o America "in consequence of
being too much sought after here." It will be recollected he was of a
depressed and gloomy cast, and on the Bridge at Rochester talked of
suicide. He also told the dismal "stroller's tale." Now, it is plain
that Boz drew him as a genuine character, and his behaviour to the
stroller was of a charitable kind. Boz, in fact, meant him to be a
suitable person to relate so dismal an incident. However, all this was
forgotten or put aside at the end, and having become Job's brother, he
had to be in keeping. The reformed Jingle declared he was "merely
acting--clever rascal--hoaxing fellow." His brother Job added that he
himself was the serious one, "while Jemmy never was." Mr. Pickwick then
presumed that his talk of suicide was all flam, and that his dismals were
all assumed. "He could assume anything," said Job. Boz, too, forgot
that his name was James Hutley, whereas the brothers' was Trotter--though
this may have been an assumed one.

The condition of the Rochester stage must have been rather low, when we
find two such persons as Jingle and Dismal Jemmy members of the corps.
Jingle's jerky system of elocution would seem a complete
disqualification. From sheer habit, it would have been impossible for
him to say his lines in any other fashion--which in all the round of
light "touch and go" comedy, would have been a drawback.

The little Theatre is at the farther end of the town, where the road
turns off to the fields, a low, unpretending building with a small
portico. I recall it in the old days, on a walk from Gads Hill, when I
paused to examine the bills of the benefit of a certain theatrical family
of the Crummles sort--father, mother, sons, and daughters, who supplied
everything. The head founded his claims to support on being a fellow
townsman, winding up with Goldsmith's lines:

And as the hare, whom hounds and horns pursue,
Pants to the spot from whence at first it flew;
I still had hopes, my lengthened wanderings past,
Here to return, and die at home at last.

Boz was hugely amused when I rehearsed this to him at lunch.

He himself, on his later visit, noted the strange encroachments that were
being made on the Theatre. A wine merchant had begun on the cellars, and
was gradually squeezing himself into the box-office, and would no doubt
go on till he secured the auditorium, the lobbies, etc. When I last
passed by that way, it had become the Conservative Club, o