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The Danish Man Who Came To Dinner was supposed to stay with Dickens and his family for only two weeks. Though a genial host, Dickens dropped hints for Andersen to end his stay; they were, apparently, too subtle. The patience of the Dickens children was strained to the limit and daughter Kate would later recall that Andersen "was a bony bore, and stayed on and on" (Storey, Gladys. Dickens and Daughter. London, 1939). Andersen thoroughly enjoyed his visit, oblivious to the effect his extended holiday was having on his hosts. After he finally left, Dickens wrote on the mirror in the guestroom: “Hans Andersen slept in this room for five weeks — which seemed to the family AGES!” Clueless, Andersen never quite understood why Dickens afterward ceased to answer his letters.

Though the story may be apocryphal, it is said that "the bony bore" provided Dickens with the physical model for the obsequious Uriah Heep, the sharply limned character in David Copperfield, with, perhaps, a few of Andersen's personality traits added to the "very 'umble man."

Leon Bismark "Bix" Beiderbecke (March 10, 1903 – August 6, 1931) was an American jazz cornetist, jazz pianist, and composer.

With Louis Armstrong and Muggsy Spanier, Beiderbecke was one of the most influential jazz soloists of the 1920s. His turns on "Singin' the Blues and "I'm Coming, Virginia" (both 1927), in particular, demonstrated an unusual purity of tone and a gift for improvisation. With these two recordings, especially, he helped to invent the jazz ballad style and hinted at what, in the 1950s, would become cool jazz. "In a Mist" (1927), one of a handful of his piano compositions and one of only two he recorded, mixed classical (Impressionist) influences with jazz syncopation. Beiderbecke also has been credited for his influence, directly, on Bing Crosby and, indirectly, via saxophonist Frank Trumbauer, on Lester Young.