Going into Society

Name: Going into Society
Author: Charles Dickens

by Charles Dickens

Pages: about 19
Category: Literature & Fiction
Language: English
Reading time: 20 min at 250 wpm

Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 11 min at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

Transcribed from the 1894 Chapman and Hall edition of "Christmas Stories" by David Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk
At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation of a Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the parish books of the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore no need of any clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy to be found; for, he had led a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him, and people who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting that they had ever known anything of him. At last, among the marsh lands near the river's level, that lie about Deptford and the neighbouring market-gardens, a Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden house was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy creek; and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and the steaming market-gardens, smoked in company with the grizzled man. In the midst of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a companionable manner.
On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let, Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name was Magsman? That was it, Toby Magsman--which lawfully christened Robert; but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was nothing agin Toby Magsman, he believed? If there was suspicion of such--mention it!
There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, some inquiries were making about that House, and would he object to say why he left it?

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Going into Society

From the opening

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