Date of Meeting: 16th November 2022
Location of Meeting:
The Sherloft, My House, Portsmouth, UK
Attendees:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller)
Apologies:
No thank you.
Motions:
No thank you.
Presentation:
"The Entire Canon" (Paul Thomas Miller) presented a poem he wrote about alphabetical animals from the Canon:
Holmesian Alphabetical Animals
A is first and is for ASS.
Watson claimed he was one.
(He, of course, meant the donkey
And not the slang for bum).
“What an ass I have been!”
He cried out just the once.
For Watson really was not all
That much of a dunce.
“Oh, what an ass I have been!” I exclaimed. (REIG)
B is FOR the BABOON
Found at Stoke Moran
Brought over from India
By a very evil man.
This writhing little primate
Gave Watson a start
When he sprang from the bushes in
A frenzied sudden dart.
…out from a clump of laurel bushes there darted what seemed to be a hideous and distorted child, who threw itself upon the grass with writhing limbs and then ran swiftly across the lawn into the darkness…
“It is a nice household,” he murmured. “That is the baboon.” (SPEC)
C is for the CHEETAH,
One more Roylott pet.
He prowled the grounds unrestrained
At Stoke Moran and yet
Neither of our heroes
Ever spied the large feline.
They heard it, though, when at night
It once gave out a whine.
“From outside came… a long drawn catlike whine, which told us that the cheetah was indeed at liberty.” (SPEC)
D is for the famous DOG
Who did nowt in the night -
Not a bark, a whine or howl
Not a growl or bite.
This was the clue Holmes needed
To help him solve the case
Of the evil murder horse
Who kicks men in the face.
“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”
“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”
“The dog did nothing in the night-time.” (SILV)
E is for the EAGLES
Flocking about with crows
Though only metaphorically -
A simple line of prose.
In fact, eagles never flock,
They’re more often alone.
But Holmes was no keen bird-watcher,
I doubt he would have known.
“Sir Robert is a man of an honourable stock. But you do occasionally find a carrion crow among the eagles.” (SHOS)
F is for the FERRET,
Watson said Lestrade looked like.
He meant it as a compliment,
Not some nasty slight.
Lean, agile and furtive.
Sly looking as well.
Qualities which helped him put
The criminals in cells.
A lean, ferret-like man, furtive and sly-looking, was waiting for us upon the platform… I had no difficulty in recognising Lestrade, of Scotland Yard.(BOSC)
G is for a GUDGEON –
A small, freshwater fish,
In Watson’s time it could be found
Served up on a dish.
Sam Merton was compared to one.
You’ll agree to the match:
Sam was a common type, you see,
And dead easy to catch.
“Sam's not a shark. He is a great big silly bull-headed gudgeon. But he is flopping about in my net all the same.” (MAZA)
H is, of course, for the HOUND
Of the Baskervilles -
The dark curse of that family,
The cause of all their ills.
It stalks all over Dartmoor
With a fire in its eyes
Scaring the timid locals
With its loathsome evil cries.
“Hugo Baskerville passed me upon his black mare, and there ran mute behind him such a hound of hell as God forbid should ever be at my heels.” (HOUN)
I is for an ICHNEUMON.
(That’s a mongoose to you.)
Henry Wood had a pet one.
(And a cobra too.)
He named his mongoose Teddy.
It was amazing quick
To catch the cobra every night
As a canteen trick.
“It's a mongoose,” I cried.
“Well, some call them that, and some call them ichneumon,” said the man. “Snake-catcher is what I call them.” (CROO)
J is for the JACKALS
Who ate poor Mrs. Dawson.
She failed, in the Mutiny,
To take the precaution
Of not being a colonist
Who made the locals mad.
Mind you, the jackals got a meal,
So, it was not all bad.
“I rode down to see what it was, and the cold struck through my heart when I found it was Dawson's wife, all cut into ribbons, and half eaten by jackals and native dogs.” (SIGN)
K is for a little KID
(That’s a goat as a child)
Led to a jungle tree somewhere
Out there in the wild
By the hunter - Colonel Moran -
To be tied to a tree
For bait to tempt the tigers
That he shoots at with glee.
“Have you not tethered a young kid under a tree, lain above it with your rifle, and waited for the bait to bring up your tiger? This empty house is my tree and you are my tiger.” (EMPT)
L is for the LANGUR –
An Old-World primate.
The grey ones are all fairly small
And they have a black face.
Old Presbury was one of this
Monkey’s greatest fans.
He liked to mash up and inject
Their little monkey glands.
“It is possible that the serum of anthropoid would have been better. I have, as I explained to you, used black-faced langur because a specimen was accessible. Langur is, of course, a crawler and climber, while anthropoid walks erect and is in all ways nearer.” (CREE)
M is for the MICROBES,
Such as the ones curated
By a nephew killer
At once dreaded and hated.
Culverton Smith knowingly
Amassed and abused them.
People close to him dropped dead
Whenever he used them.
“For him the villain, for me the microbe.” (DYIN)
N is for a NIGHT-BIRD.
(Although that’s unspecific
“Night-bird” starts with letter N
Which, for me, is terrific.)
It could be a night-jar.
It could be an owl.
In fact, it could be any
Of the nocturnal fowl.
“From outside came the occasional cry of a night-bird...” (SPEC)
O is for the OXEN
On the Alkali Plain
Which passers-by might observe
Ev’ry now and again.
They’re dead. They’re desiccated.
Mostly rotted away.
Nothing more than sun-bleached bones.
What fun! Hip hip hooray!
They are bones: some large and coarse, others smaller and more delicate. The former have belonged to oxen, and the latter to men. (STUD)
P is for a great big PIG.
Come near! Just take a look!
Sherlock’s suspended this big pig
From a butcher’s hook.
Watch him as he tries and tries –
Like a frenzied buffoon –
To transfix the hanging hog
With a whaling harpoon.
“If you could have looked into Allardyce's back shop you would have seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a gentleman in his shirt-sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this weapon.” (BLAC)
Q is a QUEER MONGREL.
Toby is his name.
He has such a splendid nose
It has garnered him fame.
By tracking across London
A trail of creosote
He led Holmes and Watson
To Mordecai Smith’s boat.
“You will bring Toby back in the cab with you.”
“A dog, I suppose.”
“Yes,—a queer mongrel, with a most amazing power of scent. I would rather have Toby's help than that of the whole detective force of London.” (SIGN)
R is for a giant RAT
Of origins Sumatran.
The details of it are so sparse
They will always dishearten
Any inquiring scholar
Who is set and intent
On learning more about this
Large Asian rodent.
“Matilda Briggs was not the name of a young woman, Watson,” said Holmes in a reminiscent voice. “It was a ship which is associated with the giant rat of Sumatra, a story for which the world is not yet prepared.” (SUSS)
S is for a captive STOAT –
Kept in a little cage
In Sherman’s shop where it fills up
With anger, ire and rage.
It waits in patience by the bars
With a gleam in its eye
And tries to bite a chunk out of
Any passers-by.
“Ah, naughty, naughty, would you take a nip at the gentleman?” This to a stoat which thrust its wicked head and red eyes between the bars of its cage. (SIGN)
T is for the TIGER CUB
Which Watson once fired
At an invading musket. Or
So he claimed while tired.
It is small wonder really
That Watson would err – he
Was talking with his one true love:
A governess called Mary.
I endeavored to cheer and amuse her by reminiscences of my adventures in Afghanistan... To this day she declares that I told her one moving anecdote as to how a musket looked into my tent at the dead of night, and how I fired a double-barrelled tiger cub at it. (SIGN)
U is for a UNICORN.
(Yes, I know that they’re not real.
But you try finding U beasts
And then see how you feel.)
In the canon, there’s one unicorn
Though preceded by “sea”,
It’s the name of Black Peter’s boat
Which is good enough for me.
“Peter Carey was master of the Sea Unicorn” (BLAC)
V is for a VIPER,
Sometimes mispronounced
(“I have a wiper in the bag”
Is what Sherman announced).
Snakes with deadly venom and
Snakes with fatal bites,
Are not something that one should drop
On Watson in the night.
“Go on!” yelled the voice. “So help me gracious, I have a wiper in the bag, an' I'll drop it on your 'ead if you don't hook it.” (SIGN)
W is for some WORMS –
The kind which gnaw on wood.
Butler Brunton found some while
He was up to no good.
They’d destroyed the wooden box,
Which among other things,
Held the remains of the crown
Of ancient English kings.
“It was furred outside by a thick layer of dust, and damp and worms had eaten through the wood, so that a crop of livid fungi was growing on the inside of it.” (MUSG)
X is for XENOPERDIX –
A partridge much adored.
Like the one Holmes once left out
Upon his sideboard.
(Though, perhaps it’s only fair
That I should make it clear
Xenoperdix are a breed
Found just in Tanzania).
“There is a cold partridge on the sideboard, Watson, and a bottle of Montrachet. Let us renew our energies before we make a fresh call upon them.” (VEIL)
Y is for the YELLOW BAND
Wrapped round Roylott’s head
The serpent that bit him and
Struck the blackguard dead.
An Indian Swamp Adder –
Holmes clearly named it so.
Though no such snake really exists,
As far as science knows.
Round his brow he had a peculiar yellow band, with brownish speckles, which seemed to be bound tightly round his head. As we entered he made neither sound nor motion.
“The band! the speckled band!” whispered Holmes. (SPEC)
Z is for the ZOO, that is
The one where Sherlock went.
The one where he gazed horrified
At myriad serpents.
They were slithery and wicked with
Cruel eyes on flattened faces -
Reminiscent of The Blackmailer
From one of Holmes’s cases.
“Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that's how Milverton impresses me.” (CHAS)
Thus ends my safari
Through the alphabet
Of Holmesian creatures
And Sherlockian pets.
I did my best though I confess,
Others could do better.
So now you try name a beast
From Canon for each letter.
Any other business:
No thank you.
