that Captain Hewett, of the Britannia steamship (my ship), has a small parcel for Professor Felton of Cambridge; and in that parcel you will find a Christmas Carol in prose; being a short story of Christmas by Charles Dickens.  Over which Christmas Carol Charles Dickens wept and laughed and wept again, and excited himself in a most extraordinary manner in the composition; and thinking whereof he walked about the black streets of London, fifteen and twenty miles, many a night when all the sober folks had gone to bed....  Its success is most prodigious.  And by every post all manner of strangers write all manner of letters to him about their homes and hearths, and how this same Carol is read aloud there, and kept on a little shelf by itself.  Indeed, it is the greatest success, as I am told, that this ruffian and rascal has ever achieved.

Forster is out again; and if he don’t go in again, after the manner in which we have been keeping Christmas, he must be very strong indeed.  Such dinings, such dancings, such conjurings, such blindman’s-buffings, such theatre-goings, such kissings-out of old years and kissings-in of new ones, never took place in these parts before.  To keep the Chuzzlewit going, and do this little book, the Carol, in the odd times between two parts of it, was, as you may suppose, pretty tight work.  But when it was done I broke out like a madman.  And if you could have seen me at a children’s party at Macready’s the other night, going down a country dance with Mrs. M., you would have thought I was a country gentleman of independent property, residing on a tiptop farm, with the wind blowing straight in my face every day....

Your friend, Mr. P——­, dined with us one day (I don’t know whether I told you this before), and pleased us very much.  Mr. C——­ has dined here once, and spent an evening here.  I have not seen him lately, though he has called twice or thrice; for K——­being unwell and I busy, we have not been visible at our accustomed seasons.  I wonder whether H——­ has fallen in your way.  Poor H——!  He was a good fellow, and has the most grateful heart I ever met with.  Our journeyings seem to be a dream now.  Talking of dreams, strange thoughts of Italy and France, and maybe Germany, are springing up within me as the Chuzzlewit clears off.  It’s a secret I have hardly breathed to any one, but I “think” of leaving England for a year, next midsummer, bag and baggage, little ones and all,—­then coming out with such a story, Felton, all at once, no parts, sledge-hammer blow.

I send you a Manchester paper, as you desire.  The report is not exactly done, but very well done, notwithstanding.  It was a very splendid sight, I assure you, and an awful-looking audience.  I am going to preside at a similar meeting at Liverpool on the 26th of next month, and on my way home I may be obliged to preside at another at Birmingham.  I will send you papers, if the reports be at all like the real thing.