" After we had
invented at some expense of time this method of
approaching and fortifying our police novel, it
occurred to us it had been invented previously by some
one else, and was in fact--however painfully different
the results may seem--the method of Charles Dickens in
his later work.
I see you staring. Here, you will say, is a prodigious
quantity of theory to our halfpenny-worth of police
novel; and withal not a shadow of an answer to your
question.
Well, some of us like theory. After so long a piece of
practice, these may be indulged for a few pages. And
the answer is at hand. It was plainly desirable, from
every point of view of convenience and contrast, that
our hero and narrator should partly stand aside from
those with whom he mingles, and be but a pressed-man in
the dollar hunt. Thus it was that Loudon Dodd became a
student of the plastic arts, and that our globe-
trotting story came to visit Paris and look in at
Barbizon. And thus it is, dear Low, that your name
appears in the address of this epilogue.
For sure, if any person can here appreciate and read
between the lines, it must be you--and one other, our
friend.
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