ht with him a friend, who was presented to
my mother, and joined in the exercise of skill. He was like a
gentleman in his appearance and manners, with no special peculiarity
but remarkably white and handsome hands and extraordinary dexterity,
or luck, in pigeon-shooting. Captain Clayton was this individual's
name, and his visit, never repeated to my mother's house, was
remembered as rather an agreeable event. Soon after this several
outrages were committed on the high-road which passed through
Finchley; and Moody, the celebrated comic actor, who lived in that
direction, was stopped one evening, as he was driving himself into
town, by a mounted gentleman, who, addressing him politely by name,
demanded his watch and purse, which Moody surrendered, under the
influence of "the better part of valor." Having done so, however, he
was obliged to request his "very genteel" thief to give him enough
money to pay his turnpike on his way into town, where he was going
to act, whereupon the "gentleman of the road" returned him
half-a-crown, and bade him a polite "Good-evening." Some time after
this, news was brought into Covent Garden, at rehearsal one morning,
that a man arrested for highway robbery was at the Bow Street Police
Office, immediately opposite the theatre. Several of the _corps
dramatique_ ran across the street to that famous vestibule of the
Temple of Themis; among others, Mr. Moody and Vincent de Camp. The
latter immediately recognized my mother's white-handed,
gentleman-like pigeon-shooter, and Moody his obliging MacHeath of
the Finchley Common highway. "Halloa! my fine fellow," said the
actor to the thief, "is that you? Well, perhaps as you _are_ here,
you won't object to return me my watch, for which I have a
particular value, and which won't be of any great use to you now, I
suppose." "Lord love ye, Mr. Moody," replied _Captain Clayton_, with
a pleasant smile, "I thought you were come to pay me the half crown
I lent you."]

HARLEY STREET, Friday, April 22nd, 1842.
MY DEAR T----,

_I_ am not in the least indifferent to the advent of L100 sterling....

I am amused with your description of Dickens, because it tallies so
completely with the first impression he made upon me the only time I
ever met him before he went to America.... I admire and love the man
exceedin