English Review_
than the chief constable of Norfolk. His tastes were bookish; Nature had
intended him for the librarian of a circulating library: the safe pilot
of middle class ladies through the ocean of new fiction which overwhelms
the British Isles twice a year. His particular hobby was paleontology.
He was the author of _The Jurassic Deposits of Norfolk, with Some
Remarks on the Kimeridge Clay_--an exhaustive study of the geological
formation of the county and the remains of prehistoric reptiles, fishes,
mollusca and crustacea which had been discovered therein. This work,
which had taken six years to prepare, had almost been lost to the world
through the carelessness of the Postal Department, which had allowed
the manuscript to go astray while in transit from Norfolk to the London
publishers.

The distracted author had stirred up the postal authorities at London
and Norwich, and had ultimately received a courteous communication from
the Postmaster General to the effect that all efforts to trace the
missing packet had failed. A friend of Mr. Cromering's suggested that he
should invoke the aid of the famous detective Colwyn, who had a name for
solving mysteries which baffled the police. Mr. Cromering took the
advice and wrote to Colwyn, offering to mention his name in a preface to
_The Jurassic Deposits_ if he succeeded in recovering the missing
manuscript. Colwyn, by dint of bringing to bear a little more
intelligence and energy than the postal officials had displayed, ran the
manuscript to earth in three days, and forwarded it to the owner with a
courteous note declining the honour of the offered preface as too great
a reward for such a small service.

"Very happy to meet you, Mr. Colwyn," said the chief constable, as he
came forward with extended hand. "I've long wanted to thank you
personally for your kindness--your great kindness to me last year.
Although I feel I can never repay it, I'm glad to have the opportunity
of expressing it."

"I'm afraid you are over-estimating a very small service," said Colwyn,
with a smile.

"Very small?" The chief constable's emphasis of the words suggested that
his pride as an author had been hurt. "If you had not recovered the
manuscript, a work of considerable interest to students of British
paleontology would have been lost. I must show you a letter I have just
received from Sir Thomas Potter, of the British Museum, agreeing with my
conclusions about the fossil remains of I