ABSTRACT
I am not sure that it was before this time [of Dickens’ father leaving prison] that the blacking warehouse was removed to Chandos-street, Covent-garden. It is no matter. Next to the shop at the corner of Bedford-street in Chandos-street, are two rather old-fashioned houses and shops adjoining one another. They were one then, or thrown into one, for the blacking-business; and had been a butter-shop. Opposite to them was, and is, a public-house, where I got my ale, under these new circumstances. The stones in the street may be smoothed by my small feet going across to it at dinner-time, and back again […] We worked, for the light’s sake, near the second window as you come from Bedford-street; and we were so brisk at it, that the people used to stop and look in. Sometimes there would be quite a little crowd there. I saw my father coming in at the door one day when we were very busy, and I wondered how he could bear it.
