' I
asked him. And he said, 'Joe Pithick's uncle.'"

Mention was made of this visit in the preface that appeared with the
last number; and all it is necessary to add of the completed book will
be, that, though in the humour and satire of its finer parts not
unworthy of him, and though it had the clear design, worthy of him in an
especial degree, of contrasting, both in private and in public life, and
in poverty equally as in wealth, duty done and duty not done, it made no
material addition to his reputation. His public, however, showed no
falling-off in its enormous numbers; and what is said in one of his
letters, noticeable for this touch of character, illustrates his anxiety
to avoid any set-off from the disquiet that critical discourtesies might
give. "I was ludicrously foiled here the other night in a resolution I
have kept for twenty years not to know of any attack upon myself, by
stumbling, before I could pick myself up, on a short extract in the
_Globe_ from _Blackwood's Magazine_, informing me that _Little Dorrit_
is 'Twaddle.' I was sufficiently put out by it to be angry with myself
for being such a fool, and then pleased with myself for having so long
been constant to a good resolution." There was a scene that made itself
part of history not four months after his death, which, if he could have
lived to hear of it, might have more than consoled him. It was the
meeting of Bismarck and Jules Favre under the walls of Paris. The
Prussian was waiting to open fire on the city; the Frenchman was engaged
in the arduous task of showing the wisdom of not doing it; and "we
learn," say the papers of the day, "that while the two eminent statesmen
were trying to find a basis of negotiation, Von Moltke was seated in a
corner reading _Little Dorrit_." Who will doubt that the chapter on HOW
NOT TO DO IT was then absorbing the old soldier's attention?

* * * * *

Preparations for the private play had gone on incessantly up to
Christmas, and, in turning the school-room into a theatre, sawing and
hammering worthy of Babel continued for weeks. The priceless help of
Stanfield had again been secured, and I remember finding him one day at
Tavistock House in the act of upsetting some elaborate arrangements by
Dickens, with a proscenium before him made up of chairs, and the scenery
planned out with walking-sticks. But Dickens's art in a matter of this
kind was to know how to take advice; and no suggestio