From that time on one novel after another flowed from Dickens' pen. For many of their most vivid pictures he was indebted to the hard life of his boyhood, and the strange people he had known in the days when he worked in the blacking factory finally grew into some of his greatest characters. The little maid-of-all-work became the Marchioness in the "Old Curiosity Shop," Bob Fagin loaned his name to "Oliver Twist," and in "David Copperfield" we read the story of the small boy who had to fight his way through London alone. Those days of boyhood had given him a deep insight into human nature, into the humor and pathos of other people's lives, and it was that rare insight that enabled him to become in time one of the greatest of all English writers, Charles Dickens, the beloved novelist of the Anglo-Saxon people. XXI Otto von Bismarck The Boy of Goettingen: 1815-1898 A tall, slender boy, followed by a great Danish hound, walked down the main street of the German town of Goettingen in Hanover one spring morning in 1832. The small round cap, gay with colors, told the world that the boy was a student at the University, and also that he belonged to one of the students' clubs, or fighting corps, as they were called. But this boy looked quite a dandy. A wide sash was tied about his waist, high-polished boots came up to his knees, and he wore a knot of colors on his breast, the same colors he sported in his cap, the emblem that he belonged to the Brunswick student corps. Moreover he carried himself with rather a haughty manner, and the big dog, following at his heels, walked in much the same way. Presently there came strolling along the street a group of a half dozen boys who wore the round caps of the Hanoverian Club. Something about the boy with the dog struck them as comical, and they began to laugh, and nudge each other, and when they came up to the boy they stopped and stared at him in undisguised amusement. Quick color sprang to his cheeks, he hesitated, and then came to a full stop. It was not pleasant to be singled out as a laughing-stock in the main street of Goettingen. "Well, what are you laughing at?" he demanded, looking squarely at the group of boys. One of them waved his hand airily in answer. "At the magnificence of our new little Brunswicker," he answered mockingly. "So? And are you accustomed to laugh at magnificence?" The boy's brows were bent and his lips had set in a very stern line. "When it amuses us we laugh," put in one of the others. "Then I'd have you know it's ill manners to laugh, and I'll teach you better as soon as we get schlaegers in our hands." "And who may you be?" asked the one who had spoken first. "My name is Otto von Bismarck. I come from Prussia, and I'm a new student here." "And which of us will you fight?" "I'll fight you all. Send your man to me at my room, and I'll agree on any time and place." Then, with his head held very high the boy walked on, and the great Dane followed at his heels.