But Oliver himself is the great character, and his story reminds me of my own. The touching incident in the work-house where his poor stomach is not full, and he asks for a second platter of mush to the horror of the teachers, is not overdrawn. When I was in one of our penal institutions, at a later time of my life, I was ill, and asked for extra food; but my request was looked upon as the audacity of a hardened villain. I had many such opportunities to think of Oliver. I always liked those authors who wrote as near life as decency would permit. Sterne's _Tristram Shandy_ has often amused me, and _Tom Jones_, _Roderick Random_ and _Peregrine Pickle_ I have read over and over again. I don't see why good people object to such books. Some people are forever looking after the affairs of others and neglecting their own; especially a man whom I will call Common Socks who has put himself up as a mentor for over seventy millions of people. Let me tell the busy ladies who are afraid that such books will harm the morals of young persons that the more they are cried down the more they will be read. For that matter they ought to be read. Why object to the girl of sixteen reading such books and not to the woman of thirty-five? I think their mental strength is about equal. Both are romantic and the woman of thirty-five will fall in love as quickly as the girl of sixteen. I think a woman is always a girl; at least, it has been so in my experience. One day I was grafting in Philadelphia. It was raining, and a woman was walking along on Walnut Street. She slipped on the wet sidewalk and fell. I ran to her assistance, and saw that her figure was slim and girlish and that she had a round, rosy face, but that her hair was pure white. When I asked her if she was hurt, she said "yes," but when I said "Let me be your grandson and support you on my way," I put my foot into it, for, horrors! the look she gave me, as she said in an icy voice, "I was never married!" I wondered what manner of men there were in Philadelphia, and, to square myself, I said: "Never married! and with a pair of such pretty ankles!" Then she gave me a look, thanked me, and walked away as jauntily as she ever did in her life, though she must have been suffering agonies from her sprained ankle. Since that time I have been convinced that they of the gentle sex are girls from fifteen to eighty. I read much of Lever, too, while I was in stir. His pictures of Ireland and of the noisy strife in Parliament, the description of Dublin with its spendthrifts and excited populace, the gamblers and the ruined but gay young gentlemen, all mixed up with the grandeur of Ireland, are the work of a master. I could only compare this epoch of worn-out regalia with a St. Patrick's day parade twenty years ago in the fourth ward of Manhattan.