the settle on the right-hand side where the arm is, opposite the fire-place; he rarely spoke to any one, but looked round as though taking in everything at a glance. (In _David Copperfield_ he says, "I looked at nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything.") Once he and a friend were sheltering there during a thunderstorm (by a coincidence, a storm occurs at the time we are here), and while Dickens stood looking out of the window he saw opposite a poor woman with a baby, who appeared very worn, wet, and travel-stained. She too was sheltering from the rain. "Call her in here," said Dickens. Mrs. Masters obeyed. "Now," said he, "draw her some brandy." "How much?" she asked. "Never mind," he answered, "draw her some." The landlady drew her four-pennyworth, the quantity generally served. "Now," said Dickens to the woman, "drink that up," which she did, and soon seemed refreshed. Dickens gave her a shilling, and remarked to Mrs. Masters that "now she will go on her way rejoicing." The story is a trivial one, but the units make the aggregate, and it sufficiently indicates his kindness of heart and thoughtfulness for others. In some of his walks Dickens was accompanied either by his sister-in-law, Miss Hogarth, or by friends who were staying at "Gad's" (or the "Place," as it was sometimes called). Mrs. Masters, whose recollections of Dickens are very vivid, said--"Lor! we never thought much about him when he was alive; it was only when his death took place that we understood what a great man he was." Alas! it is not the first instance that "a prophet is not without honour, save in his own country, and in his own house." The news of his death was a great shock to Mrs. Masters, who heard of it from Edward, son of Mr. W. S. Trood, the landlord of the Sir John Falstaff, as he was bearing the intelligence to Rochester within half-an-hour after the event. In passing we should mention, that the Crispin and Crispianus has been immortalized in the chapter on "Tramps," in _The Uncommercial Traveller_, where, in reference to the handicrafts of certain tramps, Dickens imagines himself to be a travelling clockmaker, and after adjusting "t'ould clock" in the keeper's kitchen, "he sees to something wrong with the bell of the turret stable clock up at the Hall [Cobham Hall]. . . . Our task at length accomplished, we should be taken into an enormous servants'-hall, and there regaled with beef and bread, and powerful ale. Then, paid freely, we should be at liberty to go, and should be told by a pointing helper to keep round over yinder by the blasted ash, and so straight through the woods till we should see the town-lights right afore us. . . . So should we lie that night at the ancient sign of the Crispin and Crispianus [at Strood], and rise early next morning to be betimes on tramp again."[14]