It did not take Charles long to realize that the law was not to his taste. He did not like what he saw of lawyers, and was much more apt to make fun of than to imitate them. Looking about for some more interesting work, he took to studying short-hand in the evenings. He found it very hard to learn, particularly as he had to dig it out of books in the reading-room of the British Museum, but he persevered, and finally became very skilful, so that when he was sent by one of the newspapers to report a debate in the House of Commons he did so extremely well that experts stated "there never was such a short-hand writer before." The life of a reporter had great charm for the youthful Dickens. He liked the adventurous side of it, the chance to see strange scenes and mix in interesting events. He had a great many strange adventures of his own, and told later how on one occasion soon after he had become a reporter, he was sent far out of London to take down a political speech, and how coming back he had to write out his short-hand notes holding his paper on the palm of his hand, and by the light of a dull, flickering lantern, while the coach galloped at fifteen miles an hour through wild and hilly country at midnight. In addition to reporting speeches Charles was sent to write notices of new plays in the theatres and also reviewed new books. He signed these reviews with his nickname "Boz," and it was not long before these articles by Boz attracted the attention of a great many judges of good writing. The chief editor of the _Morning Chronicle_, for which Charles wrote, said of the youth, "He has never been a great reader of books or plays and knows but little of them, but has spent his time in studying life. Keep 'Boz' in reserve for great occasions. He will aye be ready for them." So it proved, and he might have been a prominent newspaper man just as he might have been a great actor had not the desire to see what he could do with a story seized upon him. We have Dickens' own words to tell us how he wrote a little paper in secret with much fear and trembling, and then dropped it stealthily into "a dark little box, in a dark office, up a dark court in Fleet Street." A little later his story appeared in the magazine to which he had sent it, and he tells us how, as he looked at his words standing so gravely before him in all the glory of print, he walked down to Westminster Hall and turned into it for half an hour, because his eyes "were so dimmed with joy and pride that they could not bear the street and were not fit to be seen there." He had been very much excited over this venture of his little story. Now he took the fact of its success to indicate that it was worth his while to practice using his pen as a writer of fiction.