me. I was always curious about Yorkshire schools--fell, long afterwards
and at sundry times, into the way of hearing more about them--at last,
having an audience, resolved to write about them.

With that intent I went down into Yorkshire before I began this book, in
very severe winter time which is pretty faithfully described herein.
As I wanted to see a schoolmaster or two, and was forewarned that those
gentlemen might, in their modesty, be shy of receiving a visit from the
author of the "Pickwick Papers," I consulted with a professional friend
who had a Yorkshire connexion, and with whom I concerted a pious fraud.
He gave me some letters of introduction, in the name, I think, of my
travelling companion; they bore reference to a supposititious little boy
who had been left with a widowed mother who didn't know what to do
with him; the poor lady had thought, as a means of thawing the tardy
compassion of her relations in his behalf, of sending him to a Yorkshire
school; I was the poor lady's friend, travelling that way; and if
the recipient of the letter could inform me of a school in his
neighbourhood, the writer would be very much obliged.

I went to several places in that part of the country where I understood
the schools to be most plentifully sprinkled, and had no occasion to
deliver a letter until I came to a certain town which shall be nameless.
The person to whom it was addressed, was not at home; but he came down
at night, through the snow, to the inn where I was staying. It was after
dinner; and he needed little persuasion to sit down by the fire in a
warm corner, and take his share of the wine that was on the table.

I am afraid he is dead now. I recollect he was a jovial, ruddy,
broad-faced man; that we got acquainted directly; and that we talked
on all kinds of subjects, except the school, which he showed a great