to
bestow upon them and not placing reliance on nor making use of Divine
Revelation, Feminine Intuition, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery-Pokery,
Coincidence or Act of God?

_Candidate:_

I do.

_Ruler:_

Do you solemnly swear never to conceal a vital clue from the reader?

_Candidate:_

I do.

_Ruler:_

Do you promise to observe a seemly moderation in the use of Gangs,
Conspiracies, Death-Rays, Ghosts, Hypnotism, Trap-Doors, Chinamen,
Super-Criminals and Lunatics; and utterly and for ever to forswear
Mysterious Poisons unknown to Science?

_Candidate:_

I do.

_Ruler:_

Will you honour the King's English?

_Candidate:_

I will.

_Then the Ruler shall ask:_

M.N. Is there anything you hold sacred?

_Then the Candidate having named a Thing which he holds of peculiar
sanctity, the Ruler shall ask:_

M.N. Do you swear by (_Here the Ruler shall name the Thing which
the Candidate has declared to be his Peculiar Sanctity_) to observe
faithfully all these promises which you have made, so long as you are
a member of the Club?

_But, if the Candidate is not able to name a Thing which he holds
sacred, then the Ruler shall propose the Oath in this manner
following:_

M.N. Do you, as you hope to increase your Sales, swear to observe
faithfully all these promises which you have made, so long as you are
a member of the Club?

A book called _The Floating Admiral_ was brought out by the Club.
Chesterton wrote the introduction and each member produced one
chapter. Reading it without inside knowledge I conceived that the
idea was for each to clear up the problems created by his predecessor
and create fresh ones for his successor. Gilbert tells of the subtler
joke underlying the story:

Perhaps the most characteristic thing that the Detection Club ever
did was to publish a detective story, which was quite a good
detective story, but the best things in which could not possibly be
understood by anybody except the gang of criminals that had produced
it. It was called _The Floating Admiral_, and was written somewhat
uproariously in the manner of one of those "paper games" in which
each writer in turn continues a story of which he knows neither head
nor tail. It turned out remarkably readable, but the joke of it will
never be discovered by the ordinary reader; for the truth is that
almost ev