feel in the rapidity and dexterity of its exercise has
never faded out of my breast. Whatever little cunning of hand or head I
took to it, or acquired in it, I have so retained as that I fully
believe I could resume it to-morrow, very little the worse from long
disuse. To this present year of my life, when I sit in this hall, or
where not, hearing a dull speech (the phenomenon does occur), I
sometimes beguile the tedium of the moment by mentally following the
speaker in the old, old way; and sometimes, if you can believe me, I
even find my hand going on the table-cloth, taking an imaginary note of
it all." The latter I have known him do frequently. It was indeed a
quite ordinary habit with him.

Mr. James Grant, a writer who was himself in the gallery with Dickens,
and who states that among its eighty or ninety reporters he occupied the
very highest rank, not merely for accuracy in reporting but for
marvelous quickness in transcribing, has lately also told us that while
there he was exceedingly reserved in his manners, and that, though
showing the usual courtesies to all he was concerned with in his duties,
the only personal intimacy he formed was with Mr. Thomas Beard, then too
reporting for the _Morning Chronicle_. I have already mentioned the
friendly and familiar relations maintained with this gentleman to the
close of his life; and in confirmation of Mr. Grant's statement I can
further say that the only other associate of these early reporting days
to whom I ever heard him refer with special regard was the late Mr.
Vincent Dowling, many years editor of _Bell's Life_, with whom he did
not continue much personal intercourse, but of whose character as well
as talents he had formed a very high opinion. Nor is there anything to
add to the notice of these days which the reader's fancy may not easily
supply. A letter has been kept as written by him while engaged on one of
his "expresses;" but it is less for its saying anything new, than for
its confirming with a pleasant vividness what has been said already,
that its contents will justify mention here.

He writes, on a "Tuesday morning" in May, 1835, from the Bush Inn,
Bristol; the occasion that has taken him to the west, connected with a
reporting party, being Lord John Russell's Devonshire contest above
named, and his associate-chief being Mr. Beard, intrusted with command
for the _Chronicle_ in this particular express. He expects to forward
"the conclusion of Russell'