s worth his while to practice using his pen as a writer of fiction.

After that Charles Dickens, although he continued working as reporter,
spent his spare hours in writing comic accounts of the various scenes of
London life which he knew so well. These were published as fast as they
were written, over the pen name of "Boz." He was paid almost nothing for
them, but he persevered, prompted by his inborn love of writing and the
fun he had in describing curious types of people.

Then one day a young man who had just recently become a publisher called
at Charles's lodgings and told him that he was planning to publish a
monthly paper in order to sell certain pictures by Robert Seymour, an
artist who had just finished some sporting plates for a book called "The
Squib Annual." Seymour had drawn most of the pictures for this new
venture, and they were almost all of a cockney sporting type. Now
Charles was asked if he would write something to go with the pictures.

Some one suggested that he should tell the adventures of a Nimrod Club,
the members of which should go out into the country on fishing and
hunting expeditions which would suit the drawings, but this did not
appeal to the young writer, as he knew very little about these country
sports, and was much more interested in describing curious people. He
asked for a day or two's time to think the matter over, and then finally
sent the publishers the first copy of what he chose to call the
"Pickwick Papers."

According to a common custom of the time, the author was allowed to
write a story as it was needed by the printer, so that the first numbers
of the "Pickwick Papers" appeared while Charles was still working on the
next ones. This often put him to great inconvenience, as he sometimes
found it hard to invent new adventures to fit Seymour's pictures and yet
had to have the story written by a certain time.

He wrote to a friend one night, "I have at this moment got Pickwick and
his friends on the Rochester coach, and they are going on swimmingly, in
company with a very different character from any I have yet described"
(Alfred Jingle), "who I flatter myself will make a decided hit. I want
to get them from the ball to the inn before I go to bed; and I think
that will take till one or two o'clock at the earliest. The publishers
will be here in the morning, so you will readily suppose I have no
alternative but to stick to my desk."

The public was slow in appreciating the hu