Over the Teacups | Page 7

facts which could not otherwise be attained.
Rut one gets tired of the strings of questions sent him, to which he is
expected to return an answer, plucked, ripe or unripe, from his private
tree of knowledge. The braintappers are like the owner of the goose that
laid the golden eggs. They would have the embryos and germs of one's
thoughts out of the mental oviducts, and cannot wait for their
spontaneous evolution and extrusion.
The story I have promised is, on the whole, the most remarkable of a
series which I may have told in part at some previous date, but which,
if I have not told, may be worth recalling at a future time.
Some few of my readers may remember that in a former paper I
suggested the possibility of the existence of an idiotic area in the
human mind, corresponding to the blind spot in the human retina. I
trust that I shall not be thought to have let my wits go wandering in that
region of my own intellectual domain, when I relate a singular
coincidence which very lately occurred in my experience, and add a
few remarks made by one of our company on the delicate and difficult
but fascinating subject which it forces upon our attention. I will first
copy the memorandum made at the time:
"Remarkable coincidence. On Monday, April 18th, being at table from
6.30 P. M. to 7.30, with ________and ________ the two ladies of my
household, I told them of the case of 'trial by battel' offered by
Abraham Thornton in 1817. I mentioned his throwing down his glove,
which was not taken up by the brother of his victim, and so he had to

be let off, for the old law was still in force. I mentioned that Abraham
Thornton was said to have come to this country, 'and [I added] he may
be living near us, for aught that I know." I rose from the table, and
found an English letter waiting for me, left while I sat at dinner. A copy
the first portion of this letter:
'20 ALFRED PLACE, West (near Museum) South Kensington,
LONDON, S. W. April 7, 1887.
DR. O. W. HOLMES:
DEAR SIR,--In travelling, the other day, I met with a reprint of the
very interesting case of Thornton for murder, 1817. The prisoner
pleaded successfully the old Wager of Battel. I thought you would like
to read the account, and send it with this....
Yours faithfully,
FRED. RATHBONE.'
Mr. Rathbone is a well-known dealer in old Wedgwood and eighteenth-
century art. As a friend of my hospitable entertainer, Mr. Willett, he
had shown me many attentions in England, but I was not expecting any
communication from him; and when, fresh from my conversation, I
found this letter just arrived by mail, and left while I was at table, and
on breaking the seal read what I had a few moments before been;
telling, I was greatly surprised, and immediately made a note of the
occurrence, as given above.
I had long been familiar with all the details of this celebrated case, but
had not referred to it, so far as I can remember, for months or years. I
know of no train of thought which led me to speak of it on that
particular day. I had never alluded to it before in that company, nor had
I ever spoken of it with Mr. Rathbone.
I told this story over our teacups. Among the company at the table is a
young English girl. She seemed to be amused by the story. "Fancy!"
she said,--"how very very odd!" "It was a striking and curious
coincidence," said the professor who was with us at the table. "As
remarkable as two teaspoons in one saucer," was the comment of a
college youth who happened to be one of the company. But the
member of our circle whom the reader will hereafter know as Number
Seven, began stirring his tea in a nervous sort of way, and I knew that
he was getting ready to say something about the case. An ingenious
man he is, with a brain like a tinder-box, its contents catching at any

spark that is flying about. I always like to hear what he says when his
tinder brain has a spark fall into it. It does not follow that because he is
often wrong he may not sometimes be right, for he is no fool. He
treated my narrative very seriously.
The reader need not be startled at the new terms he introduces. Indeed,
I am not quite sure that some thinking people will not adopt his view of
the matter, which seems to have a degree of plausibility as he states and
illustrates it.
"The impulse which led you to tell