Her stick made a little clickety noise on the flagstones.

By Gar! you've got an Irish tongue in your head anyhow, cried the saloon-keeper, not quite certain whether to humour this audacious visitor or to stand upon his dignity.

Dear me, Mr. Holmes. Dear me! said this singular epistle. There was neither superscription nor signature. I laughed at the quaint message; but Holmes showed unwonted seriousness.

Among the younger men who were winning fame—with the surge and thunder that heralded the youth of the nineties—was Rudyard Kipling; the seething brain of H. G. Wells was boiling over into scientific romance; and old romance was brought to life by the charm of Anthony Hope.