And yet the motives of women are so inscrutable. You remember the woman at Margate whom I suspected for the same reason. No powder on her nose - that proved to be the correct solution. How can you build on such a quicksand? Their most trivial action may mean volumes, or their most extraordinary conduct may depend upon a hairpin or a curling tongs.

His sanguine spirit turns every firefly into a star.

I never guess. It is a shocking habit destructive to the logical faculty.

It is always a joy to meet an American, Mr. Moulton, for I am one of those who believes that the folly of a monarch and the blundering of a minister in far-gone years will not prevent our children from being some day citizens of the same world-wide country under a flag which shall be a quartering of the Union Jack with the Stars and Stripes.

It is a pity he did not write in pencil. As you have no doubt frequently observed, the impression usually goes through -- a fact which has dissolved many a happy marriage.

If in 100 years I am only known as the man who invented Sherlock Holmes then I will have considered my life a failure.

It is of the highest importance in the art of detection to be able to recognise out of a number of facts which are incidental and which are vital.