Ever your affectionate C.D.

    I hope this will be put into your hands on board, in Queenstown
    Harbor.

We met in London a few days after this, and I found him in capital spirits, with such a protracted list of things we were to do together, that, had I followed out the prescribed programme, it would have taken many more months of absence from home than I had proposed to myself.  We began our long rambles among the thoroughfares that had undergone important changes since I was last in London, taking in the noble Thames embankments, which I had never seen, and the improvements in the city markets.  Dickens had moved up to London for the purpose of showing us about, and had taken rooms only a few streets off from our hotel.  Here are two specimens of the welcome little notes which I constantly found on my breakfast-table:—­

    Office Of All The Year Round, London, Wednesday, May 19, 1869.

My Dear Fields:  Suppose we give the weather a longer chance, and say Monday instead of Friday.  I think we must be safer with that precaution.  If Monday will suit you, I propose that we meet here that day,—­your ladies and you and I,—­and cast ourselves on the stony-hearted streets.  If it be bright for St. Paul’s, good; if not, we can take some other lion that roars in dull weather.  We will dine here at six, and meet here at half past two.  So IF you should want to go elsewhere after dinner, it can be done, notwithstanding.  Let me know in a line what you say.

O the delight of a cold bath this morning, after those lodging-houses!  And a mild sniffler of punch, on getting into the hotel last night, I found what my friend Mr. Wegg calls, “Mellering, sir, very mellering.”

    With kindest regards, ever affectionately,

    CHARLES DICKENS.

    Office Of All The Year Round, London, Tuesday, May 25, 1869.

My Dear Fields:  First, you leave Charing Cross Station, by North Kent railway, on Wednesday, June 2d, at 2.10 for Higham Station, the next station beyond Gravesend.  Now, bring your lofty mind back to the previous Saturday, next Saturday.  There is only one way of combining Windsor and Richmond.  That way will leave us but two hours and a half at Windsor.  This would not be long enough to enable us to see the inside of the castle, but would admit of our seeing the outside, the Long Walk, etc.  I will assume that such a survey will suffice.  That taken for granted, meet me at Waterloo Terminus (Loop Line for Windsor) at 10.35, on Saturday morning.

The rendezvous for Monday evening will be here at half past eight.  As I don’t know Mr. Eytinge’s number in Guildford Street, will you kindly undertake to let him know that we are going out with the great Detective?  And will you also give him the time and place for Gad’s?

    I shall be here on Friday for a few hours; meantime at Gad’s
    aforesaid.