I agree with the author of _About Edwin Drood_ that Edwin was not worth while bringing back, but it is possible that he was to return, and that this is he in the garden scene. In the space above this the female figure scanning a placard ‘LOST’ is, I think, merely allegorical, and not meant to represent Rosebud fleeing from Jasper. In the book she leaves Cloisterham so neat and pretty that Joe, the omnibus man, would have liked to keep for himself the love she sent to Miss Twinkleton. MR. CUMING WALTERS’S READING There is another view to which I strongly incline, first stated by Mr. Cuming Walters. I take the erect figure in the bottom vignette to be Datchery. It is not Edwin. The large hat and the tightish surtout are the articles of clothing on which Dickens lays stress in his description of Datchery. Mr. Lang says that the figure is that of a young man in a longish loose greatcoat, not a tightish surtout such as Datchery wore, but I agree with Mr. Cuming Walters that the figure corresponds with the description of Datchery. Edwin as seen above with Rosa in the cathedral is not wearing a coat of this sort. His hat also is different. On examining the figure Mr. H. B. Irving said to me: ‘That looks uncommonly like a woman in disguise.’ None of us has a right to dogmatise, but the variety of opinions among those who have studied the cover shows that no certain conclusion can be drawn from the illustrations. The arguments advanced previously tend to make this practically certain. In the discussion of the problem a wholly disproportionate weight has been laid on the illustrated cover. It would hardly bear that weight even if every one were agreed as to the reading of the pictures, and there is no such agreement. CHAPTER IV—THE METHODS OF DICKENS HALF-WAY IN DICKENS Dickens has left us one-half of his last story. It was to be completed in twelve parts, and six parts were published. We can only infer and guess at the way in which the author would have completed it. Would he have brought many new characters on the stage, or are we to believe that the main characters are already there, and that it is through the revealing of their secrets that the end is to be reached? To give a positive reply is impossible, and yet we may learn something of Dickens’s methods by studying his complete books. Supposing we had only one-half of each book in our possession, might we expect that the complete story would introduce us to many fresh characters? I give the results of some investigations from the later novels. THE LENGTH OF DICKENS’S NOVELS