Occasionally in the dialogue I see an expression here and there which might--always solely with a reference to your misgiving--be better away; and I think that the vision, to use the word for want of a better--in the museum, should be made a little less abstruse. I should not say that, if the sale of the journal was below the sale of _The Times_ newspaper; but as it is probably several thousands higher, I do. I would also suggest that after the title we put the two words--A ROMANCE. It is an absurdly easy device for getting over your misgiving with the blockheads, but I think it would be an effective one. I don't, on looking at it, like the title. Here are a few that have occurred to me. "The Steel Casket." "The Lost Manuscript." "Derval Court." "Perpetual Youth." "Maggie." "Dr. Fenwick." "Life and Death." The four last I think the best. There is an objection to "Dr. Fenwick" because there has been "Dr. Antonio," and there is a book of Dumas' which repeats the objection. I don't think "Fenwick" startling enough. It appears to me that a more startling title would take the (John) Bull by the horns, and would be a serviceable concession to your misgiving, as suggesting a story off the stones of the gas-lighted Brentford Road. The title is the first thing to be settled, and cannot be settled too soon. For the purposes of the weekly publication the divisions of the story will often have to be greatly changed, though afterwards, in the complete book, you can, of course, divide it into chapters, free from that reference. For example: I would end the first chapter on the third slip at "and through the ghostly streets, under the ghostly moon, went back to my solitary room." The rest of what is now your first chapter might be made Chapter II., and would end the first weekly part. I think I have become, by dint of necessity and practice, rather cunning in this regard; and perhaps you would not mind my looking closely to such points from week to week. It so happens that if you had written the opening of this story expressly for the occasion its striking incidents could not possibly have followed one another better. One other merely mechanical change I suggest now. I would not have an initial letter for the town, but would state in the beginning that I gave the town a fictitious name. I suppose a blank or a dash rather fends a good many people off--because it always has that effect upon me.