"
"And we shall have more of them, no doubt," suggested James; "it is
quite evident that the writer means to keep on."
"I hope he will; such articles will call attention to the paper, and
that is what we want," added another.
"In the mean time, let us find out if possible who the writer is,"
suggested still another. "It will be a help to the paper to have it
known who is the author, if it is one of the scholars."
Charles Dickens was a poorer boy than Benjamin ever was, knowing what
it was to go to bed hungry and cold; but his young heart aspired after
a nobler life, and, while yet a boy, he wrote an article for the
press, disclosing the fact not even to his mother, and then, on a dark
night, he dropped it "into a dark letter box, in a dark office, up a
dark court in Fleet street." His joy was too great for utterance when
he saw it in print. It was the beginning of a career as a writer
unparalleled in English or American history. And he told the secret of
it when he wrote, "While other boys played, I read Roderick Random,
Tom Jones, The Vicar of Wakefield, Don Quixote, Gil Bias, and other
books. They kept alive my fancy, and my hope of something beyond that
place and time."
Benjamin heard all that was said, and still kept his secret. It would
not have been strange if his vanity had been inflated by these
complimentary remarks.
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