Field had a 'chum,' or room-mate, whose visage was suggestive to the 'Sophs;' it invited experiment; it held out opportunity for their peculiar deviltry.

a proceedable exception

The Great White Way has in recent years increasingly banked on resurrections of Golden Oldie musicals and dramas from earlier decades, snazzed up with cinematic stars as box-office bait.

(Actually the engraving depicts Dickens glancing sideways at some blobbily drawn spectators enjoying a Punch and Judy show outside his window—a scene that much more accurately reflects the kind of source from which he drew his early inspiration.)