'Seven years after this I found myself amid the streets of London and
had to find the means of keeping myself alive. What I chiefly thought
of was that now at length I could go hither or thither in London's
immensity seeking for the places which had been made known to me by
Dickens.
'One day in the city I found myself at the entrance to Bevis Marks! I
had just been making an application in reply to some advertisement--of
course, fruitlessly; but what was that disappointment compared with
the discovery of Bevis Marks! Here dwelt Mr. Brass and Sally and the
Marchioness. Up and down the little street, this side and that, I went
gazing and dreaming. No press of busy folk disturbed me; the place was
quiet; it looked no doubt much the same as when Dickens knew it. I am
not sure that I had any dinner that day; but, if not, I daresay I did
not mind it very much.'
The broad flood under Thames bridges spoke to him in the very tones of 'the
master.' He breathed Guppy's London particular, the wind was the black
easter that pierced the diaphragm of Scrooge's clerk.
'We bookish people have our connotations for the life we do not live.
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