The Life of Charles Dickens 'He....slightly cocked up his evil eye at the goldfinch. Instantly a raging thirst beset that bird; and when it was appeased, he still drew several unnecessary buckets of water, leaping about his perch and sharpening his bill with irrepressibile satisfaction.' Dickens bought a goldfinch in Spitalfields that drew water for himself from a bucket but as soon as he got it home to his new house in Doughty Street it ceased to do so. Illustration by Fred Barnard