1838.

C. D. to

J. F.

the Jew.

wrote: 'Hard at work still. Nancy is no more. I showed LONDON: 'what I have done to Kate last night, who was in an "unspeakable "state:" from which and my own impres'sion I augur well. When I have sent Sikes to the devil, Nancy, 'I must have yours.' 'No, no,' he wrote, in the following Sikes, and month: 'don't, don't let us ride till to-morrow, not having 'yet disposed of the Jew, who is such an out and outer 'that I don't know what to make of him.' No small difficulty to an inventor, where the creatures of his invention are found to be as real as himself; but this also was mastered; and then there remained but the closing quiet chapter to tell the fortunes of those who had figured in the tale. To this he summoned me in the first week of September, replying to a request of mine that he'd give me a call that day. Come and give me a call, and let us have "a bit o' talk" before we have a bit o' som'at 'else. My missis is going out to dinner, and I ought to go, but I have got a bad cold. So do you come, and sit 'here, and read, or work, or do something, while I write 'the LAST chapter of Oliver, which will be arter a lamb 'chop.' How well I remember that evening! and our talk

of what should be the fate of Charley Bates, on behalf of whom (as indeed for the Dodger too) Talfourd had pleaded as earnestly in mitigation of judgment as ever at the bar for any client he had most respected.

C D. to

J. F.

The last chapter.

illustra

The publication had been announced for October, but Cruikshank the third-volume-illustrations intercepted it a little. This tions. part of the story, as we have seen, had been written in anticipation of the magazine, and the designs for it, having to

be executed 'in a lump,' were necessarily done somewhat