ve personality. In a former letter he
frankly informed me that the name was not his own, and defied me ever
to trace him among the teeming millions of this great city. Porlock is
important, not for himself, but for the great man with whom he is in
touch. Picture to yourself the pilot fish with the shark, the jackal
with the lion--anything that is insignificant in companionship with
what is formidable: not only formidable, Watson, but sinister--in the
highest degree sinister. That is where he comes within my purview. You
have heard me speak of Professor Moriarty?"

"The famous scientific criminal, as famous among crooks as--"

"My blushes, Watson!" Holmes murmured in a deprecating voice.

"I was about to say, as he is unknown to the public."

"A touch! A distinct touch!" cried Holmes. "You are developing a
certain unexpected vein of pawky humour, Watson, against which I must
learn to guard myself. But in calling Moriarty a criminal you are
uttering libel in the eyes of the law--and there lie the glory and the
wonder of it! The greatest schemer of all time, the organizer of every
deviltry, the controlling brain of the underworld, a brain which might
have made or marred the destiny of nations--that's the man! But so
aloof is he from general suspicion, so immune from criticism, so
admirable in his management and self-effacement, that for those very
words that you have uttered he could hale you to a court and emerge
with your year's pension as a solatium for his wounded character. Is he
not the celebrated author of The Dynamics of an Asteroid, a book which
ascends to such rarefied heights of pure mathematics that it is said
that there was no man in the scientific press capable of criticizing
it? Is this a man to traduce? Foul-mouthed doctor and slandered
professor--such would be your respective roles! That's genius, Watson.
But if I am spared by lesser men, our day will surely come."

"May I be there to see!" I exclaimed devoutly. "But you were speaking
of this man Porlock."

"Ah, yes--the so-called Porlock is a link in the chain some little way
from its great attachment. Porlock is not quite a sound link--between
ourselves. He is the only flaw in that chain so far as I have been able
to test it."

"But no chain is stronger than its weakest link."

"Exactly, my dear Watson! Hence the extreme importance of Porlock. Led
on by some rudimentary aspirations towards right, and encouraged by the
judicious stimulation of an