“Your note of the 12th is like a cordial of the best sort.  I have
    taken it accordingly.

“Dolby sails in the Java on Saturday, the 3d of next month, and will come direct to you.  You will find him a frank and capital fellow.  He is perfectly acquainted with his business and with his chief, and may be trusted without a grain of reserve.

“I hope the Americans will see the joke of ‘Holiday Romance.’  The writing seems to me so like children’s, that dull folks (on any side of any water) might perhaps rate it accordingly!  I should like to be beside you when you read it, and particularly when you read the Pirate’s story.  It made me laugh to that extent that my people here thought I was out of my wits, until I gave it to them to read, when they did likewise.

    “Ever cordially yours,

    “CHARLES DICKENS.”

On the 3d of September he breaks out in this wise, Dolby having arrived out and made all arrangements for the readings:—­

“Your cheering letter of the 21st of August arrived here this morning.  A thousand thanks for it.  I begin to think (nautically) that I ‘head west’ard.’  You shall hear from me fully and finally as soon as Dolby shall have reported personally.

“The other day I received a letter from Mr. ——­ of New York (who came over in the winning yacht, and described the voyage in the Times), saying he would much like to see me.  I made an appointment in London, and observed that when he did see me he was obviously astonished.  While I was sensible that the magnificence of my appearance would fully account for his being overcome, I nevertheless angled for the cause of his surprise.  He then told me that there was a paragraph going round the papers, to the effect that I was ‘in a critical state of health.’  I asked him if he was sure it wasn’t ‘cricketing’ state of health?  To which he replied, Quite.  I then asked him down here to dinner, and he was again staggered by finding me in sporting training; also much amused.

“Yesterday’s and to-day’s post bring me this unaccountable paragraph from hosts of uneasy friends, with the enormous and wonderful addition that ‘eminent surgeons’ are sending me to America for ’cessation from literary labor’!!!  So I have written a quiet line to the Times, certifying to my own state of health, and have also begged Dixon to do the like in the Athenaeum.  I mention the matter to you, in order that you may contradict, from me, if the nonsense should reach America unaccompanied by the truth.  But I suppose that the New York Herald will probably have got the latter from Mr. ——­ aforesaid.....

“Charles Reade and Wilkie Collins are here; and the joke of the time is to feel my pulse when I appear at table, and also to inveigle innocent messengers to come over to the summer-house, where I write (the place is quite changed since