lots of
interesting things here. Come into what I call my study--although,"
continued he, with a laugh, "I am afraid I don't get through much study.
I am too busy to write, you know," he rambled on in a voice and manner
that was amusingly reminiscent of "Walker London." So into the study we
went, encountering on our way a big Australian black bird, which was
wandering about the house in an aimless and irresponsible fashion,
crooning to itself memories of its Antipodean home. Before we entered
the study, Mr. Toole drew my attention to a beautiful model of the
picturesque old Maypole Inn in "Barnaby Rudge," with a number of the
characters in the novel wandering about in front of the house. There was
Barnaby Rudge himself, there was his supernaturally wicked old raven;
old Joe Willet, the landlord, stood smoking in his shirt-sleeves, while
pretty Dolly Varden herself was tripping down to town. "There," said my
host, "isn't that clever? It stood for many years at the 'Hen and
Chickens' in Birmingham, and Dickens used to admire it very much when he
used to visit that town on his reading tours." Two little Japanese
figures, reposing upon the top of the case which contained this model,
looked down upon Mr. Toole as he stood beneath them. He set their arms
and heads moving, observing, as he did so, "Often, when I am studying a
part, I set those little figures going, they do for the public
applauding." In the study itself, the walls were thickly hung with
pictorial reminiscences--chiefly of the theatrical past. There were
portraits of Macready in character, with his small, neat writing
beneath; there was Charles Matthews in some character as a boy, and a
portrait of old John Reeve, a celebrated comedian in his day; there was
Mr. Toole as _Paw Clawdian_; there was Liston as _Paul Pry_; there were
any amount of portraits of his dear old friend Henry Irving. I was much
interested in an old theatrical bill of 1813 announcing Edmund Kean's
appearance as _Hamlet_. And then Mr. Toole brought in a large framed
letter which hung up in the hall. It was a letter from Thackeray to
Charles Matthews when he was lessee of Covent Garden Theatre, and it was
written on the occasion of the Queen's first state visit to Covent
Garden after her marriage in 1840. A pen and ink sketch by Thackeray
adorned a large half of the page, in which he had represented Her
Majesty with an enormous crown upon her head, and two or three queer
sceptres in her hand,