ing about the Adelphi, because it was a mysterious place with
those dark arches." He says:--"I see myself emerging one evening from
out of these arches, on a little public-house, close to the river, with
a space before it, where some coal-heavers were dancing." Nearly
opposite is the Adelphi Theatre, notable as having been the stage
whereon most of the dramas founded on Dickens's works were first
produced, from _Nicholas Nickleby_ in 1838, in which Mrs. Keeley, John
Webster, and O. Smith took part, down to 1867, when _No Thoroughfare_
was performed, "the only story," says Mr. Forster, "Dickens himself ever
helped to dramatize," and which was rendered with such fine effect by
Fechter, Benjamin Webster, Mrs. Alfred Mellon, and other important
actors. He certainly assisted in Madame Celeste's production of _A Tale
of Two Cities_, even if he had no actual part in the writing of the
piece.

Mr. Allbut thinks that the residence of Miss La Creevy, the good-natured
miniature painter (whose prototype was Miss Barrow, Dickens's aunt on
his mother's side) in _Nicholas Nickleby_, was probably at No. 111,
Strand. It was "a private door about half-way down that crowded
thoroughfare."

We proceed onwards, passing Wellington Street North, where at No. 16,
the office of the famous _Household Words_ formerly stood; _All the Year
Round_, its successor, conducted by Mr. Charles Dickens, the novelist's
eldest son, now being at No. 26 in the same street.

A little further on, on the same side of the way, and almost facing
Somerset House, at No. 332, was the office of the once celebrated
_Morning Chronicle_, on the staff of which Dickens in early life worked
as a reporter. The _Chronicle_ was a great power in its day, when Mr.
John Black ("Dear old Black!" Dickens calls him, "my first hearty
out-and-out appreciator, . . . with never-forgotten compliments . . .
coming in the broadest of Scotch from the broadest of hearts I ever
knew,") was editor, and Mr. J. Campbell, afterwards Lord Chief-Justice
Campbell, its chief literary critic. The _Chronicle_ died in 1862.

The west corner of Arundel Street (No. 186, Strand, where now stand the
extensive premises of Messrs. W. H. Smith and Son) was formerly the
office of Messrs. Chapman and Hall, the publishers of almost all the
original works of Charles Dickens. After 1850 the firm removed to 193,
Piccadilly, their present house being at 11, Henrietta Street, Covent
Garden. They own the copyright,