"'Snodgrass,' he said, stopping suddenly, 'do _not_ let me be baulked in this matter--do _not_ give information to the local authorities--do _not_ obtain the assistance of several peace officers to take either me or Doctor Slammer of the 97th Regiment, at present quartered in Chatham Barracks, into custody, and thus prevent this duel;--I say, do _not_.' "Mr. Snodgrass seized his friend's hand as he enthusiastically replied, 'Not for worlds!' "A thrill passed over Mr. Winkle's frame, as the conviction that he had nothing to hope from his friend's fears, and that he was destined to become an animated target, rushed forcibly upon him." The state of the case having been formally explained to Mr. Snodgrass, they make arrangements, hire "a case of satisfaction pistols, with the satisfactory accompaniments of powder, ball, and caps," and "the two friends returned to their inn." The next ground which they traversed together to pursue the subject was at Fort Pitt. We will follow them presently. In _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_ there is no direct reference to the Castle itself, but the engraving of it, with the Cathedral in the background, after the pretty sketch by Mr. Luke Fildes, R.A., will ever be associated with that beautiful fragment. Another reference is contained in the preface to _Nicholas Nickleby_, where Dickens says:--"I cannot call to mind now how I came to hear about Yorkshire schools when I was a not very robust child, sitting in by-places near Rochester Castle, with a head full of 'Partridge,' 'Strap,' 'Tom Pipes,' and 'Sancho Panza.'" A sympathetic notice of the Castle is also contained in the _Seven Poor Travellers_. It begins:-- "Sooth to say, he [Time] did an active stroke of work in Rochester in the old days of the Romans, and the Saxons, and the Normans, and down to the times of King John, when the rugged Castle--I will not undertake to say how many hundreds of years old then--was abandoned to the centuries of weather which have so defaced the dark apertures in its walls, that the ruin looks as if the rooks and daws had picked its eyes out." And this, the most touching reference of all, occurs in "One Man in a Dockyard," contributed by Dickens[7] to _Household Words_ in 1851:--