were pasted against the wall. They were printed forms, filled in with a
pen. Mr. Forster tells us in his life of Dickens that it was the sight of
bills of this sort which gave the first suggestion of "Our Mutual Friend."
At the end of the alley was a neat brick police-station; stairs led to the
water, and several trim boats were moored there. Within the station I
could see an officer quietly busy at his desk, as if he had been sitting
there ever since Dickens described "the Night Inspector, with a pen and
ink ruler, posting up his books in a whitewashed office as studiously as
if he were in a monastery on the top of a mountain, and no howling fury of
a drunken woman were banging herself against a cell-door in the back yard
at his elbow." A handsome young fellow in uniform, who looked like a cross
between a sailor and a constable, came out and asked very civilly if he
could be of use to me. "Do you know," said I, "where the station was that
Dickens describes in 'Our Mutual Friend'?"

"Oh, yes, sir! this is the very spot. It was the old building that stood
just here: this is a new one, but it has been put up in the same place."

"Mr. Dickens often went out with your men in the boat, didn't he?"

"Yes, sir, many a night in the old times."

"Do you know the tavern which is described in the same book by the name of
The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters?"

"No, sir, I don't know it; at least not by that name. It may have been
pulled down, for a lot of warehouses have been built along here, and the
place is very much changed; or it may be one of those below."

Of course, I chose to think that it must be "one of those below." I kept