Buying his own work

By Eyre Crow. Source

On a train during a U.S. tour, Thackeray ran into a boy selling books, who (probably unknowingly) offered him copies of his own work. He bought A Shabby Genteel Story and, what's more, read it.

Whether any of the payment ever made its way back to him . . . well, pirated American editions were the curse of British authors.