hen come to London. I am going to read at Cheltenham (on my
own account) on the 23rd and 24th of this month, staying with Macready
of course."

The arrangement of this series of Readings differed from those of its
predecessors in relieving Dickens from every anxiety except of the
reading itself; but, by such rapid and repeated change of nights at
distant places as kept him almost wholly in a railway carriage when not
at the reading-desk or in bed, it added enormously to the physical
fatigue. He would read at St. James's Hall in London one night, and at
Bradford the next. He would read in Edinburgh, go on to Glasgow and to
Aberdeen, then come back to Glasgow, read again in Edinburgh, strike off
to Manchester, come back to St. James's Hall once more, and begin the
same round again. It was labour that must in time have broken down the
strongest man, and what Dickens was when he assumed it we have seen.

He did not himself admit a shadow of misgiving. "As to the readings"
(11th of March), "all I have to do is, to take in my book and read, at
the appointed place and hour, and come out again. All the business of
every kind, is done by Chappells. They take John and my other man,
merely for my convenience. I have no more to do with any detail
whatever, than you have. They transact all the business at their own
cost, and on their own responsibility. I think they are disposed to do
it in a very good spirit, because, whereas the original proposition was
for thirty readings 'in England, Ireland, Scotland, or Paris,' they
wrote out their agreement 'in London, the Provinces, or elsewhere, _as
you and we may agree_.' For this they pay L1500 in three sums; L500 on
beginning, L500 on the fifteenth Reading, L500 at the close. Every
charge of every kind, they pay besides. I rely for mere curiosity on
_Doctor Marigold_ (I am going to begin with him in Liverpool, and at St.
James's Hall). I have got him up with immense pains, and should like to
give you a notion what I am going to do with him."

The success everywhere went far beyond even the former successes. A
single night at Manchester, when eight hundred stalls were let, two
thousand five hundred and sixty-five people admitted, and the receipts
amounted to more than three hundred pounds, was followed in nearly the
same proportion by all the greater towns; and on the 20th of April the
outlay for the entire venture was paid, leaving all that remained, to
the middle of the month of June,