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eBook Category: Classic Literature
eBook Description: Master Humphrey's Clock was an ambitious weekly literary magazine published by Dickens himself. Lasting only from 1840 to 1841, it spun off some major works, including "The Old Curiosity Shop" and this collection of stories and sketches. The narrator is Master Humphrey, not "churlish" and not a "misanthrope", who describes his daily life and his encounters with vivid characters including Mr. Pickwick. The clock is his old companion, where he stores manuscripts.

eBook Publisher: Fictionwise.com/Fictionwise Classic, Published: 1841
Fictionwise Release Date: February 2004

This eBook is also available in the following bundle(s):

• Fictionwise Classics [Authors A-G Bundle]

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Available eBook Formats [MultiFormat - What's this?]: eReader (PDB) [151 KB] , ePub (EPUB) [173 KB] , Rocket/REB1100 (RB) [127 KB] , Portable Document Format (PDF) [431 KB] , Palm Doc (PDB) [148 KB] , Microsoft Reader (LIT) [176 KB] , Franklin eBookMan (FUB) [190 KB] , hiebook (KML) [314 KB] , Sony Reader (LRF) [151 KB] , iSilo (PDB) [121 KB] , Mobipocket (PRC) [151 KB] , Kindle Compatible (MOBI) [178 KB] , OEBFF Format (IMP) [196 KB]
Words: 45667
Reading time: 130-182 min.
Microsoft Reader (LIT) Format: Printing DISABLED, Read-Aloud ENABLED
Portable Document Format (PDF) Format:  Printing ENABLED, Read-Aloud DISABLED
All Other formats: Printing DISABLED, Read-aloud DISABLED

CHAPTER I--MASTER HUMPHREY, FROM HIS CLOCK-SIDE IN THE CHIMNEY CORNER

THE reader must not expect to know where I live. At present, it is true, my abode may be a question of little or no import to anybody; but if I should carry my readers with me, as I hope to do, and there should spring up between them and me feelings of homely affection and regard attaching something of interest to matters ever so slightly connected with my fortunes or my speculations, even my place of residence might one day have a kind of charm for them. Bearing this possible contingency in mind, I wish them to understand, in the outset, that they must never expect to know it.

I am not a churlish old man. Friendless I can never be, for all mankind are my kindred, and I am on ill terms with no one member of my great family. But for many years I have led a lonely, solitary life;--what wound I sought to heal, what sorrow to forget, originally, matters not now; it is sufficient that retirement has become a habit with me, and that I am unwilling to break the spell which for so long a time has shed its quiet influence upon my home and heart.

I live in a venerable suburb of London, in an old house which in bygone days was a famous resort for merry roysterers and peerless ladies, long since departed. It is a silent, shady place, with a paved courtyard so full of echoes, that sometimes I am tempted to believe that faint responses to the noises of old times linger there yet, and that these ghosts of sound haunt my footsteps as I pace it up and down. I am the more confirmed in this belief, because, of late years, the echoes that attend my walks have been less loud and marked than they were wont to be; and it is pleasanter to imagine in them the rustling of silk brocade, and the light step of some lovely girl, than to recognise in their altered note the failing tread of an old man.

Those who like to read of brilliant rooms and gorgeous furniture would derive but little pleasure from a minute description of my simple dwelling. It is dear to me for the same reason that they would hold it in slight regard. Its worm-eaten doors, and low ceilings crossed by clumsy beams; its walls of wainscot, dark stairs, and gaping closets; its small chambers, communicating with each other by winding passages or narrow steps; its many nooks, scarce larger than its corner-cupboards; its very dust and dulness, are all dear to me. The moth and spider are my constant tenants; for in my house the one basks in his long sleep, and the other plies his busy loom secure and undisturbed. I have a pleasure in thinking on a summer's day how many butterflies have sprung for the first time into light and sunshine from some dark corner of these old walls.