CHARLES DICKENS.

Tuapeka Times, Volume 21, Issue 216, 21 March 1872, Page 7

CHARLES DICKENS.

(Extracts from his life, by John Foster.)

An incident of his childhood, which he Wove into the story of " David Copporfield, " is thus told by himself: — " I was such a little fellow, with my poor white hat, little jacket and corduroy trousers that frequently, when I went into the bar of a strange publichouse for a glass of ale or porter to wash down the saveloy and the loaf I had eaten in the street, they didn't like to give it me. I remember, one evening (I had been somewhere for my father, aud was going back to the borough over Westminster Bridge), that I went into a public-house in Parliament street — which is still there, though altered — at the corner of the short street leading into Caunon Row, and said to the landlord behind the bar : "What is your best — the very best — ale, a glass?" For the occasion was a festive one, for some reason ; I forget why. It may have been my birthday, or somebody else's. " Two-pence, " says he ' Then, ' says I, ' justdraw me a glass of that, if you please, with a good, head to it. ' The landlord looked at me in return, over the bar, from head to to foot, with a strange smile on his face, and instead of drawing the beer, looked round the screen and said something to his wife, who came out from behind it, with her work in her hand, and joined him in surveying me. Here we stand, all three, before me now, in tny study iv Devonshire Terrace. The landlord, in his shirt sleeves, leaning against the bar window frame; his wife, looking over the little half-d6or • and I in some confusion, looking up at them from outside the partition. They asked me a good many questions, as what my name was, how old I was, where I lived, how I . was employed, etcr, etc. To all of which, that I might commit nobody, I invented appropriate answers. They served me with the ale, though I Buspeet it was' not the strongest on the premises; and the landlord's wife, opening the little half-door and bending down, gave me a kiss that was half admiring and half compassionate, but all womanly and good, I am sure."