It seems to me that these are slips, but I do not find any other readers have taken the same view. With these exceptions, the story seems to be one of Dickens’s best books. Its grasp of local colour and detail is as strong as ever it was. There is much of his old humour in the Mayor, in Miss Twinkleton’s Girls’ School, in Billickin, in Durdles and his attendant imp. Also the story is constructed with the greatest care and ingenuity. Any one who carefully goes over the manuscript and the proofs will see that Dickens had a plan in his mind that he half revealed and half concealed, that his phrases and details are chosen with the nicest care, and that he meant to reward those who at the end could take a ‘backward look’ by the delight they would experience in seeing how everything had been scrupulously planned and artistically conducted to a climax. We cannot do justice to the book in its present state. But Dickens’s royal genius was at its full, and would have vindicated itself. He had set himself deliberately to carrying out a plot far more exact than he had ever attempted, and the end was in view from the beginning. This is not to say that the reason of every incident and every description was disclosed from the first. I have previously discussed Edgar Allan Poe’s reading of _Barnaby Rudge_, and shown that his perception, keen as it was, yielded him less than he thought. I have shown how Dickens prepared the plan for _Little Dorrit_ from the start of his book. It may be traced now, but without the ‘backward glance’ it would not have been easy to trace it. We may also say with some confidence that no new characters of importance would have been introduced to us in the second half. In the chapter ‘Half Way with Dickens’ I have shown that this is the case with five of his principal books. The conclusion is not stringent, for Dickens was free to change his method. But it may be said to be highly probable; if it is true we are left to conjecture the part that the various characters would have played in the winding up of the tale. The book was to end with the capture and conviction of Jasper. I have already written of the part played and to be played by Grewgious. Another hunter of Jasper was Durdles. The task assigned to Durdles among the hunters is fairly clear. Sooner or later, by tapping round the Sapsea monument he is to discover the presence of ‘a wheen banes,’ or at least of some unsuspected ‘rubbish.’ He had put the inscription on the monument before Christmas, and had no doubt satisfied himself then that all was safe. ‘When Durdles puts a touch or a finish upon his work, no matter where, inside or outside, Durdles likes to look at his work all round, and see that his work is a-doing him credit.’