On Wednesday, February 18th, fifteen members of the Greek Interpreters and three welcome visitors met at Park Lake Grill restaurant in East Lansing for our winter meeting. The story selected for study was "The Man with the Twisted Lip". The meeting opened with the customary Canonical Toasts to Mrs. Hudson, Mycroft Holmes, the Second Mrs. Watson and The Woman. A quiz on the selected story was provided by Bill Reusch (The Chemist). This quiz and some earlier quizzes may be viewed on this web site.
Following the quiz, discussion of the "Twisted Lip" ranged over many topics. These included the name "James", used by Mrs. Watson when referring to her husband, and its possible derivation from "Hamish" (Watson's middle name?). Inconsistencies in Mrs. St.Clair's account of seeing her husband on the upper floor of The Bar of Gold and Neville's later description in the Bow Street station were also debated. The ease with which Holmes removed Hugh Boone's makeup with a wet sponge was attributed to Doyle's artistic license. Charlie Press (Message-Boy) provided an analysis of Conan Doyle's familiarity with London street geography in a number of stories, including this one.
The Foulest Antecedent encouraged members to select Investiture Titles for identification.
The meeting concluded, as usual, by reading Vincent Starrett's "221B" poem, and the singing of The Anthem.
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