On New Year's Day, 1850, a catastrophe, which it is fearful to contemplate, was averted by the aid of the telegraph. A collision had occurred to an empty train at Gravesend; and the driver having leaped from his engine, the latter started alone at full speed to London. Notice was immediately given by telegraph to London and other stations; and while the line was kept clear, an engine and other arrangements were prepared as a buttress to receive the runaway.

The dog had enthusiastically swooped down on the bone.

Listen, Mikey, she said, "when somebody tries to bully you, just punch him on the end of the nose the way you did old Panfilo. […] [Y]ou be just as mean as you want to be and at least give him his money's worth.

My father was a born aristocrat. I think, in some preexistent state, he must have been in the higher circles of spirits, and brought all his old court pride along with him; for it was ingrain, bred in the bone, though he was originally of poor and not in any way of noble family.