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 but looking very tired and worn. Our talking at these times did not seem to disturb him, though any sudden sound, as the dropping of a spoon, or the clinking of a glass, would send a spasm of pain across his face.

The sudden, almost instantaneous, popularity of "Pickwick" was known to the world long before it was realized by its anxious young author. All the business transactions concerning its publication were modest to a degree, and the preparations for such a success as came to it were none. As to its popularity, Mr. Forster writes: "Judges on the bench, and boys in the streets, gravity and folly, the young and the old, those who were entering life, and those who were quitting it, alike found it irresistible." Carlyle wrote: "An archdeacon repeated to me, with his own venerable lips, the other evening, a strange, profane story of a solemn clergyman who had been summoned to administer