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fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for kindness and
charity on the country-side, and was noted for the
leniency of his sentences from the bench.

"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were
sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young
Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation
and inference which I had already formed into a
system, although I had not yet appreciated the part
which they were to play in my life. The old man
evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in his
description of one or two trivial feats which I had
performed.

"'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing
good-humoredly. 'I'm an excellent subject, if you can
deduce anything from me.'

"'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might
suggest that you have gone about in fear of some
personal attack within the last twelvemonth.'

"The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in
great surprise.

"'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know,
Victor,' turning to his son, 'when we broke up that
poaching gang they swore to knife us, and Sir Edward
Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on
my guard since then, though I have no idea how you
know it.'

"'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By
the inscription I observed that you had not had it
more than a year. But you have taken some pains to
bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole
so as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that
you would not take such precautions unless you had
some danger to fear.'

"'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.

"'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'

"'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose
knocked a little out of the straight?'

"'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the
peculiar flattening and thickening which marks the
boxing man.'

"'Anything else?'

"'You have done a good deal of digging by your
callosities.'

"'Made all my money at the gold fields.'

"'You have been in New Zealand.'

"'Right again.'

"'You have visited Japan.'

"'Quite true.'

"'And you have been most intimately associated with
some one whose initials were J. A., and whom you
afterwards were eager to entirely forget.'

"Mr. Trevor stood slowly up, fixed his large blue eyes
upon me with a strange wild stare, and then pitched
forward, with his face among the nutshells which
strewed the cloth, in a dead faint.

"You can imagine, Watson, how shocked both his son and
I were. His attack did not last long, however, for
when we undid his collar, and sprinkled the water from
one of the finger-glasses over his face, he gave a
gasp or two and sat up.

"'Ah, boys,' said he, forcing a smile, 'I hope I
haven't frightened you. Strong as I look, there is a
weak place in my heart, and it does not take much to
knock me over. I don't know how you manage this, Mr.
Holmes, but it seems to me that all the detectives of
fact and of fancy would be children in your hands.
That's your line of life, sir, and you may take the

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