. 226) were carried along
with him; and of these I will quote what was written shortly after his
death by his son-in-law, Mr. Charles Collins, to illustrate a very
touching sketch by Mr. Fildes of his writing-desk and vacant chair.
"Ranged in front of, and round about him, were always a variety of
objects for his eye to rest on in the intervals of actual writing, and
any one of which he would have instantly missed had it been removed.
There was a French bronze group representing a duel with swords, fought
by a couple of very fat toads, one of them (characterised by that
particular buoyancy which belongs to corpulence) in the act of making a
prodigious lunge forward, which the other receives in the very middle of
his digestive apparatus, and under the influence of which it seems
likely that he will satisfy the wounded honour of his opponent by
promptly expiring. There was another bronze figure which always stood
near the toads, also of French manufacture, and also full of comic
suggestion. It was a statuette of a dog-fancier, such a one as you used
to see on the bridges or quays of Paris, with a profusion of little dogs
stuck under his arms and into his pockets, and everywhere where little
dogs could possibly be insinuated, all for sale, and all, as even a
casual glance at the vendor's exterior would convince the most
unsuspicious person, with some screw loose in their physical
constitutions or moral natures, to be discovered immediately after
purchase. There was the long gilt leaf with the rabbit sitting erect
upon its haunches, the huge paper-knife often held in his hand during
his public readings, and the little fresh green cup ornamented with the
leaves and blossoms of the cowslip, in which a few fresh flowers were
always placed every morning--for Dickens invariably worked with flowers
on his writing-table. There was also the register of the day of the week
and of the month, which stood always before him; and when the room in
the chalet in which he wrote his last paragraph was opened, some time
after his death, the first thing to be noticed by those who entered was
this register, set at 'Wednesday, June 8'--the day of his seizure." It
remains to this day as it was found.

[226] Dickens's interest in dogs (as in the habits and ways of all
animals) was inexhaustible, and he welcomed with delight any new trait.
The subjoined, told him by a lady friend, was a great acquisition. "I
must close" (14th of May 1867) "with an