meerschaum, "I really--think, G----, you have not exerted yourself--to
the utmost in this matter. You might--do a little more, I think; eh?"
"How?--in what way?"
"Why"--puff, puff--"you might"--puff, puff--"employ counsel in the
matter, eh"--puff, puff, puff. "Do you remember the story they tell of
Abernethy?"
"No; hang Abernethy!"
"To be sure! Hang him and welcome. But, once upon a time, a certain
miser conceived the design of spunging upon this Abernethy for
a medical opinion. Getting up, for this purpose, an ordinary
conversation in a private company, he insinuated his case to the
physician as that of an imaginary individual."
"'We will suppose,' said the miser, 'that his symptoms are such and
such; now, doctor, what would _you_ have directed him to take?'
"'Take!' said Abernethy. 'Why, take _advice_, to be sure.'"
"But," said the Prefect, a little discomposed, "_I_ am _perfectly_
willing to take advice, and to pay for it. I would _really_ give fifty
thousand francs to any one who would aid me in the matter."
"In that case," replied Dupin, opening a drawer, and producing a
check-book, "you may as well fill me up a check for the amount
mentioned. When you have signed it, I will hand you the letter."
I was astounded. The Prefect appeared absolutely thunder-stricken.
For some minutes he remained speechless and motionless, looking
incredulously at my friend with open mouth, and eyes that seemed
starting from their sockets; then apparently recovering himself in
some measure, he seized a pen, and after several pauses and vacant
stares, finally filled up and signed a check for fifty thousand
francs, and handed it across the table to Dupin. The latter examined
it carefully and deposited it in his pocket-book; then, unlocking an
_escritoire_, took thence a letter and gave it to the Prefect. This
functionary grasped it in a perfect agony of joy, opened it with
a trembling hand, cast a rapid glance at its contents, and
then, scrambling and struggling to the door, rushed at length
unceremoniously from the room and from the house, without having
uttered a syllable since Dupin had requested him to fill up the check.
When he had gone, my friend entered into some explanation.
"The Parisian police," he said, "are exceedingly able in their way.
They are persevering, ingenious, cunning, and thoroughly versed in the
knowledge which their duties seem chiefly to demand. Thus, when G----
detailed to us his mode of searching the premises at the Hotel
D----, I felt entire confidence in his having made a satisfactory
investigation--so far as his labors extended."
"So far as his labors extended?" said I.
"Yes," said Dupin. "The measures adopted were not only the best of
their kind, but carried out to absolute perfection. Had the letter
been deposited within the range of their search, these fellows would,
beyond a question, have found it."
I merely laughed--but he seemed quite serious in all that he said.
"The measures, then," he continued, "were good in their kind, and well
executed; their defect lay in their being inapplicable to the case and
to the man. A certain set of highly ingenious resources are, with the
Prefect, a sort of Procrustean bed, to which he forcibly adapts his
designs. But he perpetually errs by being too deep or too shallow for
the matter in hand, and many a school-boy is a better reasoner than
he. I knew one about eight years of age, whose success at guessing in
the game of 'even and odd' attracted universal admiration. This game
is simple, and is played with marbles. One player holds in his hand a
number of these toys, and demands of another whether that number is
even or odd. If the guess is right, the guesser wins one; if wrong, he
loses one. The boy to whom I allude won all the marbles of the school.
Of course, he had some principle of guessing; and this lay in mere
observation and admeasurement of the astuteness of his opponents. For
example, an arrant simpleton is his opponent, and, holding up his
closed hand, asks, 'Are they even or odd?' Our school-boy replies,
'Odd,' and loses; but upon the second trial he wins, for he then says
to himself: 'The simpleton had them even upon the first trial, and his
amount of cunning is just sufficient to make him have them odd upon
the second; I will therefore guess odd'; he guesses odd, and wins.
Now, with a simpleton a degree above the first, he would have reasoned
thus;
'This fellow finds that in the first instance I guessed odd, and, in
the second, he will propose to himself, upon the first impulse, a
simple variation from even to odd, as did the first simpleton;
but then a second thought will suggest that this is too simple a
variation, and finally he will decide upon putting it even as before.
I will therefore guess even'; he guesses even, and wins. Now this mode
of reasoning in the school-boy, whom his fellows termed 'Lucky,' what,
in its last analysis, is it?"
"It is merely," I said, "an identification of the reasoner's intellect
with that of his opponent."
"It is," said Dupin; "and, upon inquiring of the boy by what means he
effected the _thorough_ identification in which his success consisted,
I received answer as follows: 'When I wish to find out how wise, or
how stupid, or how good, or how wicked, is any one, or what are his
thoughts at the moment, I fashion the expression of my face, as
accurately as possible, in accordance with the expression of his,
and then wait to see what thoughts or sentiments arise in my mind
or heart, as if to match or correspond with the expression.' This
response of the school-boy lies at the bottom of all the spurious
profundity which has been attributed to Rochefoucault, to La Bougive,
to Machiavelli, and to Campanella."
"And the identification," I said, "of the reasoner's intellect with
that of his opponent, depends, if I understand you aright, upon the
accuracy with which the opponent's intellect is admeasured."
"For its practical value it depends upon this," replied Dupin; "and
the Prefect and his cohort fail so frequently, first, by default of
this identification, and, secondly, by ill-admeasurement, or rather
through non-admeasurement, of the intellect with which they are
engaged. They consider only their _own_ ideas of ingenuity; and, in
searching for anything hidden, advert only to the modes in which
_they_ would have hidden it. They are right in this much--that their
own ingenuity is a faithful representative of that of _the mass_; but
when the cunning of the individual felon is diverse in character from
their own, the felon foils them of course. This always happens when it
is above their own, and very usually when it is below. They have no
variation of principle in their investigations; at best, when urged by
some unusual emergency--by some extraordinary reward--they extend
or exaggerate their old modes of _practice_, without touching their
principles. What, for example, in this case of D----, has been done to
vary the principle of action? What is all this boring, and probing,
and sounding, and scrutinizing with the microscope, and dividing the
surface of the building into registered square inches--what is it all
but an exaggeration of the application of the one principle or set
of principles of search, which are based upon the one set of notions
retarding human ingenuity, to which the Prefect, in the long routine
of his duty, has been accustomed? Do you not see he had taken it for
granted that _all_ men proceed to conceal a letter, not exactly in
a gimlet-hole bored in a chair-leg, but, at least, in _some_
out-of-the-way hole or corner suggested by the same tenor of thought
which would urge a man to secrete a letter in a gimlet-hole bored in a
chair-leg? And do you not see, also, that such _recherché_ nooks for
concealment are adapted only for ordinary occasions, and would be
adopted only by ordinary intellects; for, in all cases of concealment,
a disposal of the article concealed--a disposal of it in this
_recherché_ manner--is, in the very first instance, presumable and
presumed; and thus its discovery depends, not at all upon the acumen,
but altogether upon the mere care, patience, and determination of the
seekers; and where the case is of importance--or, when the reward is
of magnitude--the qualities in question have _never_ been known to
fail. You will now understand what I meant in suggesting that, had
the purloined letter been hidden anywhere within the limits of the
Prefect's examination--in other words, had the principle of
its concealment been comprehended within the principles of the
Prefect--its discovery would have been a matter altogether beyond
question. This functionary, however, has been thoroughly mystified;
and the remote source of his defeat lies in the supposition that the
Minister is a fool, because he has acquired renown as a poet. All
fools are poets; this the Prefect _feels_; and he is merely guilty
of a _non distributio medii_ in thence inferring that all poets are
fools. I mean to say, that if the Minister had been no more than a
mathematician, the Prefect would have been under no necessity of
giving me this check. I knew him, however, as both mathematician and
poet, and my measures were adapted to his capacity, with reference
to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. I knew him as a
courtier, too, and as a bold _intriguant_. Such a man, I considered,
could not fail to be aware of the ordinary political modes of action.
He could not have failed to anticipate--and events have proved that he
did not fail to anticipate--the waylayings to which he was subjected.
He must have foreseen, I reflected, the secret investigations of his
premises. His frequent absences from home at night, which were hailed
by the Prefect as certain aids to his success, I regarded only as
_ruses_, to afford opportunity for thorough search to the police, and
thus the sooner to impress them with the conviction to which G----, in
fact, did finally arrive--the conviction that the letter was not upon
the premises. I felt, also, that the whole train of thought, which
I was at some pains in detailing to you just now, concerning the
invariable principle of political action in searches for articles
concealed--I felt that this whole train of thought would necessarily
pass through the mind of the Minister. It would imperatively lead him
to despise all the ordinary _nooks_ of concealment. _He_ could not, I
reflected, be so weak as not to see that the most intricate and remote
recess of his hotel would be as open as his commonest closets to the
eyes, to the probes, to the gimlets, and to the microscopes of the
Prefect. I saw, in fine, that he would be driven, as a matter of
course, to _simplicity_, if not deliberately induced to it as a matter
of choice. You will remember, perhaps, how desperately the Prefect
laughed when I suggested, upon our first interview, that it was just
possible this mystery troubled him so much on account of its being so
_very_ self-evident."
"Yes," said I, "I remember his merriment well. I really thought he
would have fallen into convulsions."
"The material world," continued Dupin, "abounds with very strict
analogies to the immaterial; and thus some color of truth has been
given to the rhetorical dogma that metaphor, or simile, may be made
to strengthen an argument as well as to embellish a description. The
principle of the _vis inertiae_, for example, seems to be identical in
physics and metaphysics. It is not more true, in the former, that a
large body is with more difficulty set in motion than a smaller
one, and that its subsequent _momentum_ is commensurate with this
difficulty, than it is, in the latter, that intellects of the vaster
capacity, while more forcible, more constant, and more eventful in
their movements than those of inferior grade, are yet the less readily
moved, and more embarrassed, and full of hesitation in the first few
steps of their progress. Again: have you ever noticed which of
the street signs, over the shop doors, are the most attractive of
attention?"
"I have never given the matter a thought," I said.
"There is a game of puzzles," he resumed, "which is played upon a map.
One party playing requires another to find a given word--the name of
town, river, state, or empire--any word, in short, upon the motley and
perplexed surface of the chart. A novice in the game generally seeks
to embarrass his opponents by giving them the most minutely lettered
names; but the adept selects such words as stretch, in large
characters, from one end of the chart to the other. These, like
the over-largely lettered signs and placards of the street, escape
observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here
the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral
inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed
those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably
self-evident. But this is a point, it appears, somewhat above or
beneath the understanding of the Prefect. He never once thought it
probable, or possible, that the Minister had deposited the letter
immediately beneath the nose of the whole world, by way of best
preventing any portion of that world from perceiving it.
"But the more I reflected upon the daring, dashing, and discriminating
ingenuity of D----; upon the fact that the document must always have
been _at hand_, if he intended to use it to good purpose; and upon the
decisive evidence, obtained by the Prefect, that it was not hidden
within the limits of that dignitary's ordinary search, the more
satisfied I became that, to conceal this letter, the Minister
had resorted to the comprehensive and sagacious expedient of not
attempting to conceal it.
"Full of these ideas, I prepared myself with a pair of green
spectacles, and called one fine morning, quite by accident, at the
Ministerial hotel. I found D---- at home, yawning, lounging, and
dawdling, as usual, and pretending to be in the last extremity of
_ennui_. He is, perhaps, the most really energetic human being now
alive--but that is only when nobody sees him.
"To be even with him, I complained of my weak eyes, and lamented the
necessity of the spectacles, under cover of which I cautiously and
thoroughly surveyed the whole apartment, while seemingly intent only
upon the conversation of my host.
"I paid especial attention to a large writing-table near which he sat,
and upon which lay confusedly some miscellaneous letters and other
papers, with one or two musical instruments and a few books. Here,
however, after a long and very deliberate scrutiny, I saw nothing to
excite particular suspicion.
"At length my eyes, in going the circuit of the room, fell upon a
trumpery filigree card-rack of pasteboard that hung dangling by a
dirty blue ribbon from a little brass knob just beneath the middle of
the mantelpiece. In this rack, which had three or four compartments,
were five or six soiled cards and a solitary letter. This last was
much soiled and crumpled. It was torn nearly in two, across the
middle--as if a design, in the first instance, to tear it entirely up
as worthless had been altered or stayed in the second. It had a large
black seal, bearing the D---- cipher _very_ conspicuously, and was
addressed, in a diminutive female hand, to D----, the Minister,
himself. It was thrust carelessly, and even, as it seemed,
contemptuously, into one of the uppermost divisions of the rack.
"No sooner had I glanced at this letter than I concluded it to be
that of which I was in search. To be sure, it was, to all appearance,
radically different from the one of which the Prefect had read us so
minute a description. Here the seal was large and black, with the
D---- cipher; there it was small and red, with the ducal arms of the
S---- family. Here the address, to the Minister, was diminutive and
feminine; there the superscription, to a certain royal personage,
was markedly bold and decided; the size alone formed a point of
correspondence. But, then, the _radicalness_ of these differences,
which was excessive; the dirt; the soiled and torn condition of the
paper, so inconsistent with the _true_ methodical habits of D----, and
so consistent of a design to delude the beholder into an idea of
the worthlessness of the document--these things, together with the
hyperobtrusive situation of this document, full in the view of every
visitor, and thus exactly in accordance with the conclusions to
which I had previously arrived--these things, I say, were strongly
corroborative of suspicion in one who came with the intention to
suspect.
"I protracted my visit as long as possible, and, while I maintained a
most animated discussion with the Minister upon a topic which I knew
well had never failed to interest and excite him, I kept my attention
riveted upon the letter. In this examination I committed to memory its
external appearance and arrangement in the rack, and also fell, at
length, upon a discovery which set at rest whatever trivial doubt I
might have entertained. In scrutinizing the edges of the paper,
I observed them to be more _chafed_ than seemed necessary. They
presented the _broken_ appearance which is manifested when a stiff
paper, having been once folded and pressed with a folder, is refolded
in a reversed direction, in the same creases or edges which formed the
original fold. This discovery was sufficient. It was clear to me that
the letter had been turned, as a glove, inside out, re-directed and
re-sealed. I bade the Minister good-morning, and took my departure at
once, leaving a gold snuff-box upon the table.
"The next morning I called for the snuff-box, when we resumed, quite
eagerly, the conversation of the preceding day. While thus engaged,
however, a loud report, as if of a pistol, was heard immediately
beneath the windows of the hotel, and was succeeded by a series of
fearful screams and the shoutings of a terrified mob. D---- rushed to
a casement, threw it open, and looked out. In the mean time I stepped
to the card-rack, took the letter, put it in my pocket, and replaced
it by a _facsimile_ (so far as regards externals), which I had
carefully prepared at my lodgings--imitating the D---- cipher, very
readily, by means of a seal formed of bread.
"The disturbance in the street had been occasioned by the frantic
behavior of a man with a musket. He had fired it among a crowd of
women and children. It proved, however, to have been without ball, and
the fellow was suffered to go his way as a lunatic or a drunkard. When
he had gone, D---- came from the window, whither I had followed him
immediately upon securing the object in view. Soon afterward I bade
him farewell. The pretended lunatic was a man in my own pay."
"But what purpose had you," I asked, "in replacing the letter by a
_facsimile_? Would it not have been better, at the first visit, to
have seized it openly and departed?"
"D----," replied Dupin, "is a desperate man and a man of nerve. His
hotel, too, is not without attendants devoted to his interests. Had
I made the wild attempt you suggest, I might never have left the
Ministerial presence alive. The good people of Paris might have heard
of me no more. But I had an object apart from these considerations.
You know my political prepossessions. In this matter I act as a
partisan of the lady concerned. For eighteen months the Minister has
had her in his power. She has now him in hers--since, being unaware
that the letter is not in his possession, he will proceed with his
exactions as if it was. Thus will he inevitably commit himself, at
once, to his political destruction. His downfall, too, will not be
more precipitate than awkward. It is all very well to talk about the
_facilis descensus Averni_; but in all kinds of climbing, as Catalani
said of singing, it is far more easy to get up than to come down. In
the present instance I have no sympathy--at least no pity--for him
who descends. He is that _monstrum horrendum_, an unprincipled man of
genius. I confess, however, that I should like very well to know the
precise character of his thoughts, when, being defied by her whom the
Prefect terms 'a certain personage,' he is reduced to opening the
letter I left for him in the card-rack."
"How? Did you put anything particular in it?"
"Why--it did not seem altogether right to leave the interior
blank--that would have been insulting. D----, at Vienna once, did me
an evil turn, which I told him, quite good-humoredly, that I should
remember. So, as I knew he would feel some curiosity in regard to the
identity of the person who had outwitted him, I thought it a pity not
to give him a clew. He is well acquainted with my MS., and I just
copied into the middle of the blank sheet the words:
"'----
... Un dessein si funeste,
S'il n'est digne d'Atrée, este digne de Thyeste.'
They are to be found in Crébillon's _Atrée_."
RAB AND HIS FRIENDS
_Dr. John Brown_ (1810-1882)
Four-and-thirty years ago, Bob Ainslie and I were coming up Infirmary
Street from the High School, our heads together, and our arms
intertwisted as only lovers and boys know how or why.
When we got to the top of the street and turned north we espied a
crowd at the Tron Church. "A dog-fight!" shouted Bob, and was off; and
so was I, both of us all but praying that it might not be over before
we got up! And is not this boy-nature, and human nature, too? And
don't we all wish a house on fire not to be out before we see it? Dogs
like fighting; old Isaac says they "delight" in it, and for the best
of all reasons; and boys are not cruel because they like to see
the fight. They see three of the great cardinal virtues of dog or
man--courage, endurance, and skill--in intense action. This is very
different from a love of making dogs fight, and aggravating and making
gain by their pluck. A boy--be he ever so fond himself of fighting, if
he be a good boy, hates and despises all this, but he would have run
off with Bob and me fast enough; it is a natural, and a not wicked,
interest that all boys and men have in witnessing intense energy in
action.
Does any curious and finely ignorant woman wish to know how Bob's eye
at a glance announced a dog-fight to his brain? He did not--he could
not--see the dogs fighting; it was a flash of an inference, a rapid
induction. The crowd round a couple of dogs fighting is a crowd
masculine mainly, with an occasional active, compassionate woman
fluttering wildly round the outside and using her tongue and her hands
freely upon the men, as so many "brutes"; it is a crowd annular,
compact, and mobile; a crowd centripetal, having its eyes and its
heads all bent downward and inward to one common focus.
Well, Bob and I are up, and find it is not over; a small thoroughbred,
white bull-terrier is busy throttling a large shepherd's dog,
unaccustomed to war but not to be trifled with. They are hard at
it; the scientific little fellow doing his work in great style, his
pastoral enemy fighting wildly, but with the sharpest of teeth and a
great courage. Science and breeding, however, soon had their own; the
Game Chicken, as the premature Bob called him, working his way up,
took his final grip of poor Yarrow's throat--and he lay gasping and
done for. His master, a brown, handsome, big, young shepherd from
Tweedsmuir, would have liked to have knocked down any man, would
"drink up Esil, or eat a crocodile," for that part, if he had a
chance; it was no use kicking the little dog; that would only make him
hold the closer. Many were the means shouted out in mouthfuls of the
best possible ways of ending it. "Water!" but there was none near, and
many cried for it who might have got it from the well at Blackfriar's
Wynd. "Bite the tail!" and a large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged
man, more desirous than wise, with some struggle got the bushy end of
Yarrow's tail into his ample mouth and bit it with all his might. This
was more than enough for the much-enduring, much-perspiring shepherd,
who, with a gleam of joy over his broad visage, delivered a terrific
facer upon our large, vague, benevolent, middle-aged friend, who went
down like a shot.