Page:Punch Vol 148.djvu/444

which was a singularly fatuous remark to make, because, as it happens, I have a baby of my own, though only a very small one. What I don't possess is a turnip of my own.

Then, too, there is the important matter of clues. How often one reads in the newspapers that detectives are handicapped for want of clues! From the very outset of my career I determined that I would never be handicapped in this manner, and therefore I have my own set of clues which I always carry about with me. I have got a very good footprint from which I expect great results, a blood-stain, several different kinds of tobacco-ash and a button. Buttons, I have observed, nearly always turn out to be clues, from which I gather that the majority of criminals are bachelors.

The science of deductive reasoning naturally plays an important part in my work and often—just to see the look of amazement on their faces—I amuse myself with a little practical demonstration at the expense of my friends. I well remember how I surprised Uncle Jasper by asking after his cold before he had even mentioned a word about it to me. All he had said was, "Well, by boy, what a log tibe it is sidce I've seed you."

And I have had some exciting experiences. Once I stopped a runaway bathchair at the risk of the occupant's life. I gave myself a medal for that. On another occasion I stopped a cheque just in the nick of time. For this I presented myself with an illuminated address, and only by the exercise of great self-control refrained from awarding myself the freedom of my native town. On yet a third occasion I successfully traced a German spy to his lair. I heard him talking German as he passed me (I was disguised at the time I remember as a Writer to the Signet), and never shall I forget the look of utter despair he gave when I forced him to disclose his real name, which was Gwddylch Apgwchllydd. Next time I bring off a coup—as we call it—I have marked myself down for promotion.

"You'll have to practise a good deal, Sir. There's only two on your target, and one of them is a ricochet, and you seem to have put one on the target of the gentleman on the right, and two on the target of the gentleman on the left."

"Well, you know, I don't call that at all a bad mixed bag for a first attempt."

"A Tennyson letter was sold for £2 15s.; a Thrackerary letter, in which he describes himself as a 'tall, white-haired man in spectacles,' for 9 guineas."

Manchester Guardian.

It's a long, long price for Thrackerary.

"Amsterdam, Monday.

A Zeppelin this morning passed over Schiermonnkoog, proceeding in a wasterday direction."—Cork Evening Echo.

Just to kill time, we suppose.

Mass onslaughts for the recapture of this important position were made by the Germans, but our motor machine guns raked the compact ranks with shrapnel."—Daily News.

The Press Censor has no objection whatever to the publication of this statement so long as he is not held responsible for it.

"It is said that cold water has been thrown on milk records in some neighbourhoods where it is the custom to talk lightly of the thousand gallon cow."—Morning Post.

Dark hints as to this use of "allaying Thames" have been heard more than once.

"If they thought, however, that the spirit of our men had been broken by hiph (sic) explosives they were soon to discover their mistake. Again did our machine-puns do tremendous execution, and the attack was beaten off..."

Devon and Exeter Gazette.

The devastating effect of this form of humour is well-known.

"I see that Willis's Club is shut up, and the news is a little surprising, considering that I was only lunching there the other day."

"Mr. Mayfair," in "The Sunday Pictorial."

The éclat conferred on the club by this visit should have enabled it to keep running for some time longer. Perhaps if he had been dining and not "only lunching" things would have been different.