very best model from which to study
the game. Some thirty years ago, when Roberts's father was champion, a
break of over 200 was a rare event, whereas now it is an every day
occurrence with third-rate players. Roberts's highest all-round break is
3,000. His superiority to those who rank next to him is unprecedented,
as evinced by his recent victory over Peall, to whom he gave 9,000 in
24,000. Roberts's style is simply perfect, and it is wonderful to watch
the various strokes during a long break, consisting as they do of some
requiring great execution and power of cue, and others showing the
utmost delicacy of touch.

_The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes._

XVII.--THE ADVENTURE OF THE "GLORIA SCOTT."

BY A. CONAN DOYLE.

"I have some papers here," said my friend, Sherlock Holmes, as we sat
one winter's night on either side of the fire, "which I really think,
Watson, it would be worth your while to glance over. These are the
documents in the extraordinary case of the _Gloria Scott_, and this is
the message which struck Justice of the Peace Trevor dead with horror
when he read it."

He had picked from a drawer a little tarnished cylinder, and, undoing
the tape, he handed me a short note scrawled upon a half sheet of
slate-grey paper.

"The supply of game for London is going steadily up," it ran.
"Head-keeper Hudson, we believe, has been now told to receive all orders
for fly-paper, and for preservation of your hen pheasant's life."

As I glanced up from reading this enigmatical message I saw Holmes
chuckling at the expression upon my face.

"You look a little bewildered," said he.

"I cannot see how such a message as this could inspire horror. It seems
to me to be rather grotesque than otherwise."

"Very likely. Yet the fact remains that the reader, who was a fine,
robust old man, was knocked clean down by it, as if it had been the
butt-end of a pistol."

"You arouse my curiosity," said I. "But why did you say just now that
there were very particular reasons why I should study this case?"

"Because it was the first in which I was ever engaged."

I had often endeavoured to elicit from my companion what had first
turned his mind in the direction of criminal research, but I had never
caught him before in a communicative humour. Now he sat forward in his
armchair, and spread out the documents upon his knees. Then he lit his
pipe and sat for some time smoking and turning them over.

"You never heard me t