half drunk and in a talkative mood, sometimes in a contradictory
mood, but generally good tempered. He punctuates my speech with
a loud and emphatic "Hear! hear!" and often informs the
audience that "what Mr. Holmes says is quite true!" The
attendants cannot keep him silent, he tells them that he is my
friend; he makes some claim to being my patron.

Poor fellow! I speak to him kindly, but incontinently give him
the slip, for I retire by a back way, leaving him to argue my
disappearance in no friendly spirit with the attendants. Yet I
have spent many happy hours with him when, as sometimes happened,
he was "in his right mind."

I, would like to dwell on the wonders of this man's strange and
fearsome life, but I hasten on to tell of a contrast, for my
friends present many contrasts.

I was hurrying down crowded Bishopsgate at lunch time, lost in
thought, when I felt my hand grasped and a well-known voice say,
"Why! Mr. Holmes, don't you know me?"

Know him! I should think I do know him; I am proud to know him,
for I venerate him. He is only a french polisher and by no means
handsome, his face is furrowed and seamed by care and sorrow, his
hands and clothing are stained with varnish. Truly he is not
much to look at, but if any one wants an embodiment of pluck and
devotion, of never-failing patience and magnificent love, in my
friend you shall find it!

Born in the slums, he sold matches at seven years of age; at