densely crowded but very
select audience at the British Embassy, Lord Cowley being then her
Majesty's ambassador. The Reading on the occasion referred to was "David
Copperfield," and the Reader became aware in the midst of the hushed
silence, just after he had been saying, in the voice of Steerforth,
giving at the same moment a cordial grasp of the hand to the briny
fisherman he was addressing: "Mr. Peggotty, you are a thoroughly good
fellow, and deserve to be as happy as you are to-night. My hand upon
it!" when, turning round, he added, still as Steerforth, but speaking
in a very different voice and offering a very different hand-grip, as
though already he were thinking to himself what a chuckle-headed fellow
the young shipwright was--"Ham, I give you joy, my boy. My hand upon
that too!" The always keenly observant Novelist became aware of a
Frenchman, who was eagerly listening in the front row of the stalls,
suddenly exclaiming to himself, under his breath, "Ah--h!"--having
instantly caught the situation! The sound of that one inarticulate
monosyllable, as he observed, when relating the circumstance, gave the
Reader, as an artist, a far livelier sense of satisfaction than any that
could possibly have been imparted by mere acclamations, no matter how
spontaneous or enthusiastic.

As a Reading, it always seemed to us, that "David Copperfield" was cut
down rather distressingly. That, nevertheless, was unavoidable. Turning
in off Yarmouth sands, we went straight at once through the "delightful
door" cut in its side, into the old black barge or boat, high and dry
there on the sea-beach, and which was known to us nearly as familiarly
as to David himself, as the odd dwelling-house inhabited by Mr.
Peggotty. All the still-life of that beautifully clean and tidy interior
we had revealed to us again, as of old: lockers, boxes, table, Dutch
clock, chest of drawers--even tea-tray, only that we failed to hear
anything said about the painting on the tea-tray, representing "a lady
with a parasol, taking a walk with a military-looking child, who was
trundling a hoop." The necessities of condensation in the same way
restricted the definition of Mr. Peggotty's occupation in the Reading,
to the simple mention of the fact that he dealt in lobsters, crabs, and
craw-fish, without any explanation at all as to those creatures being
heaped together in a little wooden out-house "in a state of wonderful
conglomeration with one another, and nev