aged. There
were ingenious "Crambos," such as a cat gazing with well-assumed surprise
at her face reflected in one of Day and Martin's well-polished shoes.
These things made a deep impression on the boy, who saw their grotesque
side. They were oddly bound up with his early impressions and sorrows.

Hence, we find in the course of "Pickwick," a few allusions to these
blacking rivals and their ways, which might seem mysterious and uncalled
for to those not in the secret, but which for himself had the highest
significance. When Sam is first introduced at the "White Hart," he is in
the very act of cleaning boots, and we have almost an essay on the
various species of boots and polishing. We are told minutely that he was
engaged in "brushing the dirt off a pair of boots . . . " There were two
rows before him, one cleaned, the other dirty. "There were _eleven_
pair, and one shoe, as belongs to No. 6 with the wooden leg." "The
eleven boots is to be called at half-past eight (an odd consensus in
eleven persons), and the shoe at nine." He set to work upon a top-boot.

The landlady then made her appearance in the opposite gallery and flung
down a pair of shoes to be cleaned for No. 5, first floor. There is a
dramatic action in these calls from the different galleries, which shows
that Boz had the stage before him. Sam then chalked the number on the
sole. When he found that it was for people of consequence in a private
room that the articles were required, he set to work with a will and
produced a polish "that would have struck envy to the soul of _the
amiable Mr. Warren_, _for they used Day and Martin's at the_ '_White
Hart_.'" Here will be noted the compliment to his old employer, though
it was of a conventional sort.

With this very number "Pickwick" was destined to leap into its amazing
popularity, and the advertisement must have been a valuable one. There
may have been another reason, for there was to be a "Pickwick
advertiser," which was patronised by the firms, and it may have been
stipulated as a condition that the author was to give them this "lift."
Another patron was Rowland, whose real name was Rouland, of "Maccassar
oil" and "Kalydor" celebrity. We have a relic of one of these forgotten
nostrums in the familiar "Anti-maccassar" known to every good housewife.
To Rowland or Rouland he later made an allusion in the text.

This method of calling attention to the merits of wares was a French
one--a sort of