asn't I who murdered him--it was Misery!' And such a dress; such a
face; and, above all, such an extraordinary guilty wicked thing as he
made of a knotted branch of a tree which was his walking-stick, from the
moment when the idea of the murder came into his head! I could write
pages about him. It is an impression quite ineffaceable. He got
half-boastful of that walking-staff to himself, and half-afraid of it;
and didn't know whether to be grimly pleased that it had the jagged end,
or to hate it and be horrified at it. He sat at a little table in the
inn-yard, drinking with the traveller; and this horrible stick got
between them like the Devil, while he counted on his fingers the uses he
could put the money to."

That was at the close of February. In October, Dickens's longer
residence began. He betook himself with his family, after two
unsuccessful attempts in the new region of the Rue Balzac and Rue Lord
Byron, to an apartment in the Avenue des Champs Elysees. Over him was an
English bachelor with an establishment consisting of an English groom
and five English horses. "The concierge and his wife told us that his
name was _Six_, which drove me nearly mad until we discovered it to be
_Sykes_." The situation was a good one, very cheerful for himself and
with amusement for his children. It was a quarter of a mile above
Franconi's on the other side of the way, and within a door or two of the
Jardin d'Hiver. The Exposition was just below; the Barriere de l'Etoile
from a quarter to half a mile below; and all Paris, including Emperor
and Empress coming from and returning to St. Cloud, thronged past the
windows in open carriages or on horseback, all day long. Now it was he
found himself more of a celebrity than when he had wintered in the city
nine years before;[197] the feuilleton of the _Moniteur_ was filled
daily with a translation of _Chuzzlewit_; and he had soon to consider
the proposal I have named, to publish in French his collected novels and
tales.[198] Before he had been a week in his new abode, Ary Scheffer,
"a frank and noble fellow," had made his acquaintance; introduced him to
several distinguished Frenchmen; and expressed the wish to paint him. To
Scheffer was also due an advantage obtained for my friend's two little
daughters of which they may always keep the memory with pride. "Mamey
and Katey are learning Italian, and their master is Manin of Venetian
fame, the best and the noblest of those unhappy gentlemen.