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specting the lining of his hat preparatory to putting it

on again.

"What! The Chancery prisoner!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick.

"He won't be a Chancery prisoner wery long, sir,' replied Roker, turning his hat round, so as to get the maker's name right-side upwards, as he looked into it.

"You make my blood run cold,' said Mr. Pickwick. 'What do you mean ?'

"He's been consumptive for a long time past,' said Mr. Roker, and he's taken wery bad in the breath tonight. The doctor said, six months ago, that nothing but change of air could save him.'

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"Great Heaven!' exclaimed Mr. Pickwick: has this man been slowly murdered by the law for six months?'

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"I don't know about that,' replied Roker, weighing the hat by the brims in both hands. I suppose he'd have been took the same, wherever he was. He went into the infirmary this morning: the doctor says his strength is to be kept up as much as possible; and the warden's sent him wine and broth and that, from his own house. It's not the warden's fault, you know, sir.' "Of course not,' replied Mr. Pickwick hastily.

“I'm afraid, however,' said Roker, shaking his head, 'that it's all up with him. I offered Neddy two sixpenn'orths to one upon it just now; but he wouldn't take it, and quite right. Thankee, sir. Good-night, sir.'

666 'Stay,' said Mr. Pickwick earnestly.

this infirmary?'

'Where is

"Just over where you slept, sir,' replied Roker. 'I'll show you, if you like to come.' Mr. Pickwick snatched up his hat without speaking, and followed at once.

"The turnkey led the way in silence; and, gently raising the latch of the room-door, motioned Mr. Pickwick to enter. It was a large, bare, desolate room, with a number of stump bedsteads made of iron, on one of which lay stretched the shadow of a man, -wan, pale, and ghastly. His breathing was hard and thick, and he moaned painfully as it came and went. At the bedside sat a short old man in a cobbler's apron, who, by the aid of a pair of horn spectacles, was reading from the Bible aloud. It was the fortunate legatee.

“The sick man laid his hand upon his attendant's arm, and motioned him to stop. He closed the book, and laid it on the bed.

"Open the window,' said the sick man.

"He did so. The noise of carriages and carts, the rattle of wheels, the cries of men and boys, all the busy sounds of a mighty multitude instinct with life and occupation, blended into one deep murmur, floated into the Above the hoarse, loud hum, arose, from time to time, a boisterous laugh; or a scrap of some jingling song, shouted forth by one of the giddy crowd, would strike upon the ear for an instant, and then be lost amidst the roar of voices and the tramp of footsteps,

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the breaking of the billows of the restless sea of life, that rolled heavily on, without. Melancholy sounds to a quiet listener, at any time: how melancholy to the watcher by the bed of death!

"There's no air here,' said the sick man faintly. The place pollutes it. It was fresh round about, when I walked there, years ago; but it grows hot and heavy in passing these walls. I cannot breathe it.'

"We have breathed it together for a long time,' said the old man. Come, come.'

"There was a short silence, during which the two spectators approached the bed. The sick man drew a hand of his old fellow-prisoner towards him, and, pressing it affectionately between his own, retained it in his grasp.

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"I hope,' he gasped after a while, so faintly that they bent their ears close over the bed to catch the halfformed sounds his pale lips gave vent to, I hope my merciful Judge will bear in mind my heavy punishment on earth. Twenty years, my friend, twenty years in this hideous grave! My heart broke when my child died, and I could not even kiss him in his little coffin. My loneliness since then, in all this noise and riot, has been very dreadful. May God forgive me! He has seen my solitary, lingering death.'

"He folded his hands, and, murmuring something more they could not hear, fell into a sleep,- only a sleep at first, for they saw him smile.

"They whispered together for a little time; and the turnkey, stooping over the pillow, drew hastily back. 'He has got his discharge!' said the man.

"He had. But he had grown so like death in life, that they knew not when he died."

CHAPTER IV.

FAMOUS.

The Novelist.-E. P. Whipple's Testimony.-Oliver Twist.-Asking for More.Pauperism in England. - Nancy Sykes.-Jew Fagin.

"Thou hast a charmed cup, O Fame!

A draught that mantles high,

And seems to lift this earthly frame

Above mortality."

MRS. HEMANS.

"I have made thee a great name, like unto the name of the great men that are in the earth"-2 Sam. vii. 9.

HE brilliant "Pickwick Papers" prepared the way for yet greater success. Leading London publishers made proposals at once to the popular author. He accepted the editorship of Mr. Bentley's "Miscellany," and in the second number (February, 1837) appeared the first instalment of "Oliver Twist." This became at once a favorite story, and Mr. Dickens took rank at once among novelists. "Oliver Twist" was "admirably illustrated by George Cruikshank, and is still regarded as one of the author's most striking novels." It talked in story fashion of the cruelties and abuses that prevailed too largely in certain public institutions, and was hap

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