nd remained precisely
the same from the time he adopted it after the Pickwick period until his
death. That which he used in youth was less striking, but none the less
self-conscious.

After the Pickwick period Dickens adopted the use of blue paper and blue
ink. Letters in black ink, if undated, may safely be attributed to the
earlier period.

His note paper was in later years of the regulation note size. The
address, Gads' Hill Place, Higham by Rochester, Kent, was in embossed
black old English letter. His paper was hand-made, and of good quality.
The envelopes were blue, of the same quality paper, but without crest,
monogram or distinctive mark. Dickens' vanity expressed itself in the
habit of franking envelopes, _i.e._, by writing his name in the
left-hand bottom corner, after the fashion in vogue when Peers and
M.P.'s enjoyed the privilege of free postage.

His letters of the pre-envelope period--before 1842--were on quarto
sheets. These are exceedingly rare.

There is one feature about autographic forgery which may always be
relied upon to assist greatly in the work of detection. As a general
rule there is sufficient matter in a literary forgery to supply the
necessary material for comparison. It must of necessity be a copy, if
not of an existing original, at least of the general style. The process
of imitation must be slow and cautious, and the signs remain in shaky,
broken lines, and a ruggedness entirely absent from the writing of the
real author, which is fluent and free. Even the shakiness of age
noticeable in a few distinguished handwritings is different to the
shakiness of the forger's uncertainty.

CHAPTER XV.

FORGED SIGNATURES.

The most difficult phase of the art of the handwriting expert consists
in the detection of forgery in signatures. It will be obvious to the
student who has followed the instructions and illustrations already
given that this difficulty is brought about by two principal causes:
first, by the paucity of material for comparison; secondly, because of
the very important fact that a forgery must, by its nature, be a good
and close copy of an original. This means that the unconscious tricks
and irregularities that often abound in a long letter, written in a more
or less disguised hand, are almost entirely absent from a forged
signature. It follows, therefore, that the student must have some other
clues and rules to guide him, for he cannot rely upon the chance of a
slip o