Francis Hopkinson Smith

“ Sawyer, and every gentleman as has ever lived here has kept his word, Sir, as of course anybody as calls himself a gentleman does.' And Mrs. Raddle tossed her head, bit her lips, rubbed her hands harder, and looked at the wall more steadily than ever. ”

“ Raddle. 'Why don't you go down and knock 'em every one down stairs? You would if you was a man.'
"'I should if I was a dozen men, my dear,' replied Mr. Raddle, pacifically, 'but they've rather the advantage of me in numbers, my dear,'
'"They're going, Mrs. Raddle, they're going,' said the miserable Bob. 'I am afraid you'd better go,' said Mr. Bob Sawyer to his friends. ”

“ Dickens's own statement would have banished it, so dull and expressionless was the vista that stretched before me.
"There is a repose," he says, "about Lant Street which sheds so gentle a melancholy upon the soul, that if a man wished to place himself beyond the possibility of any inducement to look out of the window, he should by all means select it as a residence."
That Mr. Bob Sawyer and his intimate friend Mr. Ben Allen had ignored these depressing possibilities, is well known to every one. ”

“ Perhaps the ingredients of the punch when "ready-made in a red pan" came from behind its bar, or it might be that the glasses which had been "borrowed for the occasion from the public house" were gathered up within its precincts, as well as the tray itself—a foregone conclusion when one realises that the wall of the enclosure in which Guy's Hospital stands is opposite the inn itself, and thus but a step from the classroom to its bar, the dividing highway being known as Maze Pond Terrace—a short shadow-flecked street arched by feathery trees, its perspective melting into a mist of leaves. ”

“ It may be, too, that the exquisite shimmering vista of leaf and branch is only a kind of modern scientific growth, a sort of horticultural lobster-claw evolved out of the loss of its predecessor, and therefore all the fresher and greener, with more gleam and glint and grace of movement than the trees we see in most of the streets of smoke-choked London. ”

“ IN LANT STREET, WHERE BOB SAWYER HAD HIS LODGINGS, AND ONE OF HIS HAUNTS—"THE SHIP AND SHOVEL"
The location of the exact house was not difficult. Mr. Dickens is still as well known and popular with the present residents of the Borough as he was in the days when, in the height of his fame, he immortalised their streets, inns, and homes. You have only to ask the barmaid at the public on the corner, or the man unloading coals, or the solicitor's clerk, or the secretary, or the Great Person himself. ”

“ Bob Sawyer. 'Hush. Yes, it is. Come up, Jack; come up.'
"A heavy footstep was heard upon the stairs, and Jack Hopkins presented himself. He wore a black velvet waist-coat, with thunder-and-lightning buttons; and a blue striped shirt, with a white false collar.
"'You're late, Jack?' said Mr. Benjamin Allen.
"'Been detained at Bartholomew's,'—replied Hopkins.
"'Anything new?'
"'No, nothing particular. Rather a good accident brought into the casualty ward.'
"'What was that, Sir?' inquired Mr. Pickwick.
"'Only a man fallen out of a four pair of stairs' window ”