real name of this club is the United Service, but I have no doubt he
thought it was a high-life-below-stairs kind of resort, and that this
gentleman was a retired butler or superannuated footman.

There's the knock, and the Great Western sails, or steams rather,
to-morrow. Write soon again, dear Felton, and ever believe me. . . .

Your affectionate friend.

P.S.--All good angels prosper Dr. Howe! He, at least, will not like me
the less, I hope, for what I shall say of Laura.

[Sidenote: The same.]

1, DEVONSHIRE TERRACE, YORK GATE, REGENT'S PARK,
LONDON, _31st December, 1842._

MY DEAR FELTON,

Many and many happy New Years to you and yours! As many happy children
as may be quite convenient (no more!), and as many happy meetings
between them and our children, and between you and us, as the kind fates
in their utmost kindness shall favourably decree!

The American book (to begin with that) has been a most complete and
thorough-going success. Four large editions have now been sold _and paid
for_, and it has won golden opinions from all sorts of men, except our
friend in F----, who is a miserable creature; a disappointed man in
great poverty, to whom I have ever been most kind and considerate (I
need scarcely say that); and another friend in B----, no less a person
than an illustrious gentleman named ----, who wrote a story called ----.
They have done no harm, and have fallen short of their mark, which, of
course, was to annoy me. Now I am perfectly free from any diseased
curiosity in such respects, and whenever I hear of a notice of this
kind, I never read it; whereby I always conceive (don't you?) that I get
the victory. With regard to your slave-owners, they may cry, till they
are as black in the face as their own slaves, that Dickens lies. Dickens
does not write for their satisfaction, and Dickens will not explain for
their comfort. Dickens has the name and date of every newspaper in
which every one of those advertisements appeared, as they know perfectly
well; but Dickens does not choose to give them, and will not at any time
between this and the day of judgment. . . .

I have been hard at work on my new book, of which the first number has
just appeared. The Paul Joneses who pursue happiness and profit at other
men's cost will no doubt enable you to read it, almost as soon as you
receive this. I hope you will l