Marty asked: I know the expression, but I never met Charlie himself. Was he an athlete? Anyone know where the Dickens the saying came from?
Nope, but given the nature of the 19th Century and the known poverty in which scribblers such as ooour Charlie tended to live (picture here a threadbare garret, spilled inkhorns, screwed up balls of paper littering the floor, a mouse nibbling on his last crust, bent steel nibs impaled in the door), he probably learned to run from his creditors extremely efficiently.
The consequence of getting lumbered as a debtor in the 19th century was the debtors prison, as stupid an institution as British law has ever come up with ...
Of course, if you have seen "Shakespeare in Love" you will know from the opening scene that the consequences in earlier centuries could have been somewhat more, um, fiery.
This is all unqualified rubbish, of course ...
