ow he is disposed to be talked to; and I am told he is very
comfortable indeed. He's as brown as a berry, and they _do_ say is a
small fortune to the innkeeper who sells beer and cold punch. But this
is mere rumour. Sometimes he goes up to London (eighty miles or so
away), and then I'm told there is a sound in Lincoln's Inn Fields at
night, as of men laughing, together with a clinking of knives and forks,
and wine-glasses."

And further in a letter to another correspondent recently made public:--

"When you come to London, to assist at Miss Liston's sacrifice, don't
forget to remind your uncle of our Broadstairs engagement to which I
hold you bound. A good sea--fresh breezes--fine sands--and pleasant
walks--with all manner of fishing-boats, lighthouses, piers,
bathing-machines, are its only attractions, but it's one of the freshest
little places in the world, consequently the proper place for you."

In the year 1851, in a letter dated 8th September, addressed to Mr.
Henry Austin, he thus alludes to a wreck which took place at
Broadstairs:--

"A great to-do here. A steamer lost on the Goodwins yesterday, and our
men bringing in no end of dead cattle and sheep. I stood supper for them
last night, to the unbounded gratification of Broadstairs. They came in
from the wreck very wet and tired, and very much disconcerted by the
nature of their prize--which, I suppose after all, will have to be
recommitted to the sea, when the hides and tallow are secured. One
lean-faced boatman murmured, when they were all ruminating over the
bodies as they lay on the pier: 'Couldn't sassages be made on it?' but
retired in confusion shortly afterwards, overwhelmed by the execrations
of the bystanders."

Dickens got tired of Broadstairs in 1847, for reasons given in the
following letter to Forster, though he did not forsake it till some
years after:--

"Vagrant music is getting to that height here, and is so impossible to
be escaped from, that I fear Broadstairs and I must part company in time
to come. Unless it pours of rain, I cannot write half an hour without
the most excruciating organs, fiddles, bells, or glee singers. There is
a violin of the most torturing kind under the window now (time, ten in
the morning), and an Italian box of music on the steps--both in full
blast."

By good luck we fall in with an "old salt," formerly one of the boatmen
of _Our English Watering Place_ who are therein immortalized by much
kindly mention, wi