—Fables of Laetertius.
ICTURE now this comedy and its actors. Fisher of the porpoise habit, Mrs. Fisher of the puffy cheek, poor Dugald Cellarini, and these two vast, blue-coated, thief-catching “bobbies” (as with kindly humor the English term their police); all save Dugald looking terribly solemn and important. He, poor man, strove hard to give the affair a lighter turn, but what is one artist in a herd of Philistines? I was not appreciated; that is the truth. A man may defy an empire, a papal bull, an infectious disease, but a prejudice—never! “Constable,” says Fisher, “I have caught him.” Both bobbies look at me with much the same depressing glance as Fisher himself.
“Yes, sir,” says one, in what evidently was intended for a tone of congratulation. “So I see.”
The other bobby evidently agrees with this sentiment. Wonderful unanimity! I have noticed it in the Paris gendarmes also, the same quick and intelligent grasp of a situation.
The latter quality was so conspicuous in my two blue-coated friends that I named them instantly Lecoq and Holmes.
Holmes speaks next, after an impressive pause.
“What's he done?”