's return from America, he described what had passed
between himself and one of these pirates who had issued a Master
Humphrey's Clock edited by Bos. "Sir," said the man to Hood, "if you had
observed the name, it was _Bos_, not _Boz_; s, sir, not z; and, besides,
it would have been no piracy, sir, even with the z, because _Master
Humphrey's Clock_, you see, sir, was not published as by Boz, but by
Charles Dickens!"

[75] The reader may be amused if I add in a note what he said of the
pirates in those earlier days when grave matters touched him less
gravely. On the eve of the first number of _Nickleby_ he had issued a
proclamation. "Whereas we are the only true and lawful Boz. And whereas
it hath been reported to us, who are commencing a new work, that some
dishonest dullards resident in the by-streets and cellars of this town
impose upon the unwary and credulous, by producing cheap and wretched
imitations of our delectable works. And whereas we derive but small
comfort under this injury from the knowledge that the dishonest dullards
aforesaid cannot, by reason of their mental smallness, follow near our
heels, but are constrained to creep along by dirty and little-frequented
ways, at a most respectful and humble distance behind. And whereas, in
like manner, as some other vermin are not worth the killing for the sake
of their carcases, so these kennel pirates are not worth the powder and
shot of the law, inasmuch as whatever damages they may commit they are
in no condition to pay any. This is to give notice, that we have at
length devised a mode of execution for them, so summary and terrible,
that if any gang or gangs thereof presume to hoist but one shred of the
colours of the good ship _Nickleby_, we will hang them on gibbets so
lofty and enduring that their remains shall be a monument of our just
vengeance to all succeeding ages; and it shall not lie in the power of
any lord high admiral, on earth, to cause them to be taken down again."
The last paragraph of the proclamation informed the potentates of
Paternoster-row, that from the then ensuing day of the thirtieth of
March, until farther notice, "we shall hold our Levees, as heretofore,
on the last evening but one of every month, between the hours of seven
and nine, at our Board of Trade, number one hundred and eighty-six in
the Strand, London; where we again request the attendance (in vast
crowds) of their accredited agents and ambassadors. Gentlemen to wear
knots up