ay, we hold a
regular levee or drawing-room, where I shake hands on an average with
five or six hundred people. . . Think of two hours of this every day,
and the people coming by hundreds, all fresh, and piping hot, and full of
questions, when we are literally exhausted and can hardly stand."

One of the few entirely satisfactory occurrences was the gift of a dog
called Boz, who was re-named Mr Snittle Timbery after a character in
_Nicholas Nickleby_. He lived to be very old and went everywhere with
his master (i., p. 70, _note_).

At Niagara he got some peace, which was much needed because of "the
incessant persecutions of the people, by land and water, on stage-coach,
railway car, and steamer, which exceeds anything you can picture to
yourself by the utmost stretch of your imagination" (i., p. 71).

And on the copyright scandal he writes in the same letter: "Is it not a
horrible thing that scoundrel book-sellers should grow rich here from
publishing books, the authors of which do not reap one farthing from
their issue by scores of thousands; and that every vile blackguard, and
detestable newspaper, so filthy and bestial that no honest man would
admit one into his house for a scullery door-mat, should be able to
publish these same writings, side by side, cheek by jowl, with the
coarsest and most obscene companions?" Not that he had much hope of
reform, but he could not help crying, "_Stop_, _thief_!"

On his return he wrote to Longman: "I have fought the fight across the
Atlantic with the utmost energy I could command; have never been turned
aside by any consideration for an instant; am fresher for the fray than
ever; will battle it to death, and die game to the last." He was soon
entangled in dinners; of his trials at a hospital dinner he wrote of
listening to speeches and sentiments such "as any moderately intelligent
dustman" would have blushed to have thought of. "Sleek, slobbering,
bow-paunched, over-fed, apoplectic, snorting cattle, and the auditory
leaping up in their delight."

In November 1843, he speaks of an opera he did in "damnable good nature
for Hullah," who wrote "some very pretty music to it." He also did a
farce "as a sort of practical joke." "It was funny--adapted from one of
the published sketches called the 'Great Winglebury Duel,' and was
published by Chapman and Hall." He devoutly wished these productions
forgotten.

In a letter to Macready of 3rd January 1844, he speaks of sending