t a soul was hurt. In the
uproar, some moon-calf rescued a porter pot, six feet high (out of which
the clown had been drinking when the accident happened), and stood it on
the cushion of the lowest proscenium box, P.S., beside a lady and
gentleman, who were dreadfully ashamed of it. The moment the house knew
that nobody was injured, they directed their whole attention to this
gigantic porter pot in its genteel position (the lady and gentleman
trying to hide behind it), and roared with laughter. When a modest
footman came from behind the curtain to clear it, and took it up in his
arms like a Brobdingnagian baby, we all laughed more than ever we had
laughed in our lives. I don't know why.

We have had a fire here, but our people put it out before the
parish-engine arrived, like a drivelling perambulator, with _the beadle
in it_, like an imbecile baby. Popular opinion, disappointed in the fire
having been put out, snowballed the beadle. God bless it!

Over the way at the Lyceum, there is a very fair Christmas piece, with
one or two uncommonly well-done nigger songs--one remarkably gay and
mad, done in the finale to a scene. Also a very nice transformation,
though I don't know what it means.

The poor actors waylay me in Bow Street, to represent their necessities;
and I often see one cut down a court when he beholds me coming, cut
round Drury Lane to face me, and come up towards me near this door in
the freshest and most accidental way, as if I was the last person he
expected to see on the surface of this globe. The other day, there thus
appeared before me (simultaneously with a scent of rum in the air) one
aged and greasy man, with a pair of pumps under his arm. He said he
thought if he could get down to somewhere (I think it was Newcastle), he
would get "taken on" as Pantaloon, the existing Pantaloon being "a
stick, sir--a mere muff." I observed that I was sorry times were so bad
with him. "Mr. Dickens, you know our profession, sir--no one knows it
better, sir--there is no right feeling in it. I was Harlequin on your
own circuit, sir, for five-and-thirty years, and was displaced by a boy,
sir!--a boy!"

So no more at present, except love to Mrs. Watson and Bedgey Prig and
all, from my dear Mary.

Your ever affectionate
JOE.

P.S.--DON'T I pine neither?

P.P.S.--I did my best to arouse Forster's worst fee