CKENS,

I shall be most happy to remember not to forget the 10th
April, and, let me express a _dis_interested wish, that
having completed and established one "Shop"[J] in an
"extensive line of business," you will go on increasing and
multiplying such like establishments in number and
prosperity till you become a Dick Whittington of a merchant,
with pockets distended to most Brobdignag dimensions.

Believe me,

Yours very truly,

HABLOT K. BROWNE.

Charles Dickens, Esq.

I return you the Riots with many thanks.

[Illustration]

_Sunday Morning._

MY DEAR DICKENS,

Will you give me some notion of the sort of design you wish
for the frontispiece to second vol. of _Clock_?[K]
Cattermole being put _hors de combat_--Chapman with a
careworn face (if you can picture that) brings me the block
at the eleventh hour, and requires it finished by Wednesday.
Now as I have two others to complete in the
meantime--something nice and _light_ would be best adapted
to my _palette_, and prevent an excess of perspiration in
the relays of wood-cutters. You shall have the others to
criticise on Tuesday.

Yours very truly,

HABLOT K. BROWNE.

Charles Dickens, Esq.

How are Mrs. Dickens and the "Infant?"

FOOTNOTES:

[A] Pronounced _Hab-lo_, after a Monsieur Hablot, a captain in the
French army, and a friend of the family.

[B] It was Buss who illustrated Mrs. Trollope's Serial Story, _The Widow
Married_, which was published in _The New Monthly Magazine_, 1840.

[C] See _Dombey and Son_, Vol. I, p. 113--"Doctor Blimber's Young
Gentlemen."

[D] Leigh Hunt.

[E] Mr. R. Young, who also undertook the precarious task of "biting in"
his plates.

[F] Water-colour white.

[G] Publishers frequently availed themselves of his facile pencil, and
would instruct him to furnish illustrations for books already in the
press, for which he was often inadequately paid.

[H] The Sculptor, and an old coadjutor on _Once a Week_. He is also the
author of _A Salad of Stray Leaves_ now in the press, which contains a
frontispiece by "Phiz," the last design from his pencil. This he
executed under some difficulties, for owing to an attack of rheumatism
in his hands, the design--teeming with fancy--had to be made on a large
scale, and afterwards reduced by the process of photography.

[I] A favouri