going to fight a duel, saying to his friend, "Do _not_ give
information to the police." But I was inhospitably inflexible. These
little touches were Forster all over. One would have given anything to
let him have his two or three glasses, but one had to be cruel to be
kind. Old Sam Johnson was of the same pattern, and could not resist a
dinner-party, even when in serious plight. He certainly precipitated
his death by his greed.

I well recall the confusion and grief of one morning in July, 1870,
when opening the _Times_ I read in large capitals, DEATH OF CHARLES
DICKENS. It must have brought a shock more or less to every reader.
Nothing was less expected, for we had not at that time the recurring
evening editions, treading on each other's heels, to keep us posted up
every hour in every event of the day.

I am tempted here to copy from an old diary the impressions of that
painful time. The words were written on the evening of the funeral at
6 p.m.: "Died, dear Charles Dickens. I think at this moment of his
bright genial manner, so cordial and hearty, of the delightful days at
Belfast--on the Reading Tours--The Trains--the Evenings at the
Hotel--his lying on the sofa listening to my stories and laughing in
his joyous way. I think, too, of the last time that I saw him, which
was at his office in Wellington Street, whither I went to ask him to
come to some theatricals that we were getting up. We talked them over,
and then he began to bewail so sadly, the burden of 'going out' to
dinner parties. He said that he would like to come, but that he could
not promise. However, he might come late in the night if he could get
away from other places. I see his figure now before me, standing at
the table, the small delicate-formed shoulders. Then bringing me into
another room to show me one of the gigantic golden yellow _All the
Year Round_ placards, presently to be displayed on every wall and
hoarding of the kingdom. This was the announcement of a new story I
had written for his paper, which he had dubbed 'The Doctor's Mixture,'
but of which, alas! he was destined never to revise the proofs. It
had been just hung up 'to try the effect,' and was fresh from the
printers."

I look back to another of Forster's visits to Dublin when he came in
quest of materials for his _Life of Swift_. He was in the gayest and
best of his humours, and behaved much as the redoubtable Doctor
Johnson did on his visit to Edinburgh. I see him seated in the