Then a deputation set off for The Worm’s quarters and found him, betwixt and between, unlacing his stays, with the hat, wig, serge dress, etc., on the bed.  He came over as he was, and the “Shikarris” shouted till the Gunners’ Mess sent over to know if they might have a share of the fun.  I think we were all, except the Colonel and the Senior Subaltern, a little disappointed that the scandal had come to nothing.  But that is human nature.  There could be no two words about The Worm’s acting.  It leaned as near to a nasty tragedy as anything this side of a joke can.  When most of the Subalterns sat upon him with sofa cushions to find out why he had not said that acting was his strong point, he answered very quietly:  “I don’t think you ever asked me.  I used to act at Home with my sisters.”  But no acting with girls could account for The Worm’s display that night.  Personally, I think it was in bad taste.  Besides being dangerous.  There is no sort of use in playing with fire, even for fun.

The “Shikarris” made him President of the Regimental Dramatic Club; and, when the Senior Subaltern paid up his debt, which he did at once, The Worm sank the money in scenery and dresses.  He was a good Worm; and the “Shikarris” are proud of him.  The only drawback is that he has been christened “Mrs. Senior Subaltern”; and, as there are now two Mrs. Senior Subalterns in the Station, this is sometimes confusing to strangers.

Later on, I will tell you of a case something like this, but with all the jest left out and nothing in it but real trouble.

A. Conan Doyle

A Case of Identity

“My dear fellow,” said Sherlock Holmes, as we sat on either side of the fire in his lodgings at Baker Street, “life is infinitely stranger than anything which the mind of man can invent.  We would not dare to conceive the things which are really mere commonplaces of existence.  If we could fly out of that window hand in hand, hover over this great city, gently remove the roofs, and peep in at the queer things which are going on, the strange coincidences, the plannings, the cross-purposes, the wonderful chains of events, working through generations, and leading to the most outre results, it would make all fiction, with its conventionalities and foreseen conclusions, most stale and unprofitable.”

“And yet I am not convinced of it,” I answered.  “The cases which come to light in the papers are, as a rule, bald enough, and vulgar enough.  We have in our police reports realism pushed to its extreme limits, and yet the result is, it must be confessed, neither fascinating nor artistic.”

“A certain selection and discretion must be used in producing a realistic effect,” remarked Holmes.  “This is wanting in the police report, where more stress is laid perhaps upon the platitudes of the magistrate than upon the details, which to an observer contain the vital essence of the whole matter.  Depend upon it, there is nothing so unnatural as the commonplace.”