liged to leave
the book, in order to get up the Readings" (the additional twelve for
which Sir Thomas Watson's consent had been obtained), "quite gone out of
my mind since I left them off. However, I turned to it and got it done,
and both numbers are now in type. Charles Collins has designed an
excellent cover." It was his wish that his son-in-law should have
illustrated the story; but, this not being practicable, upon an opinion
expressed by Mr. Millais which the result thoroughly justified, choice
was made of Mr. S. L. Fildes.

* * * * *

[Illustration: Handwritten Notes]

[Illustration: Handwritten Notes]

This reference to the last effort of Dickens's genius had been written
as it thus stands, when a discovery of some interest was made by the
writer. Within the leaves of one of Dickens's other manuscripts were
found some detached slips of his writing, on paper only half the size of
that used for the tale, so cramped, interlined, and blotted as to be
nearly illegible, which on close inspection proved to be a scene in
which Sapsea the auctioneer is introduced as the principal figure, among
a group of characters new to the story. The explanation of it perhaps
is, that, having become 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 in the
fifth number (a misgiving he had certainly expressed to his
sister-in-law), it had occurred to him to open some fresh veins of
character incidental to the interest, though not directly part of it,
and so to handle them in connection with Sapsea as a little to suspend
the final development even while assisting to strengthen it. Before
beginning any number of a serial he used, as we have seen in former
instances, to plan briefly what he intended to put into it chapter by
chapter; and his first number-plan of _Drood_ had the following: "Mr.
Sapsea. Old Tory jackass. Connect Jasper with him. (He will want a
solemn donkey by and by):" which was effected by bringing together
both Durdles and Jasper, for connection with Sapsea, in the matter of
the epitaph for Mrs. Sapsea's tomb. The scene now discovered might in
this view have been designed to strengthen and carry forward that
element in the tale; and otherwise it very sufficiently expresses
itself. It would supply an answer, if such were needed, to those who
have asserted that th