Sherlock Holmes and His Creator

From The Arthur Conan Doyle Encyclopedia

Sherlock Holmes and His Creator is an article written by Arthur Bartlett Maurice published in Collier's on 15 august 1908.


Sherlock Holmes and His Creator

Collier's (15 august 1908, p. 11)

Photo 1: Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

Photo 2: A group in Conan Doyle's Surrey Garden. Robert Barr, Miss Doyle, Conan Doyle, Mrs. Doyle (the first wife), Robert McClure (reading from left to right). The photograph of this group was taken about twelve years ago.
Collier's (15 august 1908, p. 12)

Photo 1: Conan Doyle and the late James Payn enjoying a tête-à-tête in Dr. Doyle's library.

Photo 2: Dr. Joseph Dell — original of Sherlock Holmes.
Collier's (15 august 1908, p. 13)

Photo 1: William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes.

Photo 2: Montgomery and Stone in their burlesque of Sherlock Holmes.
Collier's (15 august 1908, p. 14)

Photo: Upper Baker Street — the home of Sherlock Holmes.
Collier's (15 august 1908, p. 24)
Collier's (15 august 1908, p. 25)
Collier's (15 august 1908, p. 26)
Collier's (15 august 1908, p. 27)

Conan Doyle's Ink-Splattered Childhood, His Literary and Outdoor Youth — Doctor and Author — Where He Met His Detective and How He Constructed Holmes

All the articles in this issue of Collier's concerning Conan Doyle are Copyright 1908 by P. F. Collier et Son, and all rights in them are reserved. The story, "The Singular Experience of Mr. J. Scott Eccles, A Reminiscence of Mr. Sherlock Holmes," is Copyright 1908 by A. Conan Doyle, and Copyright 1908 by P. F. Collier & Son.

By ARTHUR BARTLETT MAURICE

FOREWORD TO THE READER. I — SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE: HIS CAREER AND PERSONALITY: (1) Childhood and Boyhood; (2) Doctor and Struggling Author. II — CONCERNING MR. SHERLOCK HOLMES: (1) The Real Sherlock Holmes — Doctor Joseph Bell; (2) The Genesis of Sherlock Holmes; (3) The Ultimate Sources of Sherlock Holmes; (4) The Suppressed and Unwritten Sherlock Holmes Stories; (5) Curious Sherlockian Theories; (6) The Inconsistencies of Sherlock Holmes; (7) Sherlock Holmes on the Stage — At Home and Abroad. III — CONCERNING CONAN DOYLE: (1) Conan Doyle's Place in English Fiction — Some Aspects of his Work; (2) Conan Doyle as Sherlock Holmes; (3) Conan Doyle in America.


Sir Arthur Conan Doyle: His Career and Personality

To say that in the veins of Arthur Conan Doyle are commingled the three bloods that flowed at Fontenoy and the Battle of the Boyne is far from being a mere rhetorical flourish. It is in expressing it in just that way that the significance lies. When associated with his work it suggests the British sturdiness tempered by the Irish wit and mellowness and the French finesse and dash. It explains the catholicism of his personal enthusiasms, and his unvarying historical impartiality whether the background of his story be Gascony during the Hundred Years' War, or the Peninsula, when Wellington was grappling with the Marshals of the great Napoleon. About the Napoleonic struggle he has written much. In the first person he has told the tales of those men of blood and iron who fought on both sides. The unchanging note is one of generous appreciation of a valiant foe. His British heroes who have fought at Waterloo, in telling of that memorable day, never fail in giving credit to that last intrepid stand of the Old Guard. His weather-beaten naval officers who served under Nelson can not find epithets strong enough to express their hatred of the French and of the French leader. Yet this does not prevent them from being outspoken in the recognition of the prowess of a worthy enemy. His delightful Frenchman, Colonel Etienne Gerard, after Sherlock Holmes the most vivid and enduring of his creations, has only contempt for those who are so blind as to imagine that the virtues of bravery and fortitude belong exclusively to any one nation. "I who have fought in all countries," Gerard tells us on one not easily forgotten occasion, "against the Russians, the Prussians, the English, the Austrians, the Spaniards, the Italians — against all the world in short, tell you, my children, that the soldiers of all these countries are equally brave. Except," he adds with a touch of gorgeous Gascon naïveté, "that the French have rather more courage than the rest." Mr. Sherlock Holmes upon one occasion imparted to Watson the information that his grandmother had been a Frenchwoman. The present writer is convinced that some day, in a similar sudden burst of confidence, the great detective will allude to another line of his ancestry which will carry superbly back to the Irish kings. In the case of Conan Doyle himself there is, besides the heritage of English, French, and Irish blood. the additional complications of Scottish birth and a training largely cosmopolitan.

Childhood and Boyhood

The grandfather of Arthur Conan Doyle was John Doyle, the political caricaturist whose work throws so such light on the history of England between 1830 and 1845. For many years he contributed drawings to the London "Times" signed "H. B.," and his identity remained unknown nearly all his life. To-day, in the British Museum, may be found more than six hundred examples of his work. John Doyle had four sons, all of whom became artists. The most distinguished of these sons was Richard Doyle, the familiar "Dickie" Doyle of London "Punch." The eldest son was Charles Doyle, the father of the subject of this sketch. In the later fifties Charles Doyle was living in Edinburgh, and it was there that Arthur Conan Doyle was born on May 22, 1859. In common with most men who have won distinction in the field of letters, Conan Doyle showed an amazing precocity as a story-teller. At the age of six he produced a story of fearful adventure, accompanied with original pen-and-ink illustrations. He has subsequently told somewhere of this early effort. "There was a man and a tiger in it," he says ; "I forget which was the hero; but it did not 'matter much, for they became blended into one about the time the tiger met the man. I was a realist in the age of the romanticists. I described at some length, both verbally and pictorially, the untimely end of that wayfaring man. But when the tiger had absorbed him I found myself slightly embarrassed as to how my story was to go on. 'It is very easy to get people into scrapes and very hard to get them out again' was my sage comment on the difficulty; and I have often had cause to repeat this precocious aphorism of my childhood. Upon this occasion the situation was beyond me, and my book, like my man, was engulfed in the tiger."

Conan Doyle's first schooling was at Stonyhurst, near Manchester. Here he passed some years, being in no way noted for his assiduity to his studies, preferring, to the irksome work of the classroom, the cricket field or lying under a shady tree in the pleasant company of "Ivanhoe" and the "Black Knight" and "Locksley the Archer," or the men and women of "The Cloister and the Hearth." That the head-master of the school had no great faith in the idle pupil's future may be deduced from an anecdote which the novelist has related in later years. When Conan Doyle was leaving Stonyhurst preparatory to going to a school in Feldkirch, in Germany, the head-master called him aside and said sternly: "Doyle, I have known you now for seven years, and I know you thoroughly. I am going to say something to you which you will remember in after life. Doyle, you will never come to any good."

Doyle did not remain long at the school in Feldkirch, and at the age of seventeen he entered Edinburgh University as a medical student. But the scribbling fury was already strong upon him, and side by side with his work in the classroom and laboratory he was composing tales of highly colored adventure and of very uneven merit. The first accepted work of an eminent author always has a marked interest and significance. In Conan Doyle's case it woo a story entitled "The Mystery of Sasassa Valley," and was based on an old Kaffir superstition about a "gloomy, boulder-studded passage," and a demon "with glowing eyes under the shadow of the cliff." Doyle was nineteen when this tale was published in "Chambers's Journal." He received fifteen dol-lars in payment for it.

Altogether Doyle spent five years in obtaining his medical diploma. But these were not years of uninterrupted study. In 1880, for example, he passed seven months in the Arctic seas. Captain John Gray, who commanded the whaler Hope, took Doyle along in the capacity of unqualified surgeon, with wages of two pounds ten a month and three shillings a ton oil money. Describing this trip, Conan Doyle has written: "One of the charms of the work is the gambling element inherent in it. Every man shares in the profits, and wo betide the harpooner or the boat-steerer who by any clumsiness has missed a fish. He has taken a five-pound note out of the pocket of every meanest hand upon the ship. Black is his welcome when he returns to his fellows." Surgery, luckily, was in no great demand during that cruise of the Hope, and Doyle spent most of his time working in the boats after fish and teaching the crew to box. Doyle had brought two pairs of boxing gloves with him. One of the crew was skeptical of the young surgeon's prowess, and expressed his inclination for a bout. Doyle promptly took him on. The man was as strong as a bull, but had no science. Finding himself hard pressed, Doyle struck out and knocked the sailor clear over the cabin table. The man was thoroughly convinced. "Man! McAlpine, yore's the best surgeon we've ever had. He knocked me clean ower th' table an' blacked ma e'e." The vessel reached nearly the eighty-first degree of north latitude, or, in other words, nearer the pole than New York is to Chicago. The return was made with four whales and four thousand seals as the spoils of the venture. The vivid impressions of these seven months has had a marked influence on some of his work. For example, there was "The Captain of the Polestar," which originally appeared in "Temple Bar," and was afterward brought out in book form. Again his pro-found knowledge of whaling and the use of the harpoon will be apparent to every one who read "The Adventure of Black Peter," which appeared in the COLLIER'S series of Sherlock Holmes's stories four or five years ago.

Doctor and Straggling Author

In 1881 Conan Doyle received his degree from Edinburgh University. He promptly started off on a four months' voyage to the West Coast 14 Africa. On his return he established himself at Southsea, where lie remained for eight years practising as a doctor. The bitter struggle of these years is reflected in "The Stark Munro Letters." His heart was in literary work, but the discouragements which he received along this line were even greater than those he met as a medical practitioner. "Fifty little cylinders of manuscript," he writes, "did I send out during eight years, which described irregular orbits among publishers, and usually came back, like paper boomerangs, to the place that they had started from." Even when his unyielding perseverance had won occasional acceptances he remained absolutely unknown. For the first ten years of a strenuous literary life he never, in any one year, earned two hundred and fifty dollars by his pen.

In 1886 he sold outright, for the sum of one hundred and twenty-five dollars, the manuscript of a story of about thirty thousand words. This story appeared in Beeton's "Christmas Annual", and marked the turn of the tide in the fortunes of its author. The tale was "A Study in Scarlet," and with it Mr. Sherlock Holmes stepped abruptly into the limelight. At first Conan Doyle apparently had no conception of the possibilities of his unusual detective. for he immediately turned back to his favorite field of historic fiction and devoted a year and a half to the construction of "Micah Clarke." The manuscript of that book pathetically went the rounds of the London publishers. "I remember," says Doyle, "smoking over my dog-eared manuscript when it returned for a whiff of country air after one of its descents upon town, and wondering what I should do if some sporting, reckless kind of publisher were suddenly to stride in and make me a bid of forty shillings or so for the lot." Fortunately, however, Doyle was not confronted with this problem, for the story finally reached the hands of Mr. Andrew Lang, who was quick to appraise it at its true value.

Even the swift recognition which greeted "The Sign of the Four," the second story in which Sherlock Holmes played a part, did not thoroughly open the eyes of the novelist, for he followed it up with "The White Company," a tale of the French and English during the Hundred Years' War. About this time he decided to forsake general practise and to become an eye specialist, and after studying in Paris and Vienna he abandoned his Southsea office and went to London. There he established a waiting-room, but patients not coming as rapidly as he had expected, he yielded to the importunities of London editors and settled down to the writing of those extraordinary stories of which the first dozen, in book form, bear the title of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes."

Since that time the story of his literary life has been one of unvarying and almost monotonous success. In whatever field he has chosen to write, his name, as that of the creator of Sherlock Holmes, has commanded immediate recognition. To say how much this recognition has been merited would probably be out of place in this frankly uncritical article. He has engaged in activities aside from his literary work. He has had a fling in English politics, contesting Central Edinburgh as a Liberal Unionist in 1900, and Hawick Burghs as a Tariff Reformer in 1906. To any one who knows his books it is quite superfluous to say that Conan Doyle is very much of an outdoor man. In his younger clays his favorite diversions were boxing and cricket. In more mature years he has taken to golf and the driving of high-powered motor cars. Last year in presenting the cabled reports of his marriage to Miss Jean Leckie, the American press fell into the curious blunder of speaking of him as one of a trio of England's most celebrated old bachelors. As a matter of fact, he had been married a great many years, one of his earlier books was dedicated to his wife, and he has a son and daughter who are practically grown up. Dr. Doyle's first wife died two or three years ago. In 1902, presumably as a reward for the spirited defense which he wrote of the British policy in South Africa, Arthur Conan Doyle was created a knight. The honor was well merited, but in the eyes of one whimsical admirer it was inadequate. To the thinking of this ardent Sherlockian a story as good as "The Hound of the Baskervilles" deserved for its author the rank of baron; a story as good as "The Sign of the Four" the title of viscount; and one as good as "A Study in Scarlet" the title of earl. A book like the "Memoirs" would deserve a marquisate; and if it is conceivable that any one could again produce so fascinating a volume as "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," it is perfectly obvious that such a person ought to be a duke.


Concerning Mr. Sherlock Holmes: Where the Detective Idea Came From

"Sherlock Holmes," says Conan Doyle, "is the literary embodiment, if I may so express it, of my memory of a professor of medicine at Edinburgh University, who would sit in the patients' waiting-room with a face like a red Indian, and diagnose the people as they came in before even they had opened their mouths. He would tell them their symptoms, he would give them details of their lives, and he would hardly ever make a mistake." This professor was Dr. Joseph Bell, and that the resemblance to Sherlock Holmes was not merely intellectual, but strikingly physical as well, may be seen from the accompanying portrait. There are the same sharp, piercing eyes, the eagle nose, and the hawk-like features. Like Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Bell was in the habit of sitting in his chair with his fingers pressed together when engaged in solving a problem. Twenty-seven years ago Conan Doyle came in contact with him when he was finishing his medical studies.

"Gentlemen," Professor Bell would say to the students standing around, "I am not quite sure whether this man is a cork-cutter or a slater. I observe a slight callous, or hardening, on one side of his forefinger, and a little thickening on the outside of his thumb, and that is a sure sign he is either one or the other."

Dr. Bell, as well as Sherlock Holmes, was often inclined to be highly dramatic in the exposition of his singular faculties. A patient would enter his consulting-room. "Ali," the Professor would say, "I perceive that you are a soldier, a non-commissioned officer, and that you have served in Bermuda." The man would acknowledge the correctness of the indictment, and the students would express their surprise. "How did I know that, gentlemen? The matter is simplicity itself. He came into the room without taking his hat off, as he would go into an orderly's room. He was a soldier. A slight authoritative air, combined with his age, shows that he was a non-commissioned officer. A slight rash on the forehead tells me that he was in Bermuda, and subject to a certain rash known only there."

The Genesis of Sherlock Holmes

The figure of Joseph Bell was very clear in Conan Doyle's mind when he sat down to write "A Study in Scarlet." Add to this the fact that he had been reading closely Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," the tales which introduce M. Dupin, and had formed some very definite ideas of his own about the detective in fiction. "In a work which consists in the drawing of detectives," he once wrote, "there are only line or two qualities which one can use, and an author is forced to hark back upon them constantly. so that every detective must really resemble every other detective to a greater or less extent. There is no great originality required in devising or constructing such a man, and the only possible originality which one can get into a story about a detective is in giving him original plots and problems to solve, as in his equipment there must be an alert acuteness of mind to grasp facts and the relation which each of them bears to the other." After thinking over his detective for some time Dr. Doyle began building up a scientific system by which everything might be logically reasoned out. Along purely intellectual lines Poe had done that before with M. Dupin. Sherlock Holmes was practical and systematic, and where he differed from Dupin was that in consequence of his previous scientific education he possessed a vast fund of exact knowledge from which to draw. When he had written twenty-six stories about Sherlock Holmes Conan Doyle determined that it would be had policy to continue and decided to put an end to his hero. He feared that Holmes was becoming tiresome to others as well as himself. Above all, he was afraid that the public would come to think that he had only one idea and could write only one kind of story. Dr. Doyle was in Switzerland at the time. One day, while on a walking tour through the country, he came to a water-fall, and immediately saw in it a romantic spot for any one who wished to meet a spectacular death. Then and there he mentally mapped out "The Final Problem," in which Holmes and Moriarty settled accounts. But Holmes's death, instead of being welcomed, roused indignant protest. One lady wrote a letter to the author which began: "You beast."

The Ultimate Source of Sherlock Holmes

While it remained for Sherlock Holmes to make generally popular the science of deduction, the methods employed, in some form or other, may be traced back from writer to writer until they are lost in the mists of antiquity. The reasoning of Sherlock Holmes is exactly along the lines of reasoning followed by M. Dupin in "The Purloined Letter" and "The Murders in the Rue Morgue." Poe probably drew his inspiration from the interesting story in Voltaire's "Zadig" which tells how Zadig describes to the King's chief huntsman all the peculiarities of a horse and a dog which he had himself never seen. Voltaire, in his turn, probably derived his hint from a story by the Chevalier de Mailly, entitled "Voyage et Aventure des Trois Princes de Sarendip," which appeared in 1719, or twenty-eight years earlier than Zadig. De Mailly's version is substantially as follows: "The three princes, starting out on their journey, encounter a camel-driver, who has lost one of his herd. They have noticed the tracks of such an animal, though not seen him, and when asked by the driver if they know of his whereabouts, the eldest replies: 'Was he not blind?' The second: 'Did he not have a tooth out?' The third: Was he not lame?' The camel-driver assents with delight to the questions and continues on his way rejoicing. Not finding his camel, however, he returns and accuses them of bantering with him. 'To prove that what we say is so,' said the eldest, 'your camel carried butter on one side and honey on the other.' The second: 'And a lady rode the camel,' etc. In the same manner they are arrested for theft and sentenced. And in the same manner the camel is refound and an explanation is given: 'I judged that the camel was blind because I noticed that on one side of the mad all the grass was gnawed down, while the other side was untouched. Therefore. I inferred that he had but one eye, else he would not have left the good to eat the poor grass.' I found in the road mouthfuls of half-chewed herbage the size of a tooth of just such an animal,'" etc.

The Suppressed and Unwritten Sherlock Holmes Stories

There is one Sherlock Holmes story, the third tale in "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" as originally written, that has never been printed in America. This is "The Adventure of the Cardboard Box," in which Sherlock Holmes is shown a cardboard box containing two freshly severed human ears, and in short order deduces a grim tragedy. Although this story appeared in the English "Strand" in its order in the series, Conan Doyle decided to exclude it when the tales were gathered into book form on the ground that it involved an illicit love affair. In addition, "The Cardboard Box" was, with one possible exception, probably the least interesting of all the narratives of the first series. Much more interesting than this suppressed Sherlock Holmes story are the tales to which frequent allusions have been made, but which have yet to be written. The titles of some of these stories have been tantalizing Sherlock Holmes readers for years. Herewith is appended a list of them as casually mentioned by Dr. Watson, with the suggestion that the public has a right to insist that they all shall be narrated at full length:

The Darlington Substitution Scandal.
The Arnsworth Castle Affair.
The Adventure of the Paradol Chamber.
The Affair of the Amateur Mendicant Society.
The Loses of the "Sophy Anderson."
The Adventure of the Grice Patersons in Uffa.
The Camberwell Poisoning Case.
The Dundas Separation Case.
The Affair of the Reigning Family of Holland.
The Adventure of the Tired Captain.
The Tragedy of the Atkinson Brothers at Trincomalee.
The Trepoff Murder.
The Affair of the Netherland Sumatra Company.
The Tankerville Club Scandal.
The Case of Mrs. Etheredge.
The Affair of the King of Scandinavia.
The Manor House Case.
The Tarleton Murder.
The Affair of the Aluminium Crutch.
The Case of Vamberry, the Wine Merchant.
Ricoletti of the Club Foot and His Abominable Wife.
The Adventure of the Old Russian Woman.

Curious Sherlockian Theories

Very few serials of recent years have been followed as closely and curiously as was "The Hound of the Baskervilles," in which Sherlock Holmes went down from London to Devonshire to unravel the mystery of Sir Charles Baskerville's strange death and to protect the life and interests of his successor, Sir Henry Baskerville. The story appeared in nine instalments, and the suspense was maintained to the very end. Sixty odd years before, Edgar Allan Poe, after reading the first instalment of Dickens's "Barnaby Rudge" ("Burnaby Budge" was published, as was the custom in those days, in monthly three-penny parts), had written for the Philadelphia "Saturday Evening Post" (May 1, 1841) a prospective notice of some length, in which he anticipated, with an amazing accuracy, the actual facts of the story. Less successful, but still showing marked ingenuity, were some of the attempts made to solve in advance the sinister mystery surrounding the hound of the Baskervilles. To understand these theories, a brief synopsis of the opening chapters of the tale is necessary.

Holmes and Dr. Watson, in their rooms in Upper Baker Street. London, are visited by James Mortimer, a physician practising in Devonshire, who submits a strange problem. He begins by reading a middle-eighteenth-century story, which tells how the evil-living Sir Hugo Baskerville, after a drinking bout, loosens his pack of hounds after a peasant girl who has escaped across the moor, and himself, on horseback, joins the pursuit. His companions follow and come upon a gruesome sight. In a clearing, illuminated by the moonlight, lie the bodies of the peasant girl and Sir Hugo. Standing over the latter, and plucking at his throat, "there stood a foul thing, a great, black beast, shaped like a hound, yet larger than any hound that ever mortal eye had rested upon. And even as they looked, the thing tore the throat out of Hugo Baskerville, on which, as it turned its blazing eyes and dripping jaws upon them, the three shrieked with fear and rode, for dear life, across the moor." From this legend, Dr. Mortimer turns to recent events. From a Devonshire newspaper he reads an account of the mysterious death of Sir Charles Baskerville, and supplements this account with the statement that he had found, near the body of the unfortunate baronet, the "footprints of a gigantic hound." Sir Henry Baskerville. the next heir, arrives in England from Canada, where he has been engaged in sheep-ranching, and in London meets with inexplicable adventures. He receives a message, made up of words clipped from a newspaper, warning him, as he values his life and his reason, to "keep away from the moor." From his room in the hotel where he is stopping, a new boot is stolen, then returned, and an old one taken instead. Finally Sherlock Holmes and Watson, walking along Bond Street some distance behind Sir Henry, see that the baronet is being followed by a cab, in which there is a man with a black beard.

In London, Holmes is baffled at every turn, and is moved to tell Watson that at last "we have a foeman worthy of our steel." Sir Henry Baskerville, defiant of personal danger, decides to go to Devonshire, and Watson accompanies him. As they are being driven across the moor they learn that a notorious convict, Selden, the Notting Hill murderer, is at large. Arrived at Baskerville Hall, they are met by the butler, the black-bearded Barrymore, and his wife. Barrymore becomes an object of suspicion. The first night they hear sounds of a woman weeping. A few nights later Barrymore is detected signaling with a lamp from one of the upper windows of the hall, and refuses any explanation. Across the moor lies the great Grimpen Mire, impenetrable because of the deadly bog holes. From it there issues from time to time a strange sound, which the peasants say is the hound of the Baskervilles calling for its prey. The mystery is complicated by the appearance of the naturalist, Stapleton.

The first theory advanced (the ingenuity of this theory was afterward commended by Conan Doyle himself) appeared at a somewhat earlier point in the story.

The author of the hypothesis originated it after reading four instalments of "The Hound of the Baskervilles." At the time he had not seen the chapters which dealt with the confrontation of the butler Barrymore by Sir Henry and Watson, and the subsequent expedition over the moors in search of the escaped convict. According to this theory, one of the few incidents of vital importance and meaning was that of the theft of Sir Henry Baskerville's shoes in the hotel in which he was staying at London. To any one acquainted with the methods of Sherlock Holmes, or perhaps it should he said of the Sherlock Holmes stories, it was evident that this at least was no false clue introduced for the sole purpose of leading astray the mind of the reader. What, then, was the significance? What impression was to be compared with that made by Sir Henry's boots. Those who had stolen the shoes had done so not for the purpose of studying the outside: they wanted to examine the inside. And from that the theory which blinded itself was something as follows: The Sir Hugo Baskerville who met his death in so horrible and yet so well-deserved a manner, and bequeathed such a curse to his descendants, had a wife, who had followed him in secret on the eventful night with which the opening instalment of the story deals. (If he had not a wife, the brother through whom was traced the descent of the family had one, and so the matter is much the same.) At any rate, this wife was a witness to the hideous scene of the hound plucking at Sir Hugo's throat. Some months afterward she gave birth to a child, which was found to be physically perfect with the exception that it had the feet of a hound, and in every generation or every other generation of the family since that day there had been born a child cursed with this hideous deformity.

At the time that it was advanced, everywhere this theory could be made to fit. The footprint found close by the dead body of Sir Charles was not that of a hound, but of a Baskerville. Sir Henry's shoes were abstracted (and it must be remembered that two pair were taken, because the first pair was too new to tell any story), in order that those interested could see whether the impression left within was that of the foot of a man or of a hound. Perhaps it was Holmes himself who wished to see whether it was Sir Henry who had stood beside the dead Sir Charles. Perhaps it was the emissaries or the fellow conspirators of the criminal Baskerville who wished to know whether Sir Henry himself was afflicted in the manner described, because it such were the case he would certainly guess at the real solution. The actions of the butler, Barrymore, were thus explained, because he was a repository of at least part of the secret.

The second theory advanced was largely an amplification of the first. Taking it for granted that there is in the neighborhood of Baskerville Hall some person with feet like a hound, does it not seem more probable that this person is a descendant of the girl whom Hugo Baskerville wronged? She was lying prostrate when Hugo's companion saw the hound tear out his throat, but her death is nowhere insisted on — Dr. Doyle does not "produce the corpse." That any woman of the Baskerville family should have followed in that will gallop across miles of now seems improbable. But let it be granted that this girl had only fainted, and that she lived to give birth to a child (whether or not an illegitimate Baskerville), and one or two more points in the story seem to be solved. For instance, there is good reason for a bitter family feud between the hound-footed descendants of this child and the Baskervilles — no one can blame a man for feeling a little peevish toward a family one of whose members has cursed him with such inconvenient extremities. Or allow that a sort of insanity accompanies the malformed feet. That is not an impossibility in the realm of fiction. And many of the Baskervilles have died sudden deaths. Why may not this account for the peculiar actions of the butterfly-chasing Stapleton? He is the dog-toed one, I am convinced (for the moment), and the escaped convict Selden is innocent of everything save an entirely extraneous murder. The hideous sound heard on the moor is some natural phenomenon connected with the Grimpen Mire. The original hound was one of Baskerville's pack, which turned on him for some reason, and whose size was magnified by the frightened shepherd and the tipsy companions. The animal seen by Sir Charles was really a black calf. And, last of all, the typewriting lady interviewed by Dr. Watson has nothing to do with the case — nothing important, at least, but is merely another one of those false scents and ridiculous blunders that the ingenuous Watson is always falling into for the greater glorification of Sherlock Holmes.

A third theory followed the hound-footed idea and assumed that the escaped convict, Selden, was in reality Roger Baskerville, and that this Roger had met Sir Charles at the trysting-place at the yew hedge on the night of the latter's death. It is probable, went on the theorist, that Sir Charles, expecting to meet Laura Lyons, had died of fright at beholding Roger, against whom he had probably committed some great wrong. This was Roger's revenge, Roger, of course, in order to approach noiselessly, had removed his Shoes, which accounts for the footprints near the dead body. Roger had used Laura as an unsuspecting tool. Laura, shocked at the terrible outcome of her friendship with Roger, instead of revealing her connection with the death of Sir Charles at the time of her appointment with him, had never revealed anything about it, through fear of incriminating herself. This, then, was her secret. Now for the other suspicious characters, Stapleton and Barrymore. Both are in the plot with the convict; Stapleton more than Barrymore. Mrs. Barrymore is innocent, as was shown by her plausible confession to Sir Henry told Dr. Watson. She had been told this story and led to believe it was really true. Barrymore may be as innocent as his wife, though more likely he is more closely connected with the crime. Stapleton is hand in glove with the convict, as is shown by his lack of fear of living on the moor while the convict is still at large, although we know that Stapleton is of a nervous and irritable disposition. His sister has in some way learned something of the plots of her brother and the convict, and is filled with sympathy for Sir Henry, with whom she afterward falls in love. Her brother, however, has some powerful influence over her. Stapleton was the agent of the villain in London, and Miss Stapleton (who was there with him, for he did not dare to leave her out of his sight) was the person who sent the warning, made up from the newspaper, to Sir Henry, not daring to use her own hand-writing, through fear of being discovered by her brother. Then, when on the moor with Sir Henry, she again warns him, and Stapleton's anger at discovering them together was caused through fear that she might know something of his plots and be revealing them to Sir Henry. Miss Stapleton does not know what the plot is, but only suspects its existence. The supposed barkings of the hound can he attributed to merely physical causes, such as the escaping of gases on the moor.

The Inconsistences of S. H.

Instead of stepping into the pal., of "A Study in Scarlet" a fully rounded and developed figure, Sherlock Holmes, during the first four or five years of his career as a public character, was in a constant state of evolution. It would be no easy matter for his creator to explain away certain striking inconsistencies of statement. For example, in an early chapter of "A Study in Scarlet," Watson tries to fathom the intentions of his reticent roommate by making a list of Holmes's curious accomplishments and limitations. His knowledge of literature was put down as "nil." "Of contemporary literature, philosophy, and politics, he appeared to know next to nothing. Upon my quoting Thomas Carlyle, he inquired in the naivest way who he might be and what he had done." This is rather definite. Yet in "The Sign of the Four," the very next book, we are shown Sherlock Holmes advising Watson to read Winwood Reade's "The Martyrdom of Man," citing French aphorisms, quoting Goethe in the original German, referring to Jean Paul in reference to Carlyle, reverting once more to Winwood Reade, and finally winding up with another bit of Goethe. in "The Adventure of the Red-Headed League," he quoted from Gustave Flaubert's correspondence with George Sand, and in "A Case of Identity" he makes use of a quotation from the Persian Hafiz, who, he asserts, has as much sense and as much knowledge of the world as the Latin Horace.

Holmes on the stage — At Home and Abroad

It was in 1900 that, through the adaptation of the stories made by Mr. William Gillette. Sherlock Holmes made his appearance upon the stage. This appearance had long been inevitable, and Conan Doyle was fortunate in having from the first, for his creation, an adequate and dignified interpretation. Since then this adaptation. with Mr. Gillette in the title rôle, has enjoyed a very wide success in the United States and England. Three years ago a German version of the play was placed upon the Berlin stage; and during the past season the French version, which follows closely on the lines of the Gillette play, differing radically only in its last act, has proved one of the most striking successes that the Paris stage has known for years. The word "Sherlockitis" is only one of the contributions to Parisian argot for which M. Pierre de Courcelle's adaptation has been responsible. Three or four years ago a play based on "The Sign of the Four," and constructed along decidedly melodramatic lines, ran for some time in various cities of the Middle West, and was by no means a failure when placed upon the stage in Philadelphia and New York. Nor, in speaking of Sherlock Holmes upon the stage, should be overlooked the amusing burlesque of Sherlock Holmes, and Dr. Watson, presented by Montgomery and Stone in "The Red Mill." While Mr. William Gillette introduced considerable of his own invention in the construction of the play "Sherlock Holmes," he drew with commendable freedom from all the Sherlock Holmes stories whatever seemed most suitable to his hand. The basic idea of the play is to be found in the story of "A Scandal in Bohemia." This tale, the first of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes," told how Irene Adler, the adventuress, after being tricked into divulging her secret to Sherlock Holmes, outwitted him in the end. Professor Moriarty and his gigantic criminal organization, as well as Moriarty's interview with Sherlock Holmes, the feature of Act Two, were taken from "The Final Problem." The bit of deduction at the beginning of Act Two, where Holmes, by an examination of Dr. Wat-son's watch, is enabled to give an account of the career of Watson's unfortunate elder brother, is almost verbatim from "The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle." The Gas Chamber of Upper Swandam Lane, where Sherlock Holmes and Miss Faulkner escape through the door in the dark while the minions of Moriarty are closing in on the glowing end of the cigar which Holmes has left by the window, played a sinister part in "The Adventure of the Man with the Twisted Lip." Finally, the capture of the malevolent Moriarty in the last act is exactly the same device which Sherlock Holmes used for the apprehension of Jefferson Hope in "A Study in Scarlet." Perhaps Sherlock Holmes as a dramatic figure has received no tribute comparable to that which has been accorded him in Paris during the last year. M. de Courcelle's play, with M. Gemier in the title role, has now reached almost three hundred performances at the Théatre Antoine, a very remarkable run for Paris. The result of this success has been exceedingly annoying to the French police officials. One Parisian out of five nowadays considers himself a Sherlock Holmes, and consequently everybody is asking why M. Hamard should fail where the English detective would have succeeded in no time. In connection with two recent sensational murders the Paris papers have been setting forth their versions of how these mysterious crimes are committed, in the form of interviews with Sherlock Holmes. The other day a footman stole a casket containing ten thousand francs' worth of jewels and concealed it in a hole in the ground in the Bois de Boulogne. When finally forced to confess, he declared that he had been so much impressed by the cunning of Holmes and the skill of Moriarty as a criminal that he wished to imitate them and commit theft in a scientific and artistic manner.

While the De Courcelle play follows that of Mr. Gillette very closely, there are some changes, especially in the matter of the names of the characters, that suggest Paul de Kock's Lord Boulgrog and Victor Hugo's Tom Jimjack. For example, Larrabee in the French version becomes Orlebarre. Sidney Prince is introduced as John Alfred Napoleon Bribb. Alice Faulkner is transformed into Alice Brent. It is Bribb instead of Moriarty who is captured when disguised as a cabman in the French version. This leaves the arch-villain still at large, and made it necessary for M. de Courcelle to add another act. This act is based on "The Adventure of the Empty House," the first of the COLLIER stories of four years ago, which brought Sherlock Holmes to life again after his supposed death in Switzerland. The stage is divided into three parts; in the center the street, on the left the room occupied by Sherlock Holmes, and on the right a room in the Empty House. In the dim light of a lamp the figure of Sherlock Holmes is seen in an easy-chair facing the window, asleep. Into the room of the house across the way slink Moriarty and one of his allies, bent on the destruction of their implacable enemy. Moriarty's air gun is carefully aimed, there is a sharp click, and the recumbent figure in the chair tumbles to the floor. But the villain's moment of triumph is brief. Close to Moriarty's ear there rings out the well-known voice, and from a side door there springs in Sherlock Holmes, followed by the emissaries of the law. The supposed Sherlock Holmes was merely a dummy.


Concerning Conan Doyle: As a Literary Workman — Some Impressions of His Work

Some little time before the death of the late Dr. John Watson (Ian Maclaren) the writer of these notes was talking with him of various bookish matters in the library of his (Dr. Watson's) Liverpool home. The conversation turned to the fiction of Conan Doyle, and the author of "The Bonnie Briar Bush" was more than outspoken in his admiration. "Doyle is a splendid workman," was his verdict. "But his books are entertaining to a degree that is at times unfortunate. People find his yarns so amusing as yarns that they are inclined to overlook entirely how well he writes." And in comment upon this criticism it may be said that most people have regarded Dr. Watson so exclusively as a spinner of tales of the Scottish Kailyard that they have failed utterly to appreciate him as a sound judge of literary matters. The creator of Drumtochty was a close student of his Flaubert and his De Maupassant.

But the case of Conan Doyle is not an isolated one. It is very rarely that a man who is regarded essentially as a story-teller is generally appraised at his real value as a literary craftsman. For his full meed of serious appreciation and consideration he has to look to a small class of men of his own profession, whose training enables them to judge for themselves. To this class Conan Doyle is not merely the creator of Sherlock Holmes. He is a workman to be considered, by virtue of many sturdy attributes, very near the apex among contemporary English storytellers. He does not, of course, rank with Kipling, but he should be classed with J. M. Barrie and Anthony Hope.

His Dramatic Power

Some Frenchman has said that the most dramatic situation of all literature is where Robinson Crusoe found the human footprint in the sand. With all deference to the unique genius of Defoe, the present writer can not wholly agree with this estimate. Unquestionably it should have been. But to the modern way of thinking, it is not enough for a writer to present a great situation. He must have prepared the reader's mind to receive it in the proper spirit. It must be led up to. There must be the preliminary period of suspense. The finding of the footprint in "Robinson Crusoe" comes at the beginning of a chapter, out of a clear sky. The revelation surprises, but it does not thrill. It is precisely the same fundamental idea of which Conan Doyle makes use in "The Hound of the Baskervilles." But how marked the contrast. You listen to the strange, uncanny old-world legend of the great demon hound that tore out the throat of the evil Sir Hugo Baskerville. You catch the spirit of the lonely moor, and something of the unreasonable fear that inspired Sir Charles. You are told the story of the Baronet's sinister death — the strange tales of the peasantry about the terrible hound and the uncanny sounds coming from the Grimpen Mire — in a word, you are keyed up to just the proper pitch to receive the climax. Dr. Mortimer contradicts the statement that had been made at the coroner's inquest that there were no traces upon the ground round Sir Charles's body. He has seen some, fresh and clear.

"'Footprints?' asks Sherlock Holmes.

"'Footprints.'

"'A man's or a woman's?'

"Dr. Mortimer looked strangely at us for an instant, and his voice sank almost to a whisper as he answered:

"'Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!'"

One must look far in contemporary fiction for a more dramatic incident than the rescue of Sir Nigel and Bertrand du Guesclin by the English archers in "The White Company." Here again the basic idea is one of the conventional stock properties of fiction. It is the idea that has found expression, for example, in verse when associated with the Siege of Lucknow during the Sepoy Rebellion. Within the citadel, the hard-pressed little English garrison. Outside, an enemy, the nature of whom is vividly described by the line: "To yield to that foe meant worse than death." Hope is practically gone; when a Scotch lassie, Jessie Brown, wakes from her sleep, crying that she has heard the pipes of the Highlanders. The elation of a moment is followed by deeper depression.

"The Colonel shook his head
And they turned to the guns once more."

Soon, however, others besides Jessie Brown start and listen, and a great cheer went up.

"It was the pipes of the Highlanders,
And now they played 'Auld Lung Syne.'
And it came to our men like the voice of God,
And they shouted along the line."

The last two lines may be very mediocre verse, but they contain sound dramatic force.

In "The White Company" the castle in the Pyrenees in which Sir Nigel and Du Guesclin are guests is attacked by a savage peasantry. In a Homeric battle the English knight and the Lion of France fight side by side, holding the stair against the pikes and scythes of the canaille. There, too, hope is practically gone, and the flames are leaping high about them when there comes to the ears of the besieged, borne by the night wind, the marching song of the rescuing archers:

"What of the bow?
The bow was made in England,
Of yew wood, of true wood,
The wood of English bows."

In a decidedly lower key, but no less essentially dramatic, is an episode in "Beyond the City." And again it is an old idea presented with surprising freshness. Admiral Hay Denver, living in comfortable retirement after years of splendid service, learns that his son's honorable name is threatened through the defalcations of a rascally partner. At all costs this disaster must be averted. He decides that he will sell his comfortable pension outright and go back to the sea for a living. With this in mind lie makes his way to a shipping office in the city and applies for the humble position of a first or second.

"The manager looked with a dubious eye at his sin-gular applicant.

"'Do you hold certificates?' he asked.

"'I hold every nautical certificate there is.'

"'Then you won't do for us.'

"'Why not?'

"'Your age, sir.'

"'I give you my word that I can see as well as ever, and am as good a man in every way.'

"'I don't doubt it.'

"'Why should my age be a bar. then?'

"'Well, I must put it plainly. If a man of your age, holding certificates, has not got past a second officer's berth, there must be a black mark against him somewhere. I don't know what it is, drink or temper, or want of judgment, but something there must be.'

"'I assure you there is nothing; but I find myself stranded, and so have to turn to the old business again.'

"'Oh, that's it,' said the manager, with suspicion in his eye. 'How long were you in your last billet?'

"'Fifty-one years.'

"'What!'

"'Yes, sir, one-and-fifty years.'

"'In the same employ?'

"'Yes.'

"'Why, you must have begun as a child.'

"'I was twelve when I joined.'

"'It must be a strangely managed business,' said the manager, 'which allows men to leave it who have served for fifty years, and who are still as good as ever. Whom did you serve?'

"'The Queen. Heaven bless her!'

"'Oh, you were in the Royal Navy. What rating did you hold?'

"'I am admiral of the fleet.'"

"Rodney Stone"

If among the many literary influences which have had a part in molding Conan Doyle's work, any one influence is paramount, it is that of the historian and essayist Macaulay. Doyle has always held that Macaulay could have written a great historical novel. "He could have made the multiplication table interesting reading." True, Macaulay was a great transmuter, and so, in a much lesser way perhaps, a great transmuter is Arthur Conan Doyle. In writing "The White Company" Conan Doyle literally "tore the heart out of" "Froissart's Chronicles." In addition, over one hundred and fifteen volumes, French and English, dealing with the period, were mastered before he wrote one lines of the manuscript. "Micah Clarke," which dealt with the Monmouth Rebellion, was the result of a year's reading and five months' writing. The inspiration of "Rodney Stone" is to be found in the several crude volumes dealing with the British prize-ring when that institution was at its apogée — from 1795 till 1810 — and if one would see how the master workman can take inferior material and illumine it with the fire of his own talent, let him read through the stilted and grotesque pages of "Pugilistica and Boxiana," with the vapid slang, the pompous jokes, and then turn to "Rodney Stone."

This book has been called "the best story of the ring ever written." It is that and it is a great deal more besides. To the mind of the present writer it is not only the best of Conan Doyle's books, but it is so far the best that there is no second. Beyond that, with the works of George Meredith in mind, and "The Stooping Lady" of Maurice Hewlett, the writer holds to the opinion that "Rodney Stone" is the most vivid and spirited picture of Corinthian England that has been drawn.

Designed, first of all, as a rousing tale, it possesses a plot that is well-nigh flawless; and the manner in which event after event, with cumulative intensity, leads up to the battle on Crawley Downs, and the interests of all concerned hang on the issue of that struggle, raising it from a mere contest between two professional bruisers to an almost epic dignity, is the very height of dramatic art.

But above all is the atmosphere of the tale. The book begins as countless other books begin — the man of mellow age jotting clown his story for the grandchildren that gather about his knee. But the triteness goes no farther. Contrast the simplicity and genuineness of the opening of this story with the stilted tone and the purely artificial style of even so tine a novel as "Lorna Doone." The England that Rodney Stone flings before you in these first few pages is still very near and vivid to him. Again in memory he feels the national dread of the Corsican — "that great and evil man." Again he sees the beacons on the white cliffs, and strains his eyes, peering out over the Channel for the warships of the tricolor. He kindles with the reminiscent thrill of war, and his heart beats fast as he remembers the tales of splendid sea fights told in the village taverns. Once again he is a boy about to leave his mother's side and his simple home at Friars Oak, to go up to the great world of London, to meet the Prince, and the Corinthians and the prize-fighters and the officers of Nelson's fleet in the company of his famous uncle, Sir Charles Tregellis. Had "Rodney Stone" no other merit it would deserve a niche for this character alone. All that history has to tell us of "Beau" Brummell serves only to make him seem pale and colorless when placed side by side with the strange, preposterous, impertinent, yet wholly likable and delightful fribble of Doyle's book. If the writer were asked to choose the three men who, among all of Conan Doyle's characters, have left the most vivid impression, one of the three would be Sir Charles Tregellis. The other two, of course, are Sherlock Holmes and Colonel Etienne Gerard.

The Incomparable Gerard

It must be admitted that Conan Doyle's heart has been much more in Colonel Etienne Gerard than in the more widely popular Sherlock Holmes. The latter was designed to be purely intellectual — a reasoning machine. He has his weaknesses, but they are not always of an amiable turn. On the other hand, if Doyle loves Gerard for his dash, his daring, and his devotion, he loves him still more for the very human shortcomings with which he has endowed him. This partiality has always been marked — ever since the day, in "Uncle Bernac," he first introduced a Gerard that was quite as different from the Cavalier of the later stories as the embryonic Sherlock Holmes of "A Study in Scarlet" was different from the Sherlock Holmes of "The Final Problem."

Keen as has been Conan Doyle's interest in the Hundred Years' War between France and England ("The White Company" and "Sir Nigel"), the Rebellion of Monmouth ("Micah Clarke"), and the court of Louis the Magnificent ("The Refugees"), to him the supremely dramatic chapter of all history is that which tells the story of the great Napoleon and the men with hairy knapsacks and hearts of steel whose tramp shook the Continent for so many years. In the twenty odd stories which tell of the exploits of Gerard, we are shown every phase of that epic struggle. Throughout, if we except his brief appearance on the scene in "Uncle Bernac," an earlier book, the Brigadier is always consistent. He is lacking in subtle perception, at became a dashing lieutenant-colonel of hussars of the Napoleonic campaigns, but is by no means devoid of native wit. He is brave and generous, which goes without saying. In the babble of his old age he is reminiscently vain of his early physical prowess and personal fascinations, although he is always discreet, and always stops short of mentioning the lady of the particular story by name. There was hardly a corner in Europe in which he had not served. He had been a prisoner in England and there engaged in fisticuffs, to his wondering discomfiture, with the Buxton Bruiser. In the terrible retreat from Russia he had found refuge and shelter in the carcasses of dead horses. At Waterloo, had not the face of history been against him, as the face of history was against Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan in their efforts to save the head of Charles the First, his individual stratagem would have turned the fortunes of the day and made Napoleon once' more the master of Europe. In Spain, countless were his performances of dash and intrepidity. To the end of his days he delighted in narrating his uninvited participation in the fox hunt of the English officers, outriding them all, cutting the fox in two with one stroke of his sword, and riding away with the profound belief that the yells of execration at the unhallowed deed were simply shouts of generous admiration at his skill and prowess. Perhaps as typical an exploit as any is that which brings him into the merciless hands of the Portuguese Smiler. Massena is about to retreat and wishes to apprise another French army. that is seriously threatened, of his move. The beacon that has been prearranged for this signal is on top of a mountain held by the infamous bandit. Two French officers have been sent to light it, and have apparently net with a terrible fate. Massena calls on Gerard. Gerard, after various adventures, falls into the hands of the Smiler. The latter offers him his choice of deaths in return for certain information. Gerard has an inspiration. He gives the information, and then makes his conditions. "I choose to be burned on yonder beacon at the stroke of midnight." Even with the final fall of the empire, Gerard's activities do not cease. In a last adventure we find him, some six years after Waterloo, on an expedition to St. Helena to free the emperor. It is too late. Gerard arrives only to witness strange ceremonies, and to catch one brief glimpse of the dead face of the master he has served so long and so well. To Conan Doyle the story of the Napoleonic years is the story of all stories, and Gerard is its personification.

Conan Doyle in Sherlock Holmes's Role

When, in the early nineties, "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" were in the first full swing of popularity, a great many persons fell into the idea that the author himself possessed the remarkable analytical powers of his detective, and innumerable problems were sent him for solution. This experience was repeated when he went to South Africa at the time of the Boer War. There he was the recipient of envelopes, pieces of writing, and other things with the request that he would examine them and deduce all sorts of facts. Of course Doyle could do nothing of the kind. That he possesses gifts that would carry him far in the career of a consulting detective, however, he proved two or three years ago in connection with the celebrated Edalji case. Edalji was a young Syrian living in a small English village. He was accused of the maiming of animals by night, tried, convicted, and sent to prison. Conan Doyle, reading the accounts of the case, reached the conclusion that there had been a cruel miscarriage of justice. He personally hastened to the scene and started a line of new investigation. One of the strongest charges against Edalji was that, upon a certain night, he had left his room, gone to a certain field, and there found and mutilated a particular horse. Edalji was extremely short-sighted, and yet the evidence upon which he had been convicted showed that the crime had been committed by a man not wearing eye-glasses. Conan Doyle began with this point, and was able to prove that, in view of his myopic condition, the Syrian could never have found the field, let alone the horse. With a few swift, decisive strokes the creator of Sherlock Holmes completely overthrew the inadequate evidence, demonstrated triumphantly the complete innocence of Edalji, and brought about his pardon and release by the Home Secretary.

Conan Doyle in America

So far Conan Doyle has made but one visit to America. That was in 1894. When, in the late summer of that year, it was announced that he was to sail for this country, to deliver a series of readings under the direction of the late Major Pond, there were some persons unkind enough to say that he had been paving the way to a warm welcome by the ornate eulogy of America and Americana which he had introduced into "The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor," then one of the latest of the Sherlock Holmes stories. He came here in October, 1894, and the series of forty readings proved immensely successful. Had it not been for his invalid wife, with whom he had promised to spend Christmas, he could have continued his season and returned home with a small fortune in American dollars. He had an exceedingly good time, prowling about in all sorts of unusual places, taking his adventures in a spirit of boyish delight. The only fly in the ointment was the necessity of inciting people socially. A certain native diffidence and a secret feeling that he was proving a failure as a public entertainer made this part of his visit almost painful. Once he was told that a number of well-known society women had requested that they might meet him after the reading. His flurry was really pathetic. "Oh, I can not. I can not! What do they want of me! Do let me get away. I haven't the courage to look any one in the face." Just before he left for England, the Aldine Club of New York gave him a farewell dinner. He began an off-hand speech by giving an account of his arrival in Boston:

"I arrived in Boston and alighted from the train almost into the arms of a dozen cabbies. One of them had a dog-eared book peeping out of his pocket, and I instinctively called him, saying as I got in: 'You may drive me to Young's, or Parker's perhaps.'

"'Pardon me,' said the cabby. 'I think you'll find Major Pond waiting for you at Parker's, sir.'

"What could I do but stare and acquiesce by taking my seat speechlessly? We arrived, and the observant cabman was at the door. I started to pay my fare when he said, quite respectfully:

"'If it is not too great an intrusion, sir, I should greatly prefer a ticket to your lecture. If you have none of the printed ones with you, your agent would doubtless honor one of your visiting-cards, if penciled by yourself.'

"I had to be gruff or laugh outright, and so said:

"'Come, come, I am not accustomed to be beaten at my own tricks. Tell me how you ascertained who I am, and you shall have tickets for your whole family, and such cigars as you smoke in America, besides!'

"'Of course we all knew that you were coming on this train — that is, all of the members of the Cabmen's Literary Guild,' was the half-apologetic reply. 'As it happens, I am the only member on duty at this station this morning, and I had that advantage.

"'If you will excuse other personal remarks, your coat lapels are badly twisted downward, where they have been grasped by the pertinacious New York reporters. Your hair has the Quakerish cut of a Philadelphia barber, and your hat, battered at the brim in front, shows where you have tightly grasped it, in the struggle to stand your ground at a Chicago literary luncheon. Your right overshoe has a large block of Buffalo mud just under the instep, the odor of a Utica cigar hangs about your clothing, and the overcoat itself shows the slovenly brushing of the porters of the through sleepers from Albany. The crumbs of doughnut on the top of your bag — pardon me, your luggage — could only have come there in Springfield, and stenciled upon the very end of the "Wellington," in fairly plain lettering, is the name, "Conan Doyle."'"