removed altogether. The pudding at that shop was
made of currants, and was rather a special
pudding, but was dear, two pennyworth not being
larger than a pennyworth of more ordinary pudding.
A good shop for the latter was in the
Strand,--somewhere in that part which has been
rebuilt since. It was a stout pale pudding, heavy
and flabby, and with great flat raisins in it,
stuck in whole at wide distances apart. It came up
hot at about my time every day, and many a day did
I dine off it."

[Illustration: Young Dickens at the Blacking Warehouse.]

Nearly opposite the Golden Cross Hotel is Craven Street, where (says Mr.
Allbut), at No. 39, Mr. Brownlow in _Oliver Twist_ resided after
removing from Pentonville, and where the villain Monks was confronted,
and made a full confession of his guilt.

"Ruminating on the strange mutability of human affairs," after the
manner of Mr. Pickwick, we call to mind, on the same side of the way,
Hungerford Stairs, Market, and Bridge, all well remembered in the days
of our youth, but now swept away to make room for the commodious railway
terminus at Charing Cross. Here poor David Copperfield "served as a
labouring hind," and acquired his grim experience with poverty in
Murdstone and Grinby's (_alias_ Lamert's) Blacking Warehouse. Hungerford
Suspension Bridge many years ago was removed to Clifton, and we never
pass by it on the Great Western line without recalling recollections of
poor David's sorrows.

Next in order comes Buckingham Street, at the end house of which, on the
east side (No. 15), lived Mrs. Crupp, who let apartments to David
Copperfield in happier days. Here he had his "first dissipation," and
entertained Steerforth and his two friends, Mrs. Crupp imposing on him
frightfully as regards the dinner; "the handy young man" and the "young
gal" being equally troublesome as regards the waiting. The description
of "my set of chambers" in _David Copperfield_ seems to point to the
possibility of Dickens having resided here, but there is no evidence to
prove it. At Osborn's Hotel, now the Adelphi, in John Street, Mr. Wardle
and his daughter Emily stayed on their visit to London, after Mr.
Pickwick was released from the Fleet Prison.

Durham Street, a little further to the right, leads to the "dark
arches," which had attractions for David Copperfield, who "was fond of
wander