The Red Hand

The Problem of the Fish-Hooks


'There can be no doubt whatever,' said Mr. Phillipps, 'that my theory is
the true one; these flints are prehistoric fish-hooks.'

'I dare say; but you know that in all probability the things were forged
the other day with a door-key.'

'Stuff!' said Phillipps; 'I have some respect, Dyson, for your literary
abilities, but your knowledge of ethnology is insignificant, or rather
non-existent. These fish-hooks satisfy every test; they are perfectly
genuine.'

'Possibly, but as I said just now, you go to work at the wrong end. You
neglect the opportunities that confront you and await you, obvious, at
every corner; you positively shrink from the chance of encountering
primitive man in this whirling and mysterious city, and you pass the
weary hours in your agreeable retirement of Red Lion Square fumbling
with bits of flint, which are, as I said, in all probability, rank
forgeries.'

Phillipps took one of the little objects, and held it up in
exasperation.

'Look at that ridge,' he said. 'Did you ever see such a ridge as that on
a forgery?'

Dyson merely grunted and lit his pipe and the two sat smoking in rich
silence, watching through the open window the children in the square as
they flitted to and fro in the twilight of the lamps, as elusive as bats
flying on the verge of a dark wood.

'Well,' said Phillipps at last, 'it is really a long time since you have
been round. I suppose you have been working at your old task.'

'Yes,' said Dyson, 'always the chase of the phrase. I shall grow old in
the hunt. But it is a great consolation to meditate on the fact that
there are not a dozen people in England who know what style means.'