“Ladies and Gentlemen, I shall have the honor and pleasure of reading you this evening some selections from my work…”
And so began the tour. Dickens would choose extended scenes from two different novels for each reading and act out a condensed, dramatic rendition of each. The characters came alive as he gave each one their own voice, manner, and soul; he was author, character, actor. The performer never came to a full stop in the readings, making the next sentence always the most anticipated. Nor did he slow down or pause for emphasis on a moment of subtle wit or meaning, trusting instead in his audience. All the while, Tom guarded the doors. He kept Dolby's commands in his head, though he could not stop himself from wondering what the hotel intruder would look like and if he were present somewhere in the mass of faces.
At one reading, while Dickens performed Magwitch from Great Expectations running through the marsh, Tom was examining the rapt members of the audience at Tremont Temple when he heard a sound. Like an unintelligibly quick whisper-no, like a cat scratching on wood. He tried to identify the source, but it wasn't from a single place. It was on all sides. There were a few members of the audience scribbling rapidly with pencils-faster than he had ever seen anyone write.
Upon Tom's reporting his intelligence at breakfast the following morning to Dolby, the manager escorted him to the publishing office down the street and asked if they might see Mr. Fields.
“Scribbling, you say?” Fields asked, hands wide on his hips. “Men from the newspapers, perhaps?”
Tom said that he did not think so; the members of the press had been given seats by Dolby in the front rows, while these men and women were dispersed throughout the various galleries and in the standing-room area.
Osgood had walked into the Authors’ Room while Tom was explaining what he saw. Hearing Tom's description, he shook his head. “Why didn't we anticipate this? The Bookaneers!”
“Pray explain what you mean, Mr. Osgood,” said Dolby, who was sharing a sofa with Tom.
“As you know, for the purposes of these readings the Chief has condensed his novels, rather brilliantly so, to each fit one hour. You see, Mr. Dolby, other publishers no doubt hope to pirate ‘new editions,’ bagmen's editions, to erode our own authorized sales of his books. Harper, I am certain, is one of the culprits.”
“But a Bookaneer, Mr. Osgood?” asked Tom. “What is it?”
Osgood considered how to explain to the porter. “They are literary pickpockets, of a sort, Mr. Branagan. The piratical publishers hire them to perform such tasks as stalking around the harbor for advance sheets coming from England, to come by through bribes or even theft. Though they may appear to be common ruffians, they are by constitution cool in demeanor and highly intelligent. It is said from a brief glance at a single page of sheets, they can identify an author and the value of an unpublished manuscript.”
“I suppose that is not such an extraordinary feat,” Dolby offered.
“A brief glance, Mr. Dolby,” Osgood continued, “through a spyglass, from fifty feet away. Each are said to know three or four languages of the nations with the most popular authors today.”
“What draws them into such a shady line of work, if they possess such natural talents?” Dolby asked.
“They are well paid for their endeavors. Beyond that any guess of their motives is speculation. It is known that one of them, a woman called Kitten, served as a spy during the War of Rebellion and could signal entire paragraphs’ worth of information to collaborators through lanterns and flags. Another of their nefarious herd is said to have learned lip reading from a deaf mute. Several of them are also expert shorthand writers in order to record overheard conversations between publishers that would be paid for by rivals-and it is whispered that some of the Bookaneers are responsible for writing the more vicious examples in the field of book criticism. I would bet our rivals sent several Bookaneers to the theater in order to copy down what the Chief was improvising. Mayor Harper will stop at nothing to best us, and his brother Fletcher, whom they call the Major, counsels him into ever more conniving schemes.”
“I have noticed the Chief devise new lines-brilliant lines, I should say-in his reading from the trial of Pickwick,” Dolby added, nodding his head. “It is like he is writing a new book in front of our eyes, which these pirates can now steal out of the air and profit from! What can we do, Mr. Osgood?”
“Your associate,” Osgood said, indicating Tom Branagan, “could escort any of these pencil-wielding John Paul Joneses out to sea, to start.”
“Yes. But it is unlikely we can stop all of them, even with such a brawny young man on our side,” Fields pointed out. “They have already seized some of the ‘new’ text in their notebooks!”
“I have an idea.” This was spoken timidly from the back of the room. It was a lanky young lad who had been patching a crack in the wall from a fallen picture frame.
Fields frowned at the interruption, but Osgood waved the young man closer. “My new shop boy, gentlemen. Daniel Sand.”
“If you'd permit me,” said Daniel. “You gentlemen have what the pirates do not: I mean Mr. Dickens himself. With his personally condensed copies, you may publish special versions of the editions at once.”
“But we wish to sell our editions of his work already printed, my lad,” Fields objected. “That is where the money is.”
Osgood smiled broadly. “Mr. Fields, I believe Daniel has a good notion. We can sell both. New special editions, in paper covers, will be unique. Memorabilia for those who attend the readings, and inexpensive gifts to their family and friends who could not get tickets to see Dickens. While the standard editions will still be sold for personal library collections. Excellent idea, Daniel.”
Rebecca, who was bringing a box of cigars for them to the Authors’ Room, had paused at the door and glowed at Osgood's praise for her brother.
ON THE WAY OUT of the office building on that day, pleased at the resolution, Dolby purchased several papers from a newsboy. “That Osgood is a genial man, Branagan, though with an almost grim smile,” he was saying. “Don't you notice? He smiles as if he does not believe anything he beholds. Oh, God! That I were but dead!” Dolby exclaimed upon opening one of the papers.
The article called “Dickensiana” described a floral offering left for Dickens at his second Boston reading by a young woman. Dickens does not live with his wife, it is said. This fact adds spice to this little story. The nice parties he gives are usually to several people largely of the female persuasion, all of whom were captivated by the Bozzian soup and sentences. Oh, Charles, at your age and with that bald head and that gray goatee!
In a different paper, a cartoon showed a haughty Dickens on the streets of Boston with a young boy running up to him. The boy held a large letter H-the letter dropped from most words by the cockney accent-and was shouting, “Hello mister, look-a-here, you've dropped suthin’.” It was not the first paper to mock his modest cockney origins.
“‘At your age,’ dear heavens! That would put him in a red hot fury for three days. On penalty of your life, don't let the Chief see them, Branagan!” Dolby stopped the next newsboy he could find and bought up every copy of the papers in his possession.
AFTER A SERIES of successful readings in Boston, the entire party took a nine-hour express train to New York, where it had been snowing heavily. Within a few days of their arrival, eighteen inches covered the ground, walls of white lining the sides of the streets. Dolby hired a sleigh for the Dickens party to use since the carriages could no longer get around. Dickens, whenever he left the Westminster Hotel, would resemble some kind of Old World emperor as he was pulled on the red sleigh, his lap piled high with buffalo robes to keep out the cold.