on a scheme I have taken into my head, to walk
round the walls of Paris. It is a very odd walk, and will make a good
description. Yesterday I turned to the right when I got outside the
Barriere de l'Etoile, walked round the wall till I came to the river,
and then entered Paris beyond the site of the Bastille. To-day I mean to
turn to the left when I get outside the Barriere, and see what comes of
that."

[206] This was much the tone of Edwin Landseer also, whose praise of
Horace Vernet was nothing short of rapture; and how well I remember the
humour of his description of the Emperor on the day when the prizes were
given, and, as his old friend the great painter came up, the comical
expression in his face that said plainly "What a devilish odd thing this
is altogether, isn't it?" composing itself to gravity as he took Edwin
by the hand, and said in cordial English "I am very glad to see you." He
stood, Landseer told us, in a recess so arranged as to produce a clear
echo of every word he said, and this had a startling effect. In the
evening of that day Dickens, Landseer, Boxall, Leslie "and three others"
dined together in the Palais Royal.

CHAPTER VI.

LITTLE DORRIT, AND A LAZY TOUR.

1855-1857.

Little Dorrit--A Proposed Opening--How the
Story grew--Sale of the Book--Circumlocution
Office--Flora and her Surroundings--Weak Points
in the Book--Remains of Marshalsea
visited--Reception of the Novel--Christmas
Theatricals--Theatre-making--At Gadshill--Last
Meeting of Jerrold and Dickens--Proposed
Memorial Tribute--At the Zoological
Gardens--Lazy Tour projected--Visit to
Cumberland--Accident to Wilkie Collins--At
Allonby--At Doncaster--Racing Prophecy--A
Performance of _Money_.

BETWEEN _Hard Times_ and _Little Dorrit_, Dickens's principal literary
work had been the contribution to _Household Words_ of two tales for
Christmas (1854 and 1855) which his readings afterwards made widely
popular, the Story of Richard Doubledick,[207] and Boots at the
Holly-Tree Inn. In the latter was related, with a charming naturalness
and spirit, the elopement, to get married at Gretna Green, of two little
children of the mature respective ages of eight and seven. At Christmas
1855 came out the first number of _Little Dorrit_, and in April 1857 the
last.

The book took its origin from the notion he had of a leading man for a
story