Undoubtedly his arrogance grew under my flattery, and sometimes this arrogance was hard to bear. It will be remembered that, in our inquiry into the curious experience of "The Retired Colourman," it fell to me to undertake the preliminary investigations. I was giving Holmes some account of these, and describing with the minute particularity on which he insisted the state of a certain wall, "mottled with lichens and topped with moss," as I put it, when he broke in rudely, "Cut out the poetry, Watson. I note that it was a high brick wall." Now it so happened that in an earlier inquiry into the extraordinary mystery of "The Decentralized Tomato " — one of the cases which I have not recorded, as being only notable for the reason that Holmes was searching Newcastle for a tall left-handed man with a red beard and long finger-nails at the very moment when Lestrade was arresting the actual murderess at Brighton-in the course of that inquiry Holmes himself had said to me, speaking of the high brick wall behind the tomato-house," Tut-tut, Watson, the lichen. Does it suggest nothing to you?" And when I had made some such obvious answer as that the wall seemed to have been there a long time, he went on muttering to himself, Fool! The lichen! Why wasn't I told about the lichen?" It will be seen, then, that my deliberate policy of humouring Holmes was not without its undeserved humiliations. My readers may ask why I should be taking the public into my confidence now when I have put up with these humiliations in silence for so long. The answer lies in this final collection of all the stories into one volume. If my readers will turn to the last section of the volume, entitled "The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes," they will read there two stories, inferior stories if I may say so without prejudice, written by Holmes himself. As a writer who has taken himself seriously, even from those early Afghan days, I do not object to belittling myself if by so doing I can increase the artistic value of my narrative. But I can reasonably protest when another belittles me. More over, these two stories were inserted into "The Case-Book" without my permission, and by collusion, I must suppose, between Holmes and the publishers. I protested strongly at the time of the book's separate publication; I protest again strongly now. I have written both to the Incorporated Society of Authors and to the British Medical Council. I have also called the attention of Messrs. Murray to a demonstrably false statement in one of the stories, which says with all the circumstance of apparent truth, "It was in January, 1908. ... The good Watson had at that time deserted me for a wife." I married, as my readers know, in 1887, and my poor wife died in the early nineties. For reasons into which I need not go now I did not marry again. Already, as the result of this false publication, I have had an inquiry from the Income Tax Commissioners as to my second wife's independent means, and a circular addressed to Mrs. Watson calling attention to an alleged infallible method, obtained from an unregistered and unqualified Indian sepoy, for removing superfluous hair. Is it any wonder that I am indignant? I therefore solemnly call upon the publishers to withdraw the volume from circulation, even though I myself shall be the first to suffer financially by it. Fortunately I have enough now for my simple needs. With the proceeds of previous sales I have purchased another small practice (an elderly gentleman of arthritic tendencies called Ferguson), and with this and my wound pension (a relic of the Afghan Campaign) I am content. But if that con- tent is to be disturbed by the continued circulation of false statements, then let me warn all concerned that I shall not take it lying down. There are other revelations which I could make. ...