what would it avail me?'

"'Then don't deny it,' was my remark.

"'Or,' pursued Poker, in a kind of despondent rapture, 'or if I was to
deny that I came to this town to see and hear you sir, what would it
avail me? Or if I was to deny----'"

The fragment ends there, and the hand that could alone have completed it
is at rest for ever.

* * * * *

Some personal characteristics remain for illustration before the end is
briefly told.

FOOTNOTES:

[285] In drawing the agreement for the publication, Mr. Ouvry had, by
Dickens's wish, inserted a clause thought to be altogether needless, but
found to be sadly pertinent. It was the first time such a clause had
been inserted in one of his agreements. "That if the said Charles
Dickens shall die during the composition of the said work of the
_Mystery of Edwin Drood_, or shall otherwise become incapable of
completing the said work for publication in twelve monthly numbers as
agreed, it shall be referred to John Forster, Esq, one of Her Majesty's
Commissioners in Lunacy, or in the case of his death, incapacity, or
refusal to act, then to such person as shall be named by Her Majesty's
Attorney-General for the time being, to determine the amount which shall
be repaid by the said Charles Dickens, his executors or administrators,
to the said Frederic Chapman as a fair compensation for so much of the
said work as shall not have been completed for publication." The sum to
be paid at once for 25,000 copies was L7500; publisher and author
sharing equally in the profit of all sales beyond that impression; and
the number reached, while the author yet lived, was 50,000. The sum paid
for early sheets to America was L1000; and Baron Tauchnitz paid
liberally, as he always did, for his Leipzig reprint. "All Mr. Dickens's
works," M. Tauchnitz writes to me, "have been published under agreement
by me. My intercourse with him lasted nearly twenty-seven years. The
first of his letters dates in October 1843, and his last at the close of
March 1870. Our long relations were not only never troubled by the least
disagreement, but were the occasion of most hearty personal feeling; and
I shall never lose the sense of his kind and friendly nature. On my
asking him his terms for _Edwin Drood_, he replied 'Your terms shall be
mine.'"

[286] "I have a very remarkable story indeed for you to read. It is in
only two chapters. A thing never to melt into other stories in the mi