icative of the conclusion
at which he had deliberately arrived.

So frankly open to conviction was he, nevertheless, that, not disdaining
to defer to the judgment of another when his own had been convinced, the
Reading was eventually, after all, lengthened out by a very remarkable
addition. The printed copy of this fragment of Oliver Twist,
artistically compacted together as "A Reading," has, appended to it,
in blue ink, three pages of manuscript in the Novelist's familiar
handwriting, in which, with a cunning mastery of all the powers of
condensation, he has compacted together in a few sentences what he
always gave with wonderful effect before the public, the salient
incidents of the murderer's flight, ending with his own destruction, and
even his dog's, from the housetop.

Nothing that could most powerfully realise to the audience the ruffian's
sense of horror and abhorrence has been there overlooked. The ghastly
figure follows him everywhere. He hears its garments rustling in the
leaves. "If _he_ stopped, _it_ stopped. If _he_ ran, _it_ followed."
Turning at times to beat the phantom off, though it should strike him
dead, the hair rises on his head, and his blood stands still, for it has
turned with him and is behind him! Throwing himself on his back upon
the road--"At his head it stood, silent, erect, and still: a human
gravestone with its epitaph in Blood."

What is as striking as anything in all this Reading, however--that is,
in the Reading copy of it now lying before us as we write--is the mass
of hints as to byplay in the stage directions for himself, so to speak,
scattered up and down the margin. "Fagin raised his right hand, and
shook his trembling forefinger in the air," is there, on p. 101, in
print. Beside it, on the margin in MS., is the word "Action." Not a word
of it was said. It was simply _done_. Again, immediately below that on
the same page--Sikes' loquitur--"'Oh! you haven't, haven't you?' passing
a pistol into a more convenient pocket ['Action,' again, in MS. on the
margin.]' That's lucky for one of us--which one that is don't matter.'"
Not a word was said about the pistol--the marginal direction was simply
attended to. On the opposite page, in print, "Fagin laid his hand upon
the bundle, and locked it in the cupboard. But he did not take his
eyes off the robber for an instant." On the margin in MS., oddly but
significantly underlined, are the words, "Cupboard Action." So
again afterwards, as a