Friends,

	Though we have had a plenitude of responses to the inquiry of 
Alessandro Vescovi, John Ogilvie <[log in to unmask]> offers a 
suggestion of a different sort:				 (pjm)
--
Dear all,
      Although far from an expert on literature of Charles Dickens
(whom my maternal grandmother inaccurately claimed to be my great
great grandfather) but rather having acquired some experience in
interpreting technical literature, I wonder whether, instead of
'purchase', the author had in mind 'purpose'.  We lesser mortals
occasionally typewrite in error one word for a similar one, and
even then the 'spell checker' [ugh!, what an ugly term] with a
contemporary text editor would not complain because the orthography
seems correct.  Is it even feasible that the handwriting of Dickens
was misread by the printer, and the error never noticed?
  
John Ogilvie