n wery deep, sir."
To this sentiment I reply affirmatively, and then he adds, as he
stirs the fire (as if he were thinking out loud), "Wot a mystery it
is! Wot a go is natur'!" With which scrap of philosophy, he
gradually gets nearer to the door, and so fades out of the room.
This same man asked me one day, soon after I came home, what Sir
John Wilson was. This is a friend of mine, who took our house and
servants, and everything as it stood, during our absence in America.
I told him an officer. "A wot, sir?" "An officer." And then, for
fear he should think I meant a police-officer, I added, "An officer
in the army." "I beg your pardon, sir," he said, touching his hat,
"but the club as I always drove him to wos the United Servants."

The real name of this club is the United Service, but I have no
doubt he thought it was a high-life-below-stairs kind of resort, and
that this gentleman was a retired butler or superannuated footman.

There's the knock, and the Great Western sails, or steams rather,
to-morrow. Write soon again, dear Felton, and ever believe me, ...

Your affectionate friend,

CHARLES DICKENS.

P.S. All good angels prosper Dr. Howe. He, at least, will not like
me the less, I hope, for what I shall say of Laura.

London, 1 Devonshire Terrace, York Gate, Regent's Park, 31st
December, 1842.

My Dear Felton: Many and many happy New Years to you and yours! As
many happy children as may be quite convenient (no more)! and as
many happy meetings between them and our children, and between you
and us, as the kind fates in their utmost kindness shall favorably
decree!

The American book (to begin with that) has been a most complete and
thorough-going success. Four large editions have now been sold _and
paid for_, and it has won golden opinions from all sorts of men,
except our friend in F----, who is a miserable creature; a
disappointed man in great poverty, to whom I have ever been most
kind and considerate (I need scarcely say that); and another friend
in B----, no less a person than an illustrious gentleman named ----,
who wrote a story called ----. They have done no harm, and have
fallen short of their mark, which, of course, was to annoy me. Now I
am perfectly free from any diseased curiosity in such respects, and
whenever I hear of a notice of this kind,