the task. It is interesting to see from the original manuscript and the
proofs how Dickens kept raising and lowering the lights which fell upon
the Landlesses. We have seen from the original manuscript in chapter vi.
how Dickens heightened his description of the pair. He changed ‘A
handsome young fellow, and a handsome girl; both dark and rich in
colour,’ into ‘An unusually handsome, lithe young fellow, and an
unusually handsome, lithe girl; much alike; both very dark, and very rich
in colour.’ He emphasises Helena’s personal characteristics: ‘Slender,
supple, quick of eye and limb; half shy, half defiant; fierce of look; an
indefinable kind of pause coming and going on their whole expression,
both of face and form, which might be equally likened to the pause before
a crouch or a bound.’ She fought her way through her tragical childhood,
was beaten by a cruel stepfather, and would have allowed him to ‘tear her
to pieces before she would have let him believe that he could make her
shed a tear.’ ‘She had a masterful look.’ Rosa said to her: ‘You seem
to have resolution and power enough to crush me. I shrink into nothing
by the side of your presence.’ But it is soon manifest that Helena has a
tender heart. She and her brother came to the Crisparkles ‘to quarrel
with you, and affront you, and break away again.’ But they are touched
by Mr. Crisparkle’s kindness, and Helena is more than touched. Neville
tells Crisparkle that in describing his own imperfections he is not
describing his sister’s. ‘She has come out of the disadvantages of our
miserable life, as much better than I am as that cathedral tower is
higher than these chimneys.’ Describing the misery of their childhood to
Crisparkle, Neville says: ‘You ought to know, to her honour, that nothing
in our misery ever subdued her, though it often cowed me. When we ran
away from it (we ran away four times in six years, to be soon brought
back and cruelly punished), the flight was always of her planning and
leading. Each time she dressed as a boy, and showed the daring of a man.
I take it we were seven years old when we first decamped.’ He says again
to Crisparkle: ‘You don’t know, sir, what a complete understanding can
exist between my sister and me, though no spoken word—perhaps hardly as
much as a look—may have passed between us.’
2. She has been from the beginning a born planner and leader. She has
shown the daring of a man. When her brother lost the pocket-knife with
which she was to have cut her hair short, she tried desperately to tear
it out or to bite it off. Yet this strong and fiercely passionate girl
had herself under the strictest control.
She had no fear of Jasper. Rosa, Helena, Neville, Jasper, and Edwin meet
in Crisparkle’s drawing-room. Rosa is singing under the control of
Jasper. She bursts into tears and shrieks out: ‘I can’t bear this! I am
frightened! Take me away!’ Helena immediately comes to the rescue, and
with one swift turn of her lithe figure lays the little beauty on a sofa.
Edwin says to Jasper:
‘You are such a conscientious master, and require so much, that I
believe you make her afraid of you. No wonder.’
‘No wonder,’ repeated Helena.
‘There, Jack, you hear! You would be afraid of him, under similar
circumstances, wouldn’t you, Miss Landless?’
‘Not under any circumstances,’ returned Helena.
This to my mind is the first unmistakable suggestion of what was to be
developed. Here we have Jasper and Helena falling into enmity almost at
the first moment of their meeting, challenging one another to battle.
Helena accepts the challenge. Not under any circumstances would she be
afraid of Jasper. She lives to redeem that word.
3. Dickens expressly tells us that Helena from her childhood was
accustomed to disguise herself as a boy. ‘When we ran away from it (we
ran away four times in six years, to be soon brought back and cruelly
punished), the flight was always of her planning and leading. Each time
she dressed as a boy, and showed the daring of a man.’ This is the
strongest reason for the identification of Helena with Datchery. I find
it difficult to suppose that any careful student of Dickens will believe
that these facts about Helena’s disguise were put in without intent. It
was one of those facts which Dickens intended his readers to interpret by
the backward look. Those who were amazed when Datchery appeared as
Helena would be referred back to the significant words which they had
missed.
Helena protects her unhappy brother in London, and plans against his
enemies. She surmises that ‘Neville’s movements are watched, and that
the purpose of his foes is to isolate him from all friends and
acquaintances, and wear out his daily life grain by grain.’ She secures
the help of Mr. Tartar.
In her conference with Grewgious, Helena plans for checkmating Jasper,
and inquires whether ‘it would be best to wait until any more maligning
and pursuing of Neville on the part of this wretch shall disclose itself,
or to try to anticipate it.’
4. Helena’s whole heart went with the effort at detection. We have seen
her hatred of Jasper. In the conversation between Helena and Rosa about
Drood and Jasper, Rosa betrays her horror of Jasper and his mesmeric
power over her, which makes her ashamed and passionately hurt. They
resume on the same strain.
Says Rosa:
‘But you said to-night that you would not be afraid of him, under any
circumstances, and that gives me—who am so much afraid of him—courage
to tell only you. Hold me! Stay with me! I am too frightened to be
left by myself.’
The lustrous gipsy-face drooped over the clinging arms and bosom, and
the wild black hair fell down protectingly over the childish form.
There was a slumbering gleam of fire in the intense dark eyes, though
they were then softened with compassion and admiration. Let
whomsoever it most concerned look well to it!
This last sentence is another of the unmistakably prophetic sentences in
Dickens. Helena was the sworn champion thenceforth of Rosa against
Jasper. Helena submits herself to the fairy bride and learns from her
what she knows. When Jasper is mentioned and Rosa says, ‘I could not
hold any terms with him, could I?’ Helena answers with indignation, ‘You
know how I love you, darling. But I would sooner see you dead at his
wicked feet.’
As to the close and tender affection between Helena and Neville, and her
vehement sympathy with his trial, there is no question. I quote one
passage because it seems to me a most striking fact that in the proofs of
Dickens the whole of it is struck out:
‘I don’t think so,’ said the Minor Canon. ‘There is duty to be done
here; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and courage wanted here.’
‘I meant,’ explained Neville, ‘that the surroundings are so dull and
unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable friend or society
here.’
‘You have only to remember,’ said Mr. Crisparkle, ‘that you are here
yourself, and that she has to draw you into the sunlight.’
They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crisparkle began
anew.
‘When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that your sister
had risen out of the disadvantages of your past lives as superior to
you as the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral is higher than the chimneys
of Minor Canon Corner. Do you remember that?’
‘Right well!’
‘I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic flight. No
matter what I think it now. What I would emphasise is, that under
the head of Pride your sister is a great and opportune example to
you.’
‘Under _all_ heads that are included in the composition of a fine
character, she is.’
‘Say so; but take this one. . . . She can dominate it even when it
is wounded through her sympathy with you. . . . Every day and hour
of her life since Edwin Drood’s disappearance she has faced malignity
and folly for you as only a brave nature well directed can. So it
will be with her to the end . . . [pride] which knows no shrinking,
and can get no mastery over her.’
Immediately after, Neville says: ‘I will do all I can to imitate her.’
‘Do so, and be a truly brave man, as she is a truly brave woman,’
answered Mr. Crisparkle stoutly. In his proof Dickens struck out the
words, ‘as she is a truly brave woman.’
It is impossible, I think, to read this and not to see that Dickens is
afraid that we may too soon suspect Helena Landless of being Datchery.
Neville’s sufferings under the suspicion are unmistakable and cruel.
When Crisparkle saw him he wished that his eyes were not quite so large
and quite so bright. ‘I want more sun to shine upon you.’ Neville tells
him that he feels marked and tainted even when he goes out at night, and
he never goes out in the day. He says, though Dickens did not mean us to
read the sentence: ‘It seems a little hard to be so tied to a stake, and
innocent; but I don’t complain.’
Such are the main reasons that induce me to believe that Helena is
Datchery. It is admitted on all hands that she was meant to play an
important part in the story. What part does she play if she is not
Datchery?
DATCHERY’S WISTFUL GAZE
But the proof that impresses me as much as any other is to be found in
the passage: ‘John Jasper’s lamp is kindled and his lighthouse is shining
when Mr. Datchery returns alone towards it. As mariners on a dangerous
voyage, approaching an iron-bound coast, may look along the beams of the
warning light to the haven lying beyond it that may never be reached, so
Mr. Datchery’s wistful gaze is directed to this beacon and beyond.’ The
detective of whom this is written cannot possibly be a mere detective.
His heart is engaged in the search. This fits Helena, and Helena only,
of all the characters that have been brought forward. A professional
detective paid by Grewgious could never have behaved in that way.
Helena’s whole heart was in the business. She had to relieve her
fondly-loved brother from a cruel weight of anxiety and suspicion. She
had to bring a villain whose baseness she thoroughly knew to justice.
She had to liberate the girl friend she loved from persecution, and she
looked to a beyond, to the haven—the haven of Crisparkle’s love.
DATCHERY’S WIG
Datchery wears a wig, and it is unusually large, as though a woman’s hair
were concealed under it. As Mr. Cuming Walters also points out, Helena
undoubtedly had a strong motive for not sacrificing her hair to the
disguise, for she was unmistakably in love with Crisparkle.
DATCHERY’S HANDS
There is no doubt that if Datchery was Helena, one of her chief
difficulties must have been with her hands.
Miss Stirling Graeme, the author of _Mystifications_, had a marvellous
power of disguising herself. ‘There was nothing extraordinary about
her,’ says Dr. John Brown, ‘but let her put on the old lady; it was as if
a warlock spell had passed over her; not merely her look, but her nature
was changed: her spirit had passed into the character she represented;
and jest, quick retort, whimsical fancy, the wildest nonsense flowed from
her lips, with a freedom and truth to nature which appeared to be
impossible in her own personality.’
Sir Walter Scott in his _Journal_ for 7th March 1828 tells us that when
she returned to her party in the character of an old Scottish lady she
deceived every one. ‘The prosing account she gave of her son, the
antiquary, who found an auld wig in a slate quarry, was extremely
ludicrous, and she puzzled the Professor of Agriculture with a merciless
account of the succession of crops in the parks around her old
mansion-house. No person to whom the secret was not entrusted had the
least guess of an impostor, _except one shrewd young lady present_, _who
observed the hand narrowly_, _and saw it was plumper than the age of the
lady seemed to warrant_.’
In the _Daily Mail_ of 4th April 1912 there is an account of two girls
who lived together, passing as husband and wife. The man with whom they
lodged said: ‘The husband’s hands were so small and soft that both my
wife and myself were suspicious.’
I ask the attention of readers to the manner in which Dickens refers to
Datchery’s hands. I do not lay too much stress on these indications, but
they deserve consideration.
1. We read in chapter xviii. about Datchery in the coffee-room of the
Crozier, ‘as he stood with his back to the empty fireplace waiting for
his fried sole, veal cutlet, and pint of sherry.’ (‘Empty’ was an
afterthought on Dickens’s part.) Here we have Datchery keeping his hands
out of view.
2. A little after, Datchery asks the waiter to take his hat down for a
moment from the peg. If he had stretched out his own hand it might have
been noticed.
3. Later in the same chapter, when Datchery meets Jasper and the Mayor,
he does not shake hands with them. ‘“I beg pardon,” said Mr. Datchery,
making a leg with his hat under his arm.’ Originally this was written
‘hat in hand.’ If he carried his hat under his arm, one hand would be
buried in the hat.
4. Afterwards we read of Datchery following Jasper and the Mayor, ‘with
his hat under his arm, and his shock of white hair streaming in the
evening breeze.’
5. When Datchery is talking to the opium woman, ‘he lounges along, like
the chartered bore of the city, with his uncovered grey hair blowing
about, and his purposeless hands rattling the loose money in the pockets
of his trousers.’ His hands are thus out of sight. Immediately after we
find him ‘still rattling his loose money,’ and again, ‘still rattling.’
6. At last he begins to count out the sum demanded of him by the opium
woman. ‘Greedily watching his hands, she continues to hold forth on the
great example set him.’ Of course, she may merely be watching for the
money in his hands, but there may be something more in it than this. Let
it be noted that Dickens originally wrote, ‘Greedily watching him,’ and
inserted ‘his hands’ later.
7. Immediately after ‘Mr. Datchery drops some money, stoops to pick it
up.’ In all the scene with the opium woman he keeps his hands out of
sight as much as possible, and when he does show them they strike the old
woman.
I may add, though much has been said about the possibility of detecting
by means of the voice, this does not appear by any means to be
impossible, or even very difficult. Only one meeting between Jasper and
Helena is recorded. Her voice is described as low and rich. Even if he
had talked with Datchery, it is more than doubtful whether he would have
known the voice again, music-master though he was. Datchery, if our
supposition is right, was an expert in disguise, and could have carried
it off. I find in the pleasant _Recollections and Impressions_ of Mrs.
Sellar that she had no difficulty in deceiving her nearest friends. She
tells us how one day, when Sir David and Lady Brewster were dining with
the Sellars at St. Andrews, after dinner Lady Brewster begged her to
dress up and take in Sir David:
‘“But what will account for my absence?”
‘“Oh, you have been obliged to go to bed with one of your headaches; and
I’ll introduce the stranger.”
‘So I went upstairs, put on a false front, and was announced as Miss
Craig. On the gentlemen coming in I was specially introduced to Sir
David, but not being at all attractive-looking, he soon left me for
younger and fairer friends! Determined he should take some notice of me,
I said I would not play the piano unless Sir David asked me; and on this
being told him he muttered: “God bless the woman! what does she mean! I
don’t know her.”’ {163}
Mr. Lang says: ‘A young lady of my acquaintance successfully passed
herself off on her betrothed as her own cousin—also a young lady—and
Dickens had not to imagine anything so unlikely as that.’
To this I may add that Scott tells a story of Garrick and his wife. Mrs.
Garrick was an accomplished actress, but once she witnessed an
entertainment in which was introduced a farmer giving his neighbours an
account of the wonders seen on a visit to London. The character was
received with such peals of applause that Mrs. Garrick began to think it
rivalled those which had been so lately lavished on Richard the Third.
At last she observed her little spaniel dog was making efforts to get
towards the balcony which separated him from the facetious farmer. Then
she became aware of the truth. ‘How strange,’ she said, ‘that a dog
should know his master, and a woman, in the same circumstances, should
not recognise her husband!’ {164a}
THE ORIGIN OF DICKENS’S IDEA
So strong is the evidence for Helena Landless being Datchery that even
the chief advocates of the Proctor theory have fully admitted its force.
Dr. M. R. James says: ‘I will go as far as this: if Edwin is dead, then
Datchery is Helena.’ {164b} Mr. Andrew Lang over and over again admitted
that Datchery might be Helena. But he contended that, if so, the idea of
Dickens is improbable with the worst sort of improbability, is terribly
far-fetched, and fails to interest. ‘It is the idea of a bad sixpenny
novel. We are asked to credit Dickens with the highest scientific skill,
and this egregious invention is the result of his science. The idea
would have been rejected by Mr. Guy Boothby. But it does not follow that
Mr. Walters has not hit on Dickens’s idea. If he has, _Edwin Drood_ is
far below _Count Robert of Paris_ in its first uncorrected state, as the
public will never know it.’
There is something in this argument, and it has never yet been fairly
met, but I believe that I can show that the idea was probably suggested
to Dickens by one figure in real life, and another figure in fiction. So
far as I am aware these suggestions are made for the first time.
In the _Bancroft Recollections_, Lady Bancroft writes on page 31:
My first part at the Strand Theatre was Pippo, in his burlesque _The
Maid and the Magpie_, which proved an immense success, and I
established myself as a leading favourite. It was not until the
_Life of Charles Dickens_ was published that I knew his opinion of
this performance. Dickens had written years before, in a letter to
John Forster, these words:
‘I went to the Strand Theatre, having taken a stall beforehand, for
it is always crammed. I really wish you would go to see _The Maid
and the Magpie_ burlesque there. There is the strangest thing in it
that ever I have seen on the stage—the boy Pippo, by Miss Wilton.
While it is astonishingly impudent (must be, or it couldn’t be done
at all), it is so stupendously like a boy, and unlike a woman, that
it is perfectly free from offence. I never have seen such a thing.
She does an imitation of the dancing of the Christy
Minstrels—wonderfully clever—which, in the audacity of its
thorough-going, is surprising. A thing that you _cannot_ imagine a
woman’s doing at all; and yet the manner, the appearance, the levity,
impulse, and spirits of it are so exactly like a boy, that you cannot
think of anything like her sex in association with it. I never have
seen such a curious thing, and the girl’s talent is unchallengeable.
I call her the cleverest girl I have ever seen on the stage in my
time, and the most singularly original.’
Lady Bancroft adds: ‘Charles Dickens’s being impressed with my likeness
to a boy reminds me that on the first night I acted in _The Middy
Ashore_, one of the staff came up to me at the wings and said: “Beg
pardon, young sir, you must go back to your seat; no strangers are
allowed behind the scenes.”’ From this it must be inferred that Dickens
had there that evening a new idea as to the possibilities of disguise.
Dickens’s letter was written in 1859.
I believe that Dickens in this Datchery assumption was mainly influenced
by Wilkie Collins. Most writers on Dickens have observed his admiration
for Collins, the way in which he co-operated with him, and the high value
he placed on his work. _The Moonstone_ has been referred to in this
connection, but I venture to think that the novel which led Dickens to
his idea was _No Name_. I have already printed (page 91) Dickens’s
wildly enthusiastic testimony to its merits. He placed it far above _The
Woman in White_, and far above _The Moonstone_. In particular, he
admired the character of Magdalen Vanstone.
In _No Name_ we are introduced to a charming family—husband, wife, and
two daughters—the Vanstones. Then it turns out that the parents are
unmarried. The husband made a great mistake in marrying a bad woman in
his early youth, and is nearly ruined in consequence. He induces a good
woman to live with him as his wife, and he has a fortune of £80,000. By
a singular mischance both he and the mother die suddenly about the same
time. Vanstone had made a will leaving his property to the daughters,
but just before the death of his wife he discovers that his real wife is
dead, and so they go out and get married. The law is that marriage
abolishes all past wills. The consequence is that the will is not
effective, and the two daughters are left without a penny, and without a
name. What are the girls to do? The younger, Magdalen, has great force
of character, and shows a talent for the stage. She resolves to revenge
herself on her father’s brother who has taken all the money. Instead of
going to work as an ordinary actress, she gives performances of her own.
She is very clever at acting different parts. She disguises herself as
an old woman, and in all sorts of disguises. She is nineteen, almost the
age of Helena Landless. Here is a description of the way in which she
disguises herself:
I found all the dresses in the box complete—with one remarkable
exception. That exception was the dress of the old north-country
lady; the character which I have already mentioned as the best of all
my pupil’s disguises, and as modelled in voice and manner on her old
governess, Miss Garth. The wig; the eyebrows; the bonnet and veil;
the cloak, padded inside to disfigure her back and shoulders; the
paints and cosmetics used to age her face and alter her
complexion—were all gone. Nothing but the gown remained; a gaudily
flowered silk, useful enough for dramatic purposes, but too
extravagant in colour and pattern to bear inspection by daylight.
The other parts of the dress are sufficiently quiet to pass muster;
the bonnet and veil are only old-fashioned, and the cloak is of a
sober grey colour. But one plain inference can be drawn from such a
discovery as this. As certainly as I sit here, she is going to open
the campaign against Noel Vanstone and Mrs. Lecount, in a character
which neither of those two persons can have any possible reason for
suspecting at the outset—the character of Miss Garth.
What course am I to take under these circumstances? Having got her
secret, what am I to do with it? These are awkward considerations; I
am rather puzzled how to deal with them.
It is something more than the mere fact of her choosing to disguise
herself to forward her own private ends that causes my present
perplexity. Hundreds of girls take fancies for disguising
themselves; and hundreds of instances of it are related year after
year, in the public journals. But my ex-pupil is not to be
confounded, for one moment, with the average adventuress of the
newspapers. She is capable of going a long way beyond the limit of
_dressing herself like a man_, _and imitating a man’s voice and
manner_. She has a natural gift for assuming characters, which I
have never seen equalled by a woman; and she has performed in public
until she has felt her own power, and trained her talent for
disguising herself to the highest pitch. A girl who takes the
sharpest people unawares by using such a capacity as this to help her
own objects in private life; and who sharpens that capacity by a
determination to fight her way to her own purpose which has beaten
down everything before it, up to this time—is a girl who tries an
experiment in deception, new enough and dangerous enough to lead one
way or the other, to very serious results. This is my conviction
founded on a large experience in the art of imposing on my
fellow-creatures. I say of my fair relative’s enterprise what I
never said or thought of it till I introduced myself to the inside of
her box. The chances for and against her winning the fight for her
lost fortune are now so evenly balanced that I cannot for the life of
me see on which side the scale inclines. All I can discern is, that
it will, to a dead certainty, turn one way or the other on the day
when she passes Noel Vanstone’s doors in disguise.
I am not prepared to criticise Dickens’s plot as Mr. Lang has done. If
Wilkie Collins made an admirable heroine of Magdalen Vanstone disguising
herself variously, why should not Dickens succeed in making a character
as wonderful and more attractive of Helena Landless? There is nothing to
be condemned in the idea itself. It has been used by masters, and used
successfully. There would have been nothing to condemn, I believe, in
Dickens’s way of working it out if he had lived to complete his book.
The comparison with Guy Boothby is singularly inept.
OBJECTIONS
The objections that have been made to the Datchery-Helena theory turn
mainly on the supposed disgracefulness of Dickens deceiving his readers
as he did, and working out a melodramatic idea. These objections might
have been, and, I believe, would have been, scattered to the winds by the
complete story.
The most serious objection to the identification of Datchery as Helena is
the confusion in the chronology. This is admirably stated by Dr.
Jackson, who examines in a masterly way the arrangement of the chapters.
He comes to the conclusion that chapter xviii. has been introduced
prematurely. It ought to have followed chapter xxii. If Dickens had
lived to issue the fifth and sixth monthly instalments, he would have
placed our chapter xviii. without the alteration of a single word after
chapter xxii., next before chapter xxiii. We know that Dickens told his
sister-in-law that he was afraid the Datchery assumption in the fifth
number was premature. Dr. Jackson gives us a full and valuable
examination of the manuscript so far as its arrangement is concerned. I
have tested his statements in every point, and can only confirm them. To
Dr. Jackson’s chapter ix., ‘The Manuscript,’ I refer the reader.
There are other objections. In particular, some are troubled by
Datchery’s masculine ways. They ask how Helena, fresh from Ceylon,
should have known the old tavern way of keeping scores. There is not
much in this. In fact, these scores, which could have served no purpose,
seem to me the natural expression of a buoyant girl rejoicing in her
achievements. A cool-headed, middle-aged detective would never have
expressed himself in such a way. Why should not Helena have known about
tavern scoring? She was accustomed to walk with her brother Neville, and
in the course of their walks they may very likely have visited a tavern
now and then. We read of Neville finding his way to a tavern when he
walked away that dark night. In _Phineas Finn_, at the end of chapter
lxxi., Trollope, reporting the conversation of two high-born ladies, Lady
Laura Kennedy and Miss Violet Effingham, has this:
‘Was I not to forgive him—I who had turned myself away from him with
a fixed purpose the moment that I found that he had made a mark upon
my heart? I could not wipe off that mark, and yet I married. Was he
not to try to wipe off his mark?’
‘It seems that he wiped it off very quickly; and since that he has
wiped off another mark. One doesn’t know how many marks he has wiped
off. They are like the innkeeper’s score which he makes in chalk. A
damp cloth brings them all away, and leaves nothing behind.’
This shows, at least, that chalk-marking is not a matter of esoteric
knowledge in England, but is known to high and low. I may note that
Dickens inserted the adjective ‘uncouth’—‘a few uncouth, chalked
strokes’—over his original manuscript, to make it clear no doubt that the
scorer was an amateur at the business.
Then there are objections to Datchery’s masculine fare—fried sole, veal
cutlet, and pint of sherry; bread and cheese, and salad and ale. It must
be remembered that Helena was in disguise. This was not a mere disguise
of dress, but it was a disguise of everything. She was assuming a
character and carrying it out. She had all the ability and all the will
for accomplishing this. In doing masculine things she was simply
carrying out her disguise. A woman passing for a man must do what a man
would do or she will fail, and be found out.
It has been suggested that if Datchery is Helena, and therefore knows the
Gatehouse, why does she give it ‘a second look of some interest’? Dr.
Jackson replies very well that the house for her has now a new
importance, and is the object upon which her thoughts are to be
concentrated for weeks, and perhaps for months. But Dickens did not mean
this passage to be printed, for good reasons of his own.
WHAT DICKENS DID NOT MEAN US TO READ
This leads us to note that certain passages which have been much
discussed were not meant for publication by Dickens. That is, he struck
them out in proof. Dr. Jackson points out that in chapter xviii., when
Datchery consults the waiter at the Crozier about ‘a fair lodging for a
single buffer,’ he is obviously asking to be recommended to Tope’s. The
waiter is puzzled at first. When Mr. Datchery asks for ‘something
venerable, architectural, and inconvenient,’ the waiter shakes his head.
‘Anything cathedraly, now?’ Mr. Datchery suggested. Then comes the
mention of Tope. Datchery boggles about the cathedral tower seeking for
lodgings, but Dickens did not mean us to read the words: ‘With a general
impression on his mind that Mrs. Tope’s was somewhere very near it, and
that, like the children in the game of hot boiled beans and very good
butter, he was warm in his search when he saw the tower, and cold when he
didn’t see it.’
When the Deputy pointed out Jasper’s, first Dickens wrote ‘“Indeed?” said
Mr. Datchery, with an appearance of interest.’ Then he wrote:
‘“Indeed?” said Mr. Datchery, with a second look of some interest.’ Then
he struck out the sentence entirely.
Dickens also struck out the sentence which describes Datchery after the
Deputy left him: ‘Mr. Datchery, taking off his hat to give that shock of
white hair of his another shake, seemed quite resigned, and betook
himself whither he had been directed.’ He also struck out the passage in
which Mrs. Tope and Datchery talk of what occurred last winter:
Perhaps Mr. Datchery had heard something of what had occurred there
last winter?
Mr. Datchery had as confused a knowledge of the event in question, on
trying to recall it, as he well could have. He begged Mrs. Tope’s
pardon when she found it incumbent on her to correct him in every
detail of his summary of the facts, but pleaded that he was merely a
single buffer getting through life upon his means as idly as he
could, and that so many people were so constantly making away with so
many other people as to render it difficult for a buffer of an easy
temper to preserve the circumstances of the several cases unmixed in
his mind.
Nearly all the conversation between the Mayor and Datchery is deleted.
See page 9.
Also Dickens erases the little talk between the Deputy and Datchery
beginning: ‘Master Deputy, what do you owe me?’ See page 11.
It may not be possible to deduce any assured inference from these
omissions, but they are worth pondering, and may be referred to again.
CHAPTER VII—OTHER THEORIES
THE DROOD-DATCHERY THEORY
One opposing theory is that Datchery was Drood. With all respect for the
scholars who have propounded it, this appears to me a purely comic
notion. It is the most fantastical of all fancies as to who was
Datchery. As Dr. Blake Odgers points out, every one at Cloisterham knew
the murdered man: a mere white wig would be no disguise at all. I may
add that if Jasper had discovered him he would almost be justified in
finishing the murder this time. For what would be Drood’s object? The
theory is that, in spite of his being drugged, throttled, perhaps thrown
from a tower, at all events buried in quicklime, and in all probability
locked up in the tomb, Drood got away when his uncle was triumphantly
flinging his watch and scarf-pin into the river. Supposing it were so,
what was Drood doing while he watched his uncle? Is it said that he was
so bemused by the opium that he did not know who had handled him in such
a murderous fashion? This is very hard to believe. Mr. Andrew Lang
himself says: ‘Fancy can suggest no reason why Edwin Drood, if he escaped
from his wicked uncle, should go spying about instead of coming openly
forward.’ Mr. Archer says the flaw is that the theory provides no motive
whatever for Drood’s disguising himself as Datchery. Why should Drood
devote himself to an elaborate scheme of revenge upon his near kinsman
and friend? He would want to hush the matter up, and save Jasper from
himself. Why did Drood let Neville lie under the suspicion of murder,
and why was not Rosa let into the secret? It is hardly worth while to
point out that there is nothing in Drood’s character as given us which
could have enabled him to show the ability, the composure, and the
self-control of Datchery. Who could have supplied him with money to live
idly at Cloisterham? His money was all locked up till he came of age,
and Jasper was his guardian and trustee. If Grewgious supplied the
money, why did not Grewgious make an end of Neville’s misery?
THE BAZZARD-DATCHERY THEORY
A far more plausible theory is that Datchery was Bazzard. Dickens almost
invites readers to connect Bazzard with Datchery when he makes Grewgious
say to Rosa when she came up to London that Bazzard ‘was off duty here
altogether just at present, and a firm downstairs with whom I have
business relations lend me a substitute.’ (The words ‘here altogether’
were added by Dickens.)
I have no doubt that Dickens in some way meant to explain Bazzard’s
business. But that Bazzard should have been Datchery will appear a sheer
impossibility to careful students of Dickens. Proctor, whose side
remarks are often excellent, puts the point briefly as follows: ‘No one
at all familiar with Dickens’s method would for a moment imagine that
Datchery is Bazzard, Mr. Grewgious’s clerk. Bazzard was as certainly
intended to come to grief, and be exposed in the sequel as was Silas Wegg
in _Our Mutual Friend_.’
Mr. Cuming Walters says: ‘Literary art rebels against the idea. Bazzard
was one of Dickens’s favourite low comedy characters.’
Dr. James dismisses the Bazzard theory ‘because Buzzard in his first and
principal appearance has too much both of the fool and of the knave about
him to develop into the Datchery whom we are intended to admire.’
Dr. Jackson says: ‘Capacity can ape incapacity, but incapacity cannot ape
capacity. This being so, I am sure that Bazzard, who is not only
“particularly angular, but also somnolent, dull, incompetent,
egotistical, is wholly incapable of playing the part of the supple,
quick-witted, resolute, dignified Datchery.”’ In these judgments I
agree. Bazzard has no ethical quality. He has not the smallest personal
interest in the discovery. How could it be said of Bazzard that his
‘wistful gaze is directed to this beacon, and beyond?’
As the theory is obvious and popular, it may be worth while to say
something more, and Dr. Hugo Eick’s words, as previously quoted, may help
us. Helena Landless had the elemental qualities needed for the Datchery
role. Note that among Shakespeare’s heroines who masquerade as men,
Rosalind, in _As you Like It_, and Julia, in _Two Gentlemen of Verona_,
have not these elemental qualities and are suspected. Portia has them,
and even her own husband does not know her in her doctor’s robes. She is
recognised by all as a young doctor, but not one person in court thinks
‘There is a woman!’ Bazzard might have imitated depressive and negative
conditions, but he could not have imitated the qualities of positive
life. ‘Fulness of life and the sap which quickens it cannot be replaced
by any dissimulation.’
It should also be noted that if Bazzard was Datchery, he had no occasion
to disguise himself in a huge white wig, for he was not known in
Cloisterham.
THE GREWGIOUS-DATCHERY THEORY
The theory that Datchery was Grewgious may be dismissed in a sentence.
Grewgious with his ‘awkward and hesitating manner,’ his ‘shambling walk,’
his ‘scanty flat crop of hair,’ his ‘smooth head,’ his ‘short sight,’ his
general angularity fits in no way the watchful, courtly, adroit, fluent,
and versatile Datchery.
THE DATCHERY-NEVILLE THEORY
Mr. Lang has a wild conjecture somewhere that Neville was Datchery, and
that Helena was disguised as Neville. It is difficult to treat this
seriously. Neville would inevitably have been found out. His cause was
undertaken by his friends, and his business was to study and wait. Why
on earth should Helena disguise herself as Neville?
THE TARTAR-DATCHERY THEORY
There is something more attractive about this theory, and it has been
very well argued by Mr. G. F. Gadd in the _Dickensian_, vol. ii. p. 13.
Mr. Gadd uses the argument ‘with a second look of some interest,’ as
showing Datchery’s ignorance of Cloisterham. He quotes Tartar’s phrase
‘being an idle man,’ as corresponding with the ‘idle buffer living on his
means.’ He suggests that Dickens at this point of his story avails
himself of the licence not unfrequent in fiction of temporarily
abandoning the strictly chronological order. He suggests that Tartar as
a seafaring man might know something of opium smoking, and compares the
wistful gaze directed to this beacon and beyond, to what is said about
Tartar as he and Rosa entered his chambers at Staple Inn. ‘Rosa thought
. . . that his far-seeing eyes looked as if they had been used to watch
danger afar off, and to watch it without flinching, drawing nearer and
nearer.’
But, as Dr. Jackson points out, Tartar has his duties assigned to him.
He has to watch over Neville and see him almost daily. Again, Tartar
does not know about Cloisterham and the Drood mystery what Datchery knows
and needs to know. ‘Thirdly, I doubt whether the cheery,
straightforward, simple-minded Tartar is capable of Datchery’s
versatility, subtlety, and address.’ To this I add that Tartar’s heart
is not engaged in the business as Helena’s is. Also what need is there
for his disguise? He has never been in Cloisterham, and nobody there
knows him.
* * * * *
For these reasons we conclude that Helena and no other is Datchery. I
have taken no account of the theory that Datchery is an unknown person.
An unknown person could not possess the necessary qualities of heart.
CHAPTER VIII—HOW WAS ‘EDWIN DROOD’ TO END?
How _Edwin Drood_ was to end is a problem which can only be solved to a
certain extent. We find we are left in the middle, and as much mystery
remains as fully justifies the title. We do not know the precise manner
in which the murder was accomplished. In particular, we are left
ignorant as to the way in which the crime is to be brought home to the
victim. We cannot define the relations of the opium woman to Drood and
Jasper and the Landlesses. We do not know the history of Jasper’s early
years. We can do no more than speculate, and the speculations must be
confined within strict limits. The first question is, whether Dickens
himself knew how he was going to extricate and complete his narrative.
Scott has left us the astonishing statement {184} that ‘I have generally
written to the middle of one of these novels without having the least
idea how it was to end.’ Mr. Skene, a true friend of Sir Walter Scott,
tells us {185} that when Scott described to him the scheme which he had
formed for _Anne of Geierstein_, he suggested to him that he might with
advantage connect the history of René, king of Provence, in which subject
Skene had special means of helping him. Scott accepted the suggestion,
‘and the whole _dénouement_ of the story of _Anne of Geierstein_ was
changed, and the Provence part woven into it, in the form in which it
ultimately came forth.’
Was Dickens in the same case when death interrupted him in his work?
Was this an ‘apoplectic’ novel?
Scott speaks frankly of _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle Dangerous_
being his ‘apoplectic books.’ Does _Edwin Drood_ bear the same relation
to the body of Dickens’s work as _Count Robert of Paris_ and _Castle
Dangerous_ bear to the Waverley Novels? Mr. Lang, whose views on this
subject varied much, in one of his later writings takes the view that
Dickens was deeply embarrassed. He says: ‘It is melancholy to think of
this great and terribly overtasked genius tormented by fears that were
only too real.’ He finds the story wandering on, living from hand to
mouth, full of absurdities. He thinks that Dickens was very capable of
changing his original purpose, and saving the life of Edwin.
There is no doubt that Dickens was puzzled about the order of his
chapters. Forster tells us that Dickens ‘became a little nervous about
the course of the tale from a fear that he might have plunged too soon
into the incidents leading on to the catastrophe such as the Datchery
assumption (a misgiving he had certainly expressed to his
sister-in-law).’ I have already expressed agreement with Dr. Jackson in
his plan for renumbering the chapters. Unless this plan is adopted there
is chronological confusion. Also there is no doubt that Dickens had been
working under terrific strain. But the testimony of those who knew him
best is that his faculties were never brighter and stronger than they
were in his last months.
The same impression is left upon me by his unfinished novel. Those who
dislike Dickens’s later manner may easily find faults. They may say that
Honeythunder is grotesque rather than amusing. They may say that
Jasper’s courtship of Rosa is melodramatic and wolfish. I confess to
being perpetually puzzled by the account of Neville’s capture on the
morning after the murder. Why was he pursued in that manner? All that
was known against him was that he had been with Edwin on the previous
night. He is only eight miles away from Cloisterham, and stopping at a
roadside tavern to refresh. He starts again on his journey, and becomes
aware of other pedestrians behind him coming up at a faster pace than
his. He stands aside to let them pass, but only four pass. Other four
slackened speed, and loitered as if intending to follow him when he
should go on. The remainder of the party (half a dozen, perhaps) turn
and go back at a great rate. Among those who go back is Mr. Crisparkle.
Nobody speaks, but they all look at him. Four walk in advance and four
in the rear. Thus he is beset, and stops as a last test, and they all
stop. He asks:
‘Why do you attend upon me in this way? . . . Are you a pack of
thieves?’
‘Don’t answer him,’ said one of the number. . . . ‘Better be quiet.
. . .’
‘I will not submit to be penned in,’ says Neville; ‘I mean to pass
those four in front.’
They all stand still, and he shoulders his heavy stick and quickens his
pace. The largest and strongest man of the number dexterously closes
with him and goes down with him, but not before the heavy stick has
descended smartly. Naturally Neville is utterly bewildered. Two of them
hold his arms and lead him back into a group whose central figures are
Jasper and Crisparkle. Why on earth did not Crisparkle speak to him at
the beginning, and tell him what had happened? All this is
somnambulistic.
There seems to be a slight slip in chapter ii.
Jasper’s room at the Gatehouse is described. It has an unfinished
picture of a blooming schoolgirl hanging over the chimneypiece. At the
upper end of the room Mr. Jasper opens a door and discloses a small inner
room pleasantly lighted and prepared for supper.
‘Fixed as the look the young fellow meets is, there is yet in it some
strange power of suddenly including the sketch over the chimneypiece.’
They dine in the inner room. The cloth is drawn, and a dish of walnuts
and a decanter of rich coloured sherry are placed upon the table.
‘How’s she looking, Jack?’
Mr. Jasper’s concentrated face again includes the portrait as he returns:
‘Very like your sketch indeed.’
‘I am a little proud of it,’ says the young fellow, glancing up at the
sketch with complacency, and then shutting one eye, and taking a
corrected prospect of it over a level bridge of nut-crackers in the air.
Dickens seems to have forgotten that the sketch is in the other room.
It seems to me that these are slips, but I do not find any other readers
have taken the same view. With these exceptions, the story seems to be
one of Dickens’s best books. Its grasp of local colour and detail is as
strong as ever it was. There is much of his old humour in the Mayor, in
Miss Twinkleton’s Girls’ School, in Billickin, in Durdles and his
attendant imp. Also the story is constructed with the greatest care and
ingenuity. Any one who carefully goes over the manuscript and the proofs
will see that Dickens had a plan in his mind that he half revealed and
half concealed, that his phrases and details are chosen with the nicest
care, and that he meant to reward those who at the end could take a
‘backward look’ by the delight they would experience in seeing how
everything had been scrupulously planned and artistically conducted to a
climax. We cannot do justice to the book in its present state. But
Dickens’s royal genius was at its full, and would have vindicated itself.
He had set himself deliberately to carrying out a plot far more exact
than he had ever attempted, and the end was in view from the beginning.
This is not to say that the reason of every incident and every
description was disclosed from the first. I have previously discussed
Edgar Allan Poe’s reading of _Barnaby Rudge_, and shown that his
perception, keen as it was, yielded him less than he thought. I have
shown how Dickens prepared the plan for _Little Dorrit_ from the start of
his book. It may be traced now, but without the ‘backward glance’ it
would not have been easy to trace it.
We may also say with some confidence that no new characters of importance
would have been introduced to us in the second half. In the chapter
‘Half Way with Dickens’ I have shown that this is the case with five of
his principal books. The conclusion is not stringent, for Dickens was
free to change his method. But it may be said to be highly probable; if
it is true we are left to conjecture the part that the various characters
would have played in the winding up of the tale.
The book was to end with the capture and conviction of Jasper. I have
already written of the part played and to be played by Grewgious.
Another hunter of Jasper was Durdles. The task assigned to Durdles among
the hunters is fairly clear. Sooner or later, by tapping round the
Sapsea monument he is to discover the presence of ‘a wheen banes,’ or at
least of some unsuspected ‘rubbish.’ He had put the inscription on the
monument before Christmas, and had no doubt satisfied himself then that
all was safe. ‘When Durdles puts a touch or a finish upon his work, no
matter where, inside or outside, Durdles likes to look at his work all
round, and see that his work is a-doing him credit.’
Having made his inspection when the epitaph was put on, Durdles would
have no further curiosity about the tomb until, in the following summer,
he took Mr. Datchery on a rambling expedition as he had taken Jasper.
His peculiar gift, like that of the bloodhound, is to aid in tracking
down the quarry.
Deputy has also his part to play. From the first Jasper hates and fears
Deputy, and there are signs near the close of _Edwin Drood_ that this
strange boy, who has some characteristics in common with Dickie Sludge,
of _Kenilworth_, is to form a close alliance with Datchery. The ugliest
side of Jasper’s character displays itself in his treatment of the ‘young
imp employed by Durdles.’ The chanting of the line, ‘Widdy Widdy
Wake-cock warning,’ has for him a note of menace. With the fury of a
devil he leaps upon the boy when he emerges from the crypt with Durdles,
and hears a sharp whistle rending the silence. ‘I will shed the blood of
that impish wretch!’ he cries; ‘I know I shall do it.’ Durdles has to
appeal to him not to hurt the boy. ‘He followed us to-night, when we
first came here,’ says Jasper. ‘He has been prowling near us ever
since.’
Deputy denies both accusations. ‘I’d only just come out for my ’elth
when I see you two a-coming out of the Kinfreederal.’
What has Deputy actually seen? He may have testimony to give of the most
vital consequence, but even if he has seen nothing of Jasper’s movements
while Durdles lies asleep, or of his approach to the Sapsea monument, he
will tell Mr. Datchery of that furious onslaught when Jasper clutched his
throat and threatened to kill him. He will prove a very useful ally of
the hunters.
It seems quite inconceivable that either Durdles or Deputy could have
known the whole secret and kept it. Neither of them was capable of
keeping a secret long. But they might have suspicions, and they might
and would know circumstances which when rightly interpreted led to the
inevitable conclusion.
I cannot but think that the chief part in the coming narrative was to be
played by the opium woman. The novel from the very first page has a
touch of the East. In Wilkie Collins’s _The Moonstone_ the Indians did
their part, and then vanished from the scene. But in _Edwin Drood_ we
have the Landlesses from Ceylon with a touch of dark blood, or at least
of the Eastern spirit. Mr. Lang is in excess of the facts when he calls
them Eurasians, and Dickens hesitates in ascribing black blood to them.
They are more probably gypsies. We have also the connection of Edwin
Drood with the East. There is more than a suggestion of dark blood in
John Jasper. Above all, we have the opium woman. What was the
connection between John Jasper and the opium woman? What was John
Jasper’s history before he came to Cloisterham?
We do not know, but conjectures have been hazarded. Mr. Cuming Walters
thinks that the opium woman’s hatred of Jasper may be due to the fact
that Jasper has wronged a child of the woman’s. He also conjectures that
Jasper may be the son of the opium woman. Dr. Jackson conjectures that
Jasper seduces a young girl who had treated the old woman kindly, that he
neglected this girl for Rosa, that the girl committed suicide, and that
the old woman devoted herself to the pursuit of the betrayer. All this
is mere speculation. We have really no means of judging whether the
speculation is true or not. It does seem that the woman’s peculiar
hatred of Jasper must have an origin and a grave cause. Miss Stoddart
suggests that the opium woman was not wholly degraded, and that she is
horrified by Jasper’s continually repeated threatenings while under the
influence of opium; that her sympathies have been wakened for that
hapless Ned who bears a threatened name, and she resolves to do her best
to serve him. With an honest purpose she makes her way before Christmas
to Cloisterham. She loses sight of Jasper, but actually meets Edwin
Drood. The kind act of that young stranger causes her to unload her
conscience, and she bids him be thankful that his name is not Ned. At
her second visit in the summer she knows from Jasper’s confessions under
her own roof that the long premeditated crime has actually taken place,
and her object in visiting Cloisterham is to gather evidence that may
serve the ends of justice. This sunken creature has a task assigned to
her, and she fulfils it.
I am not sure that Dickens means to throw any redeeming light on the
character of the opium woman. She has been wronged; she is seeking
vengeance, and at last, she finds it. How this comes to pass Dickens
meant to tell us, but he meant, no doubt, to surprise us in the telling.
My own belief is that Dickens intended to surprise his readers by telling
them of some unsuspected blood relationship between his characters.
Surprises of this kind are given in his novels. No reader of _Oliver
Twist_ could have guessed from the first part Oliver’s relationship to
Monks and the Maylies. Who would have supposed from the first half of
_Nicholas Nickleby_ that Smike was the son of Ralph?
‘That, boy,’ repeated Ralph, looking vacantly at him.
‘Whom I saw stretched dead and cold upon his bed, and who is now in
his grave—’
‘Who is now in his grave,’ echoed Ralph, like one who talks in his
sleep.
The man raised his eyes, and clasped his hands solemnly together:
‘—Was your only son, so help me God in heaven!’
In the midst of a dead silence Ralph sat down, pressing his two hands
upon his temples. He removed them after a minute, and never was
there seen, part of a living man undisfigured by any wound, such a
ghastly face as he then disclosed.
Again, who would have supposed from the early part of _Great
Expectations_ that Estella was the daughter of Abel Magwitch? {196}
In _Barnaby Rudge_, Maypole Hugh turns out to be an illegitimate son of
Sir John Chester. In _The Old Curiosity Shop_, ‘The Stranger’ is found
to be the brother of the Grandfather. In _Bleak House_, Esther Summerson
is revealed as a daughter of Lady Dedlock. In _Our Mutual Friend_, John
Rokesmith turns out to be John Harmon.
That the action of opium had a part to play in the revelation can hardly
be doubted. The whole book is drenched in opium. In _The Moonstone_ the
problem is who stole the jewels. It is solved by opium. The jewels are
stolen by a man under the influence of opium surreptitiously
administered. He is quite unconscious of what he has done, and remains
unconscious. Afterwards he is discovered by a fresh administration of
opium. When the opium has completely done its work the man repeats his
deed, and the experiment is conclusive.
I do not think that any one reading right on would name the perpetrator
of the theft, and yet when we take a backward glance we find an account
of a dinner-party about the seventieth page which gives the clue. I
doubt whether any one on first reading it would see in it anything that
mattered, and yet it contains everything that matters. The height of art
in work like this is to conceal art. You may be able at an early stage
to introduce facts which contain the ultimate solution of your problem,
and yet appear important enough to be stated for their own sake. The
solution of the problem, or rather the materials of the solution, should
be given, and yet the reader should be unable to detect the full
significance of the preliminary statement till the complete clearing
arrives. At the same time the book will not be satisfactory if details
are superfluous, if they do nothing to carry one on to the dissipation of
the mystery.
It is not to be denied that this fitting of everything into its place is
at times a little wearisome. ‘The construction is most minute and most
wonderful,’ wrote Anthony Trollope of Wilkie Collins. ‘I can never lose
the taste of the construction. The author seems always warning me to
remember that something happened at exactly half-past two on Tuesday
morning, or that a woman disappeared from the road just fifteen yards
beyond the fourth milestone.’ There is truth in this, but if Anthony
Trollope had written a novel of mystery, which perhaps he could never
have done, he would have had to take the same path.
Another doctor in _The Moonstone_ tells us that the ignorant distrust of
opium in England spreads through all classes, so much so, that every
doctor in large practice finds himself every now and then obliged to
deceive his patients by giving them opium under a disguise. He himself
claims that opium saved his life. He suffered from an incurable internal
complaint, but he was determined to live in order to provide for a person
very dear to him. ‘To that all-potent and all-merciful drug I am
indebted for a respite of many years from my sentence of death.’
Like Collins, Dickens was keenly interested in the possibilities of
opium. Collins himself was a lavish consumer of the drug, but I do not
think it has been suggested that Dickens himself ever touched it. Nor is
it likely, for Dickens with all his tenseness of nerve was an eminently
self-controlled and temperate man. But in _Edwin Drood_ he has inserted
a sentence in praise of opium. The opium woman says to Datchery: ‘It’s
opium, deary. Neither more nor less. And it’s like a human creetur so
far, that you always hear what can be said against it, but seldom what
can be said in its praise.’ The last sentence was an afterthought on the
part of Dickens. It has been written in.
As to whether Jasper was made ultimately to repeat his crime in any
fashion under the influence of opium, it is impossible to say. He was
unquestionably more or less under the influence of the drug when he
committed it.
The literary men of Dickens’s period were much interested in the action
of drugs, in mesmerism, and the like. Elliotson, to whom _Pendennis_ is
dedicated, was on intimate terms with Dickens. Dickens plainly implies
that Crisparkle went to the weir because Jasper willed him to do so.
Collins and Dickens were both addicted to calling witnesses to their
accuracy. At the close of _Armadale_, Collins says: ‘Wherever the story
touches on questions connected with law, medicine, or chemistry, it has
been submitted before publication to the experience of professional men.
The kindness of a friend supplied me with a plan of the doctor’s
apparatus—I saw the chemical ingredients at work before I ventured on
describing the action of them in the closing scenes of this book.’ Every
one remembers the ‘spontaneous combustion’ preface to Bleak House. I do
not know whether any medical man can be found to confirm the science of
_Armadale_, or of _Bleak House_, or of _The Moonstone_. But that is not
the question before us. We have only to do with what the novelist
himself believed to be a scientific possibility. In _Kenilworth_ {200}
Wayland compounds ‘the true Orvietan, that noble medicine which is so
seldom found genuine and effective within these realms of Europe.’ Scott
adds a note: ‘Orvietan, or Venice treacle, as it is sometimes called, was
understood to be a sovereign remedy against poison; and the reader must
be contented, for the time he peruses these pages, to hold the same
opinion, which was once universally received by the learned as well as
the vulgar.’ Dickens’s science must be received in the same manner.
Mr. Crisparkle has one piece of evidence in his memory. ‘Long afterwards
he had cause to remember’ how, when he entered Jasper’s rooms and found
him asleep by the fire, the choirmaster ‘sprang from the couch in a
delirious state between sleeping and waking, and crying out, “What is the
matter? Who did it?”’
As we have already seen, the gathering of the threads is in the strong
hands of Datchery.
As we know, Forster adds that Neville Landless was to have perished in
assisting Tartar finally to unmask and seize the murderer. It will be
seen that this part of his testimony is more doubtful than the rest, and
cannot, therefore, be so implicitly accepted, but it may well be true.
Melancholy seems to mark Neville Landless for its own, and his passion
for Rosa is hopeless. If he dies, it is a heavy blow for his devoted
sister, who finds her triumph marred by the death of her brother.
Singularly enough, some writers who have hesitated to accept Forster’s
more expressed testimony make much of the death of Neville Landless and
its circumstances. It need only be pointed out that all this is pure
conjecture, however ingenious it may be.
I find no difficulty in believing that Dickens carried out his plan of
making Jasper give in prison a review of his own career. This has been
called a poor and conventional idea, but as worked out by Dickens it
would neither have been poor nor conventional. What remains to be told
is, I repeat, largely the story of John Jasper’s earlier life.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD
A BIBLIOGRAPHY COMPILED BY B. W. MATZ
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Charles Dickens. Parts 1–6. With 12
illustrations by Sir Luke Fildes, R.A. 1870.
HOW MR. SAPSEA CEASED TO BE A MEMBER OF THE EIGHT CLUB. Fragment found
by John Forster. See his _Life_ of the Novelist. Added to the
‘Biographical,’ ‘National,’ and ‘Centenary’ editions of the novel.
THE CLOVEN FOOT: An Adaptation of the English Novel to American Scenes,
Characters, Customs and Nomenclature. By Orpheus C. Kerr (R. H. Newell).
New York: Carleton. 1870.
THE MYSTERY OF MR. E. DROOD. By Orpheus C. Kerr. An English edition of
foregoing, with several minor alterations. London: _The Piccadilly
Annual_. 1870.
JOHN JASPER’S SECRET: A Sequel to Charles Dickens’s Unfinished Novel,
_The Mystery of Edwin Drood_. By Henry Morford, of New York, and his
wife. Issued in parts in America by T. B. Peterson and Bros.,
Philadelphia, from October 1871 to March 1872; and in England
anonymously. An edition of the same work was published in 1901 with the
astoundingly false announcement on the title-page that the book is by
Wilkie Collins and Charles Dickens the Younger. New York: R. F. Fenno
and Co.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. A Play by Walter Stephens. Performed at the
Surrey Theatre, 4th November 1871. Chapman and Hall. 1871.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. A drama by G. H. Macdermott. Performed at
the Britannia Theatre, 22nd July 1872.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD COMPLETE. Part the Second. ‘By the Spirit
Pen of Charles Dickens, through a Medium.’ Published at Brattleborough,
Vermont, U.S.A. 1873.
THE GREAT MYSTERY SOLVED: Being a Sequel to _The Mystery of Edwin Drood_.
By Gillan Vase. 3 vols. London: Remington and Co. 1878.
LE CRIME DE JASPER. Traduit de l’Anglais. Dentu. Paris: 1879.
ALIVE OR DEAD: A Drama. By Robert Hall. Performed at the Park Theatre,
Camden Town, 3rd May 1880.
WATCHED BY THE DEAD: A Loving Study of Dickens’s Half-Told Tale. By
Richard A. Proctor. London: W. H. Allen and Co. 1887. (The genesis of
this ‘loving study’ appeared as articles in the _Belgravia Magazine_,
June 1878; _Leisure Readings_, 1882; and _Knowledge_, 1884; over the
pseudonym of ‘Thomas Foster.’)
HOW ‘EDWIN DROOD’ WAS ILLUSTRATED. By Alice Meynell. _Century
Magazine_, February 1884.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: Suggestions for a Conclusion. _Cornhill
Magazine_, March 1884.
THE WELFLEET MYSTERY (An Outgrowth of Dickens’s Last Work). By Mrs. C.
A. Read. _The Weekly Budget_, 1885.
A NOVELIST’S FAVOURITE THEME. _Cornhill Magazine_, January 1886.
MYSTERY ON MYSTERY. By Edward Salmon. _Belgravia_, September 1887.
THE DROOD MYSTERY AGAIN. By Robert Allbut. _Daily Union_, U.S.A.
(letter dated 21st August 1893).
CLUES TO THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By J. Cuming Walters. London:
Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 2s. 6d. 1905.
SOLVING ‘THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD.’ By B. W. Matz. _Dickensian_, July
1905.
THE MYSTERY OF DATCHERY. By William Archer. _Morning Leader_, 15th,
22nd and 29th July. Replies by J. Cuming Walters, 17th and 26th July
1905.
THE DROOD CASE. By Andrew Lang. _Morning Post_, 28th July 1905.
THE PLOT OF EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Academy_, 29th July 1905.
Reply by J. Cuming Walters, 12th August 1905.
THE CLEARING OF A MYSTERY. By Harry Beswick. _Clarion_, 28th July 1905.
THE DROOD CASE. By J. Cuming Walters. _Morning Post_, 8th August 1905.
THE HISTORY OF A MYSTERY: A Review of the Solutions to ‘Edwin Drood.’ By
George F. Gadd. _Dickensian_, September to December 1905.
INTERVIEW BETWEEN DR. WATSON AND SHERLOCK HOLMES ON THE DROOD MYSTERY.
By Andrew Lang. _Longman’s Magazine_ (At the Sign of the Ship),
September 1905.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Hammond Hall. _Dickensian_, September
1905.
MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By H. H. F. _Academy_, 26th August. By J.
Cuming Walters and Andrew Lang, 9th September 1905.
BAZZARD AND HELENA. By H. H. F. _Academy_, 9th September 1905.
DICKENS MEMORIES, WITH SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE EDWIN DROOD MYSTERY. By
Percy Fitzgerald. _Daily Chronicle_, 20th September 1905.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: More Opinions Regarding the Identity of
Datchery. By Dr. Blake Odgers, J. Cuming Walters, Willoughby Matchett
and A. Bawtree. _Daily Chronicle_, 23rd September 1905.
EDWIN DROOD MYSTERY. By J. Cuming Walters. _Daily Chronicle_, 27th
September 1905.
THE PUZZLE OF DICKENS’S LAST PLOT. By Andrew Lang. London: Chapman and
Hall, Ltd. 2s. 6d. net. 1905.
A DICKENS MYSTERY: Mr. Andrew Lang’s Adventures with Edwin Drood. By J.
Cuming Walters. _Daily Chronicle_, 14th October 1905.
THE MYSTERIES OF EDWIN DROOD. _Times_, 27th October. Letters on the
same by Sir Luke Fildes, R.A., 3rd November (reprinted in _Dickensian_,
December 1905); Andrew Lang, 10th November 1905; and J. W. T. Ley, 21st
November 1905.
EDWIN DROOD AGAIN. By J. Cuming Walters. _Academy_, 28th October 1905.
MR. LANG THE DISENTANGLER. By Walter Herries Pollock. _Evening
Standard_, 30th October 1905.
MR. LANG DETECTING AGAIN. By G. K. Chesterton. _Daily News_, 2nd
November 1905.
EDWIN DROOD: Solutions to the Mystery. By Henry Smetham. _Rochester and
Chatham Journal_, 18th November 1905. (Reprinted in pamphlet form for
private circulation.)
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By E. J. S. _The Star_, 25th November 1905.
THE LITERARY CORRESPONDENCE OF EDWARD HONEY CONCERNING THE FATE OF EDWIN
DROOD. _The Scottish Review_, 30th November 1905.
MR. LUKE FILDES, THE ‘DROOD’ MYSTERY, AND MR. LANG. By J. Cuming
Walters. _Dickensian_, December 1905.
EDWIN DROOD, DEAD OR ALIVE. By J. Cuming Walters. _Westminster
Gazette_, 23rd December 1905.
DATCHERY THE ENIGMA: The Case for Tartar. By George F. Gadd.
_Dickensian_, January 1906.
EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Westminster Gazette_, 15th January 1906.
THE EDWIN DROOD SYNDICATE. _The Cambridge Review_, Nos. 668–673, 1906.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By the Rev. Wilfrid Lescher, O.P. _Catholic
Times_, 9th February 1906.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By A. M. P. _The L.C.C. Staff Gazette_,
April 1906.
LYTTON’S ‘JOHN ACLAND.’ By J. Cuming Walters. _Athenæum_, 14th April
1906.
EDWIN DROOD AND DICKENS’S LAST DAYS. By Kate Perugini (Dickens’s
daughter). (Illus.) _Pall Mall Magazine_, June 1906.
MRS. PERUGINI AND EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Times_, 1st June 1906.
THE DISSECTION OF DROOD. By J. Meredith Bird. _Pall Mall Gazette_, 11th
June 1906.
MR. DATCHERY. By Willoughby Matchett. _Dickensian_, January 1907.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. Interview with Mr. H. Beerbohm Tree and Mr.
J. Comyns Carr. By Raymond Blathwayt. _Cardiff_, _South Wales Daily
News_, 14th November 1907.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: A Drama in Four Acts. By J. Comyns Carr.
Performed at His Majesty’s Theatre, 4th January 1908. (First played at
Cardiff, November 1907.)
EDWIN DROOD. Criticism of Mr. Comyn Carr’s play by J. Cuming Walters.
_Daily Chronicle_, 1st January 1908.
KEYS TO THE DROOD MYSTERY. By Edwin Charles. (Illus.) London: Collier
and Co. 1s. net. 1908.
A CHAT WITH MR. TREE. _Daily Telegraph_, 2nd January 1908.
THE REAL EDWIN DROOD. By Haldane Macfall. _Daily Chronicle_, 8th
January 1908.
THE SECRET OF EDWIN DROOD. Interview with Mr. Comyns Carr. _Daily
Chronicle_, 9th January 1908.
THE DROOD MYSTERY. Mr. Hall Caine’s reply to Mr. Tree. _Daily
Chronicle_, 14th January 1908.
THE GREAT DROOD CASE. By Andrew Lang. _Morning Post_, 24th January
1908.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By T. P. _P.T.O._, 25th January 1908.
EDWIN DROOD AT HIS MAJESTY’S THEATRE. By J. W. T. Ley. _Dickensian_,
February 1908.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: Its ‘Completions’ and ‘Solutions.’ By B. W.
Matz. _The Bookshelf_, February 1908.
EDWIN DROOD: A Theory. By Albert F. Fessenden. Boston (U.S.A.)
_Evening Transcript_, 7th and 29th February, 7th, 14th, and 21st March
1908.
DESULTORY THOUGHTS ON DROOD. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_, March
1908.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By B. W. Matz. (Illus.) _Bookman_, March
1908.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD: A Drama. By C. A. Clarke and S. B. Rogerson.
Osborne Theatre, Manchester, March 1908. See _Stage_, 5th March 1908.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. With Illustrations. By W. _Manchester City
News_, 10th March 1908.
LAST WORDS ON THE DROOD MYSTERY. By various writers. _Dickensian_,
April 1908.
ARE THE DROODISTS ALL AT SEA? By W. Teignmouth Shore. _T. P.’s Weekly_,
21st August 1908.
THOUGHTS ON THE DROOD MYSTERY. By Henry Leffmann, A.M., M.D. _About
Dickens_ (a privately printed volume). Philadelphia. 1908.
DICKENS AND THE DRAMA (chapter devoted to Plays on Edwin Drood). By S.
J. Adair FitzGerald. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 5s. net. 1910.
ABOUT ‘EDWIN DROOD.’ By H. J. Cambridge University Press. 4s. net.
1911.
DROOD AND DATCHERY. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_, March 1911.
ABOUT ‘EDWIN DROOD.’ Reviews by Andrew Lang, _Morning Post_, 24th
February, and _Illustrated London News_, 4th March; by B. W. Matz in
_Daily Chronicle_, 24th February; by ‘M. R. J.’ in _Cambridge Review_,
9th March; by C. K. S. in _The Sphere_, 11th March; _Athenæum_, 1st April
1911; _The Author_, April 1911.
THE DROOD MYSTERY SOLVED. By J. Cuming Walters. _T. P.’s Weekly_, 3rd
and 24th March 1911.
MR. CUMING WALTERS ON ‘EDWIN DROOD.’ By Andrew Lang. _T. P.’s Weekly_,
17th and 31st March 1911.
THE CLAIMS OF BAZZARD. _Birmingham Daily Post_, 11th March 1911.
MYSTERY À LA AMERICO-PARISIENNE. By Andrew Lang. _Morning Post_, 10th
March 1911.
CRITICISMS AND APPRECIATIONS OF CHARLES DICKENS’S WORKS. By G. K.
Chesterton. London: J. M. Dent and Co. 7s. 6d. net. 1911.
ABOUT EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Dickensian_, April 1911.
DROOD AND DATCHERY. By Wilkins Micawber, Junr. _Dickensian_, April
1911.
DROP IT. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_, May 1911.
EDWIN DROOD AND SOME QUERIES. By A. B. Stedman. _Dickensian_, May 1911.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Andrew Lang. _Blackwood’s Magazine_, May
1911.
PHASES OF DICKENS (chapter on His Last Mystery). By J. Cuming Walters.
London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 5s. net. 1911.
DICKENS AND HIS LAST BOOK: A New Theory. By S. Y. E. _Nottingham
Guardian_, 9th January 1912.
EDWIN DROOD RE-EXAMINED. By ‘K.’ _The Eye-Witness_, 18th and 25th
January, 1st and 8th February 1912.
THE DROOD MYSTERY. By J. Cuming Walters. _The Eye-Witness_, 22nd
February, 7th and 14th March 1912.
DROOD AND DATCHERY. By ‘K.’ _The Eye-Witness_, 29th February 1912.
IN DICKENS STREET (chapter entitled A Dickens Mystery). By W. R.
Thomson. London: Chapman and Hall, Ltd. 3s. 6d. net. 1912.
THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD. By Dr. J. B. Hellier. _British Weekly_, 4th
April 1912.
THE DROOD DEBATE IN BIRMINGHAM. By J. Cuming Walters and Willoughby
Matchett. _Dickensian_, June 1912.
ANDREW LANG AND DICKENS’S PUZZLE. By J. Cuming Walters. _Dickensian_,
September 1912.
THE DROOD MYSTERY: Extracts from an Unpublished Article by Andrew Lang.
By Arthur Eckersley. _Book Monthly_, September 1912.
INDEX
_A Tale of Two Cities_, 71, 83, 88, 92.
_Abbot_, _The_, 137.
_About Edwin Drood_, x, 56, 80.
_Academy_, _The_, xi.
_Anne of Geierstein_, 185.
Archer, William, 119, 178.
_Armadale_, 200.
_As You like It_, 180.
_Athenæum_, ix, xviii.
* * * * *
BANCROFT, LADY, 165–6.
Bancroft Recollections, xii, 165.
_Barnaby Rudge_, 83, 89, 93, 95, 103, 117, 190, 196.
_Berliner Tageblatt_, 146.
_Blackwood_, 113, 122, 127.
_Bleak House_, xviii, 73, 83, 196, 200.
_Bookman_, xi.
Boothby, Guy, 165, 170.
Boucicault, Dion, 44.
Brewster, Sir David, 162.
* * * * *
_Cambridge Review_, xi, 77, 122, 164.
_Castle Dangerous_, 185.
Cattermole, Mr., 103.
Chapman and Hall, xiv.
Chappell, Messrs., 21.
Charles, Edwin, 129–30.
_Clues to Dickens’s Mystery of Edwin Drood_, ix, 149.
Collins, Charles Allston, 20, 27, 39, 41, 54, 70, 73, 75, 90, 111, 127–8.
Collins, Wilkie, 141, 149, 170, 193; collaboration with Dickens, 90;
Dickens praises _No Name_, 91; letter from Dickens, 92; collaborates in
_No Thoroughfare_, 124; influence on Dickens, 166; _The Moonstone_, 193;
criticised by Anthony Trollope, 198; interested in effects of opium,
199–200.
_Count Robert of Paris_, 165, 185.
* * * * *
_Daily Mail_, 160.
_David Copperfield_, 83.
_Dickens_, _Life of Charles_, 20, 36, 165.
Dickens, the younger, Charles, xii, 20, 35, 43, 70, 110–11.
_Dombey and Son_, 71.
* * * * *
_Edinburgh Review_, 104–5, 151.
_Edwin Drood_, ix, xii, xvii-xviii, 3, 20, 83, 117, 165; Forster on how
it was written, 22–8; Madame Perugini’s testimony, 28–41; the cover, 40,
54, 69, 71–81, 111; the play, 44; plans for novel, 57–68; compared with
_No Thoroughfare_, 124.
Eick, Dr. Hugo, 146, 180.
Elliotson, 199.
* * * * *
FILDES, SIR LUKE, 20, 26, 41, 44, 46, 53–4, 70, 73, 77, 111–12, 128.
Forster, John, 3, 4, 20, 28–42, 53, 103, 202; on _Edwin __Drood_, 22–8;
on Drood being murdered, 109–10.
* * * * *
GADD, MR. G. F. xi, 182.
Garrick, David, 163.
Garrick, Mrs., 164.
Gladstone, xv.
Graeme, Miss Stirling, 159.
_Great Expectations_, xviii, 83, 88, 196.
* * * * *
HATTON, MISS BESSIE, xii, 20.
Hatton, Joseph, xii, 20, 43–4, 111.
Hogarth, Miss, 42.
Homer, xv.
_Household Words_, 105, 115.
_Hunted Down_, 114.
* * * * *
INGRAM, MR. J. H., xiv, 95.
Irving, Mr. H. B., 80.
* * * * *
JACKSON, MR. HARRY, 44.
Jackson, Professor Henry, x, 56, 78, 113, 173–4, 186, 194; his reading of
the cover of _Edwin Drood_, 72–5; how Edwin was murdered, 131–40;
chronology of the chapters, 171; on Bazzard, 180; the Tartar-Datchery
theory, 182.
James, Dr. M. R., xi, 73, 129; his interpretation of the cover of _Edwin
Drood_, 77–8; was Edwin murdered?, 121–2; on Datchery, 164; the
Bazzard-Datchery theory, 179.
Journal of Sir Walter Scott, The, 164, 184–5.
* * * * *
_Kenilworth_, 191, 200.
* * * * *
LANG, MR. ANDREW, x, 73, 113, 130, 139, 163–4, 170, 178, 185, 193; on the
cover of _Edwin Drood_, 70, 75–7, 80, 127–8; his theory of the murder of
Edwin, 120–3, 132; the Datchery-Neville theory, 181.
_Leisure Readings_, ix, 118.
_Little Dorrit_, 71, 87, 104–5, 190.
* * * * *
_Macbeth_, 129–30.
_Martin Chuzzlewit_, 25, 71.
_Master Humphrey’s Clock_, 95.
Matz, Mr. B. W., xii, xiv, 71.
Millais, Sir John, 26.
_Moonstone_, _The_, 90, 92, 167, 193, 197–8, 200.
_Morning Leader_, 119.
_Morning Post_, 72, 130.
_Mystifications_, 159.
* * * * *
_Nickleby_, _Nicholas_, 195.
_No Name_, xii, 90, 92, 167.
_No Thoroughfare_, 90, 124.
* * * * *
ODGERS, DR. BLAKE, 177.
_Old Curiosity Shop_, _The_, 196.
_Oliver Twist_, 21, 25, 71, 195.
_Our Mutual Friend_, xviii, 25, 72, 83, 86, 179, 196.
* * * * *
_Pall Mall Magazine_, 28.
_Pendennis_, 199.
_People_, _The_, 43.
Perugini, Madame, 20, 28, 43, 70, 109–11, 127–8.
Philadelphia _Saturday Evening Post_, 94, 100.
_Phineas Finn_, 172.
_Pickwick_, 71.
Poe, Edgar Allan, xiv, 93–103, 190.
Proctor, Mr. R. A., ix, x, 118, 164; on the cover of Edwin Drood, 74, 77;
was Drood murdered?, 114, 120, 131–2; the Bazzard-Datchery theory, 179.
_Puzzle of Dickens’s Last Plot_, _The_, x, 75, 139.
* * * * *
_Recollections and Impressions_, 162.
Rosebery, Lord, xiii.
* * * * *
SCOTT, SIR WALTER, 159, 163, 184, 200.
Sellar, Mrs., 162.
Shakespeare, 180.
Shorter, Mr. Clement, xiv.
Skene, Mr., 185.
_Sketches by Boz_, 71.
_Spectator_, _The_, 69.
Stoddart, Miss J. T., xiv, 133, 139, 194.
Stone, R.A., Mr. Marcus, 72.
_Studies in Prose and Poetry_, 92, 104.
Swinburne, Mr., 91, 104.
* * * * *
THACKERAY, 23.
Thomson, Mr. Hugh, xii, 73, 78, 128.
_Times_, _The_, 53, 127.
Trollope, Anthony, 198.
_Two Gentlemen of Verona_, _The_, 180.
* * * * *
VASE, GILLAN, xi, 123.
* * * * *
WALTERS, MR. CUMING, ix, x, xvii, 73, 123, 193; on the cover of _Edwin
Drood_, 80; how Edwin was murdered, 132; Helena as Datchery, 149, 158;
the Bazzard-Datchery theory, 179.
_Watched by the Dead_, ix.
Whitty, Mr. J. H., 95.
Willard, Mr., 45.
_Woman in White_, _The_, 90, 92, 167.
NOTES.
{63} This was originally marked IX.
{67a} Scored out in Dickens’s MS.
{67b} Scored out in Dickens’s MS.
{67c} Scored out in Dickens’s MS.
{67d} Scored out in Dickens’s MS.
{90} Charles Dickens as Editor, p. 386.
{91} Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins, p. 123.
{92a} _Studies in Prose and Poetry_.
{92b} _Letters of Charles Dickens to Wilkie Collins_, p. 103.
{104} It was known to that thorough scholar, Mr. Swinburne. See
_Studies in Prose and Poetry_, p. 114.
{113} _Blackwood_, May 1911, p. 672.
{119} _Morning Leader_, 15th July 1905.
{122} _Cambridge Review_, 9th March 1911.
{127} 1st June 1906.
{130} 24th February 1911.
{139} _The Puzzle of Dickens’s Last Plot_, p. 10.
{163} _Recollections and Impressions_, by E. M. Sellar, p. 64.
{164a} _Journal of Sir Walter Scott_, vol. ii. p. 422.
{164b} _Cambridge Review_, 9th March 1911.
{184} _Sir Walter Scott’s Journal_, vol. ii. p. 131.
{185} _Sir Walter Scott’s Journal_, vol. ii. p. 236.
{196} The following may be quoted from _Pickwick_:
‘“Dismal Jenny?” inquired Jingle.
‘“Yes.”
‘Jingle shook his head.
‘“Clever rascal—queer fellow, hoaxing genius—Job’s brother.”
‘“Job’s brother!” exclaimed Mr. Pickwick. “Well, now I look at him
closely, there is a likeness.”’
{200} Chapter xiii.