I altogether decline. I am _not_ your match in age,
weight, or size," a touch of his pleasant humour and good spirits.

As of course Forster deeply felt the death of his old friend and
comrade, the amiable and constant Dickens, he was the great central
figure in all the dismal ceremonial that followed. He arranged
everything admirably, he was executor with Miss Hogarth, and I could
not but think how exactly he reproduced his great prototype, Johnson,
in a similar situation. Bozzy describes the activity and fuss of the
sage hurrying about with a pen in his hand and dealing with the
effects: "We are not here," he said, "to take account of a number of
vats, &c., but of the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams
of avarice." So was Forster busy, appraising copyrights, and realizing
assets, all which work he performed in a most business-like fashion.
That bequest in the will of the gold watch, to his "trusty friend,
John Forster," I always thought admirably summarized the relations of
the two friends. I myself received under his will one of his ivory
paper-knives, and a paper-weight marked C.D. in golden letters, which
was made for and presented to him at one of the pottery works.

One of the most delightful little dinners I had was an impromptu one
at Forster's house, the party being himself, myself, and Boz. The
presence of a third, not a stranger yet not an intimate, prompted both
to be more free than had they been _tete-a-tete_. Boz was what might
best be called "gay." His fashion of talk was to present things that
happened in a pleasantly humorous light. On this occasion he told us a
good deal about a strange being, Chauncey Hare Towns-bend, from whom
he may have drawn Twemlow in _Our Mutual Friend_. Every look in that
sketch reminds me of him; he, too, had a shy shrinking manner, a soft
voice, but, in his appearance most of all, was Twemlow; he had a
rather over-done worship of Dickens, wishing "not to intrude," etc.;
he was a delicate, unhealthy looking person, rather carefully made up.
Boz was specially pleasant this day on an odd bequest of his; for poor
Twemlow had died, and he, Boz, was implored to edit his religious
writings: rather a compendium of his religious opinions to be
collected from a mass of papers in a trunk. For which service L1,000
was bequeathed. Boz was very humorous on his first despair at being
appointed to such an office; then described his hopeless attempts "to
make head or tail" of th