I watched him as he stepped back to the very edge of the marble curb so that he might better view a spray of deep purple bougainvillea at which a hummingbird was flashing its gorget. Yes, it would have been a pretty enough bit of color contrast, had one had a color camera to snap it, but I had seen a sign on the gate outside asking visitors not to take photographs. So I watched my master. And having my wits about me I suddenly broke the silence. “Take care!” I shouted. But too late. Mr. Mycroft had in his effort to see what was too high above him stepped back too far. The actual edge of the marble curb must have been slippery from the lapping of the ripples. His foot skidded. He made a remarkable effort to recover. I am not hard-hearted but I could not help tittering as I saw him—more raven-like than ever—flap his arms to regain his balance. And the comic maneuver served perfectly—I mean it still gave me my joke and yet saved him from anything more serious than a loss of gravity. His arms whirled. Pen and paper scrap flew from his hands to join some hummingbirds but the Mycroft frame, under whose overarching shadow so many great criminals had cowered, collapsed not gracefully but quite safely just short of the water.

I always carry a cane. It gives poise. The piece of paper and even the pen—which was one of those new “light-as-a-feather” plastic things—were bobbing about on the surface. Of course, Mr. Mycroft who was a little crestfallen at such an absent-minded slip, wouldn’t let me help him up. In fact he was up before I could have offered. My only chance of collecting a “Thank-you” was to salvage the flotsam that he had so spontaneously “cast upon the waters.” I fished in both the sopped sheet and the pen, and noticed that Mr. Mycroft had evidently not had time to record the precious natural-history fact that he had gleaned before his lack of hindsight attention parted the great mind and the small sheet. Nor when I handed him back his salvaged apparatus did he do so; instead he actually put both pen and sopped sheet into his pocket. “Shaken,” I said to myself; “there’s one more disadvantage of being so high up in the clouds of speculation.”

As we continued on our way along the curb and were approaching the horseshoe Moorish arch-bridge, Mr. Mycroft began to limp. My real fondness for him made me ask, “Have you strained anything?”

Mr. Mycroft most uncharacteristically answered, “I think I will rest for a moment.”