The extent and variety of Dickens’s tones were wonderful.  Once he described to me in an inimitable way a scene he witnessed many years ago at a London theatre, and I am certain no professional ventriloquist could have reproduced it better.  I could never persuade him to repeat the description in presence of others; but he did it for me several times during our walks into the country, where he was, of course, unobserved.  His recital of the incident was irresistibly droll, and no words of mine can give the situation even, as he gave it.  He said he was once sitting in the pit of a London theatre, when two men came in and took places directly in front of him.  Both were evidently strangers from the country, and not very familiar with the stage.  One of them was stone deaf, and relied entirely upon his friend to keep him informed of the dialogue and story of the play as it went on, by having bawled into his ear, word for word, as near as possible what the actors and actresses were saying.  The man who could hear became intensely interested in the play, and kept close watch of the stage.  The deaf man also shared in the progressive action of the drama, and rated his friend soundly, in a loud voice, if a stitch in the story of the play were inadvertently dropped.  Dickens gave the two voices of these two spectators with his best comic and dramatic power.  Notwithstanding the roars of the audience, for the scene in the pit grew immensely funny to them as it went on, the deaf man and his friend were too much interested in the main business of the evening to observe that they were noticed.  One bawled louder, and the other, with his elevated ear-trumpet, listened more intently than ever.  At length the scene culminated in a most unexpected manner.  “Now,” screamed the hearing man to the deaf one, “they are going to elope!” “Who is going to elope?” asked the deaf man, in a loud, vehement tone.  “Why, them two, the young man in the red coat and the girl in a white gown, that’s a talking together now, and just going off the stage!” “Well, then, you must have missed telling me something they’ve said before,” roared the other in an enraged and stentorian voice; “for there was nothing in their conduct all the evening, as you have been representing it to me, that would warrant them in such a proceeding!” At which the audience could not bear it any longer, and screamed their delight till the curtain fell.

Dickens was always planning something to interest and amuse his friends, and when in America he taught us several games arranged by himself, which we played again and again, he taking part as our instructor.  While he was travelling from point to point, he was cogitating fresh charades to be acted when we should again meet.  It was at Baltimore that he first conceived the idea of a walking-match, which should take place on his return to Boston, and he drew up a set of humorous “articles,” which he sent to me with this injunction, “Keep them in a place of profound safety, for attested execution, until my arrival in Boston.”  He went into this matter of the walking-match with as much earnest directness as if he were planning a new novel.  The articles, as prepared by himself, are thus drawn up:—­