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I have been occupied with this story, duringhours of two

years I must have been very ill employed, if I could not leave its

merits and de read

as a whole But, as it is not unreasonable to suppose that I may have

held its threads with a iven the its desultory publication, it is not unreasonable

to ask that the weaving may be looked at in its completed state, and

with the pattern finished

If I erated a fiction as the

Barnacles and the Circumlocution Office, I would seek it in the

co todone that violence to good manners, in the

days of a Russian war, and of a Court of Inquiry at Chelsea If I ant conception, Mr Merdle, I

would hint that it originated after the Railroad-share epoch, in the

times of a certain Irish bank, and of one or two other equally

laudable enterprises

If I were to plead anything in n will son, it would be the curious coincidence