_Vailima_, _Apia_, _Samoa_, _April_ 5_th_, 1893.
DEAR SIR,—You have taken many occasions to make yourself very agreeable
to me, for which I might in decency have thanked you earlier. It is now
my turn; and I hope you will allow me to offer you my compliments on your
very ingenious and very interesting adventures of Sherlock Holmes. That
is the class of literature that I like when I have the toothache. As a
matter of fact, it was a pleurisy I was enjoying when I took the volume
up; and it will interest you as a medical man to know that the cure was
for the moment effectual. Only the one thing troubles me: can this be my
old friend Joe Bell?—I am, yours very truly,