He could begin a short story, get fond of it, and turn it into a novel. Thus in the days of _Household Words_ he could begin a big scheme of stories, such as _Somebody's Luggage_, or _Seven Poor Travellers_, and after writing a tale or two toss the rest to his colleagues. Thus, on the other hand, in the time of _Master Humphrey's Clock_, he could begin one small adventure of Master Humphrey and find himself unable to stop it. It is quite clear I think (though only from moral evidence, which some call reading between the lines) that he originally meant to tell many separate tales of Master Humphrey's wanderings in London, only one of which, and that a short one, was to have been concerned with a little girl going home. Fortunately for us that little girl had a grandfather, and that grandfather had a curiosity shop and also a nephew, and that nephew had an entirely irrelevant friend whom men and angels called Richard Swiveller. Once having come into the society of Swiveller it is not unnatural that Dickens stayed there for a whole book. The essential point for us here, however, is that _Master Humphrey's Clock_ was stopped by the size and energy of the thing that had come of it. It died in childbirth. There is, however, another circumstance which, even in ordinary public opinion, makes this miscellany important, besides the great novel that came out of it. I mean that the ordinary reader can remember one great thing about _Master Humphrey's Clock_, besides the fact that it was the frame-work of _The Old Curiosity Shop_. He remembers that Mr. Pickwick and the Wellers rise again from the dead. Dickens makes Samuel Pickwick become a member of Master Humphrey's Clock Society; and he institutes a parallel society in the kitchen under the name of Mr. Weller's Watch.