ork Ledger" paid him ten thousand
dollars for one story which he wrote in a fortnight. His collected works
fill forty volumes. There are more of Dickens' books sold every year now
than in any year in which he lived. There were more of Dickens' books
sold last year than any previous year.

"I am glad that the public buy his books," said Macready; "for if they
did not he would take to the stage and eclipse us all."

"Not So Bad As We Seem," by Bulwer-Lytton, was played at Devonshire House
in the presence of the Queen, Dickens taking the principal part. He gave
theatrical performances in London, Liverpool and Manchester, for the
benefit of Leigh Hunt, Sheridan Knowles and various other needy authors
and actors. He wrote a dozen plays, and twice as many more have been
constructed from his plots.

He gave public readings through England, Scotland and Ireland, where the
people fought for seats. The average receipts for these entertainments
were eight hundred dollars per night.

In Eighteen Hundred Sixty-three, he made a six months' tour of the United
States, giving a series of readings. The prices of admission were placed
at extravagant figures, but the box-office was always besieged until the
ticket-seller put out his lights and hung out a sign: "The standing-room
is all taken."

The gross receipts of these readings were two hundred twenty-nine
thousand dollars; the expenses thirty-nine thousand dollars; net profit,
one hundred ninety thousand dollars.

Charles Dickens died of brain-rupture in Eighteen Hundred Seventy, aged
fifty-eight. His dust rests in Westminster Abbey.

* * * * *

"To know the London of Dickens is a liberal education,"
once said James T. Fields, who was affectionately referred to by Charles
Dickens as "Massachusetts Jemmy." And I am aware of no better way to
become acquainted with the greatest city in the world than to follow the
winding footsteps of the author of "David Copperfield."

Beginning his London life when ten years of age, he shifted from one
lodging to another, zigzag, tacking back and forth from place to place,
but all the time making head, and finally dwelling in palaces of which
nobility might be proud. It took him forty-eight years to travel from the
squalor of Camden Town to Poet's Corner in Westminster Abbey.

He lodged first in Bayham Street. "A washerwoman lived next door, and a
Bow Street officer over the way." It was a shabby district, chose