DICKENS'S CHARACTERS.

Evening Star, Issue 10851, 8 February 1899, Page 4

DICKENS'S CHARACTERS.

When Mr Hemy was painting the ' Bargebuilders,' an old man named Parera used to go and sit with him and tell stories of the sea and anecdotes of Admiral Namer, whom he persisted in calling the artists uncle. One day, says ' Cassell's Magazme, he suddenly asked Mr Hemy if he knew Charles Dickens. " I only saw him once, replied Mr Hemy, " and did not know him personally." " But you have read his books?" " Yes, I have fe»d ihem all," was the reply. " Well, what I have got to say about Mr Dickens is that he weren't no gentleman." "Oh," said the artist, 'I have always understood that Charles Dickens was a most affable and amiable " Yes; he Hvps a nice-spoken man, and smoked good cigars—but not so good as yours, sir. Thank you, I will take another. But still he weren't no gentleman." "What did he do to make you say that?" ' Well, he came down here making books, just> as you have come down making pictures, but he went away and put me into one of his books, and he called me ' a mahogany-faced captain and an amphibious animal'; likewise my friend Joe he put in his book and called him ' a bottle-nosed person in a glazey hat.' Do you call that the acts of a gentleman?" On another occasion Mr Hemy came in contact with another of Dickens's characters in this neighborhood. Whilst standing on the balcony of the harbor-masters house at Limehouse—a curious ramshackle bit of picturesqueness still in existence—m conversation with the son of <-*?* Parera, the latter said: " Here comes Nasty Dick.'" " Who is he?" asked Mr Hemy. ««Oh, haven't you read' Our Mutual Friend ? Of the doings of the ' Bird of Prey ? Yes? Well, that's him. Nasty Dick is the «Bird of Prev.' Here he comes. Hes got Ithe? "Another what?" asked the artist. "You'll see presently. , Hes coming to 'The Grapes'to have a drink on the strength of it." As the man drew nearer Mr Hemy recognised him at once from lhc; kens's description as''Rogue Riderhood "I observed/ he said to me, "&*!%%, thing was dragging I stem of his boat, and as he approached 1 saTthat itwas tL bodv of a man in a blue Sfc? Parera shouted* to Dick, and asked him where he "had found it." On the $ tftheW down." "What doyou make of him?"- "A Yankee fireman. "How did he get into the water? ■-Drowned drunk.'VThe? *&***£ and putting his hand tohis mouth, Parera asked in a whisper: "What got m his pocket?" "Don't know ;if it ha* been dark, I'd have run the rule over him. Ana with that Dick made his boat fast, and went up to have a drink out of prospective 5s he would get for recovering ,f it":from the river. . '■■''"'