many more faults than have been
found in it, such salt and savour as this might freshen it for some
generations.

The first intention was to have made Jo more prominent in the story, and
its earliest title was taken from the tumbling tenements in Chancery,
"Tom-all-Alone's," where he finds his wretched habitation; but this was
abandoned. On the other hand, Dickens was encouraged and strengthened in
his design of assailing Chancery abuses and delays by receiving, a few
days after the appearance of his first number, a striking pamphlet on
the subject containing details so apposite that he took from them,
without change in any material point, the memorable case related in his
fifteenth chapter. Any one who examines the tract[168] will see how
exactly true is the reference to it made by Dickens in his preface. "The
case of Gridley is in no essential altered from one of actual
occurrence, made public by a disinterested person who was professionally
acquainted with the whole of the monstrous wrong from beginning to end."
The suit, of which all particulars are given, affected a single farm, in
value not more than L1200, but all that its owner possessed in the
world, ag