Note 9 — Chapter IV · CIRCEAN

Mr. Budd’s sense of picturesque detail occasionally led him astray, though never more than is pardonable in a young novelist. As a close neighbour of the great industrial North of England, he would have been deeply interested to know that the gentlemen he here portrays in a somewhat sinister light are in reality the London representatives of two of the most prominent textile houses of Lille, a city which has been wittily (though not by Mr. Budd) described as the “Manchester of France.” (Lit. Exec.)