his Claypole and Nancy, were all
as real and as individual as if the parts had been sustained by separate
performers, and each one a creature of genius. Who that saw it could
forget the clod-pated glutton, with the huge imaginary sandwich and the
great clasp knife in his hands, bolting the bulging morsel in the midst
of the torrent of Fagin's instructions, and complaining "that a man got
no time to eat his victuals in that house." Concerning the scene between
Sykes and Nancy, Charles Dickens the younger told me a curious story, at
the time when I was writing for him on _All the Year Round_. They were
living at Gad's Hill, and it was the novelist's practice to rehearse in
a grove at the bottom of a big field behind the house. Nobody knew of
this practice until one day the younger Charles heard sounds of violent
threatening in a gruff, manly voice, and shrill calls of appeal rising
in answer, and thinking that murder was being done, he unfastened a
great household mastiff and raced along the field to find the tragedy of
Sykes and Nancy in full swing.

I am afraid that like most newly emancipated lads I used my freedom
in many foolish ways; but most of them were harmless, and some of my
truancies from work were even useful to me. Do what I would, I could not
find the strength of will to go and pick up types in a frowsy printing
office when the picture-gazing fit was on me; and many a time I shirked
my duties for the vicious pleasure of a long day's intercourse with
Turner in the National Gallery, or for a lingering stroll amongst
the marbles at the Museum. One never-to-be forgotten day, my old
name-father, David Christie, lent me a reader's ticket, and I found
myself for the first time in that central citadel of books, the Museum
Library. I went in gaily, with a heart full of ardour; but as I looked
about me my spirits fell to zero. I knew that what I saw in the storied
shelves which run round the walls, under the big glass dome, made but
a little part of the vast collection stored away below and around them;
and the impossibility of making even a surface acquaintance with that
which lay in sight came strongly home to me.

CHAPTER V

I Enlist--St George's Barracks--The Recruits--From Bristol
to Cork--Sergeants--The Bounty and the Free Kit--Life in the
Army--My Discharge--A Sweet Revenge.

I am not very good at dates, but there are a few which I can recall with
unfailing accuracy. On 25th May 1865,