existence or possibility of obtaining such articles.  If ——­ had a flaxen head, I would certainly have it shaved and get a wig and eyebrows out of him, for a small pecuniary compensation.

By the by, if you could only have seen the man at Harrisburg, crushing a friendly Quaker in the parlor door!  It was the greatest sight I ever saw.  I had told him not to admit anybody whatever, forgetting that I had previously given this honest Quaker a special invitation to come.  The Quaker would not be denied, and H. was stanch.  When I came upon them, the Quaker was black in the face, and H. was administering the final squeeze.  The Quaker was still rubbing his waistcoat with an expression of acute inward suffering, when I left the town.  I have been looking for his death in the newspapers almost daily.

Do you know one General G.?  He is a weazen-faced warrior, and in his dotage.  I had him for a fellow-passenger on board a steamboat.  I had also a statistical colonel with me, outside the coach from Cincinnati to Columbus.  A New England poet buzzed about me on the Ohio, like a gigantic bee.  A mesmeric doctor, of an impossibly great age, gave me pamphlets at Louisville.  I have suffered much, very much.

If I could get beyond New York to see anybody, it would be (as you know) to see you.  But I do not expect to reach the “Carlton” until the last day of May, and then we are going with the Coldens somewhere on the banks of the North River for a couple of days.  So you see we shall not have much leisure for our voyaging preparations.

You and Dr. Howe (to whom my love) MUST come to New York.  On the 6th of June, you must engage yourselves to dine with us at the “Carlton”; and if we don’t make a merry evening of it, the fault shall not be in us.

    Mrs. Dickens unites with me in best regards to Mrs. Felton and your
    little daughter, and I am always, my dear Felton,

    Affectionately your friend,

    CHARLES DICKENS.

P.S.  I saw a good deal of Walker at Cincinnati.  I like him very much.  We took to him mightily at first, because he resembled you in face and figure, we thought.  You will be glad to hear that our news from home is cheering from first to last, all well, happy, and loving.  My friend Forster says in his last letter that he “wants to know you,” and looks forward to Longfellow.

When Dickens arrived in Montreal he had, it seems, a busy time of it, and I have often heard of his capital acting in private theatricals while in that city.

    Montreal, Saturday, 21st May, 1842.