The Saturday puzzle by Bob Klahn (answers) was too tough for me to do without significant help (thanks Linda) but it did include some wonderful bits of trivia. TOPEKA means "a good place to grow potatoes" apparently. Who knew? I love Dickens but I had forgotten that FAGIN was a "merry old gentleman". "Poor devil" is a wonderful clue for WRETCH which, by the way, makes its debut as an answer word today, as did SALMAGUNDI, RHINOCERI (Patricia may have something to say about that word), MARYORR, ONIOMANIAC, and surprisingly, MONTEVERDI.
I'll provide a longer report on the Sunday puzzle.