#so far no Naval Treaties have been harmed in the reading of this story

[mariana-oconnor]

The Naval Treaty pt 1

A four parter? Ooooh, exciting.

The July which immediately succeeded my marriage was made memorable by three cases of interest

I officially have no clue when we are. The timeline is a time spirograph. We're just going to pretend that time doesn't matter, okay? Because clearly ACD didn't care about it at all.

[The Adventure of the Second Stain], however, deals with interest of such importance and implicates so many of the first families in the kingdom that for many years it will be impossible to make it public. [...] The new century will have come, however, before the story can be safely told.

I feel like I have seen behind the curtain or stolen a biscuit from the tin without anyone knowing about it.

During my school-days I had been intimately associated with a lad named Percy Phelps

The evolution of language once again championing queer readings of text.

On the contrary, it seemed rather a piquant thing to us to chevy him about the playground and hit him over the shins with a wicket.

Oh those schoolboy shenanigans, what games, what japes we played! Like... *checks notes* beating a young boy's legs with wooden sticks. What fun!

I know attitudes have changed and yadda yadda but 'intimately acquainted' suggests you were friends but beating his legs with wooden sticks because his uncle was a lord - even if he was a tory - doesn't seem like friendship. Were you friends or did he just try desperately to appease you to stop you from hitting him with sticks?

'I have no doubt that you can remember “Tadpole” Phelps, who was in the fifth form when you were in the third.'

There is no way in which I can find to make 'tadpole' a nice nickname. I assume it's because he was younger than most of the people in his form because he was advanced two years for being smart. I assume that's actually the basis of a lot of this bullying.

'I have only just recovered from nine weeks of brain-fever, and am still exceedingly weak. Do you think that you could bring your friend Mr. Holmes down to see me?'

That feeling when you're recovering from a serious illness and you have to contact your childhood bully because it turns out he's now bffs with the only man who can help you.

There was something that touched me as I read this letter, something pitiable in the reiterated appeals to bring Holmes.

Seriously? Seriously? Now you're going to pity him. Watson... Watson, you're on thin fucking ice right now.

“You come at a crisis, Watson,” said he. “If this paper remains blue, all is well. If it turns red, it means a man's life.”

Another tantalising glimpse into a case we are not privy to. ACD does like these. He did it at the start of this story with The Second Stain as well, although we know he did eventually write and publish that one, because we've seen it.

"You are the stormy petrel of crime, Watson."

This is such a perfect phrase. I love it. I have nothing else to say about it, but I needed to share it.

“But the writing is not his own.” “Precisely. It is a woman's.” “A man's surely,” I cried. “No, a woman's, and a woman of rare character."

Once again, Holmes' supernatural ability to identify a person almost completely only from their handwriting comes to the fore! And Watson is so convinced it's a man. This is such a weird argument, but I've definitely had weirder with my friends, so who am I to judge?

...we were joined in a few minutes by a rather stout man who received us with much hospitality. His age may have been nearer forty than thirty, but his cheeks were so ruddy and his eyes so merry that he still conveyed the impression of a plump and mischievous boy.

I don't like him. Whenever someone in these stories is overly jovial, they turn out to be a dick. Or maybe it's the fact we've just seen what Watson considers the acceptable behaviour of mischievous boys. I just don't like him. Maybe I'll be wrong. Maybe I'm just overly suspicious and cynical. But the vibes are wrong.

“Of course you saw the J H monogram on my locket,” said he. “For a moment I thought you had done something clever."

Yep, don't like him. Rude.

A young man, very pale and worn, was lying upon a sofa near the open window...

So weird to refer to your old chum as just 'a young man' and not by his name. Like you didn't recognise him, when you claimed to be so intimately acquainted. How strange.

“How are you, Watson?” said he, cordially. “I should never have known you under that moustache, and I dare say you would not be prepared to swear to me."

I was just saying...

She was a striking-looking woman, a little short and thick for symmetry...

What does that even mean? How can thickness have anything to do with symmetry? Or shortness for that matter? I feel like I am missing something.

OK, so we've got a young man, his fiancee and her brother. As mentioned, I do not like the brother and I do not trust him. So far the fiancee herself has given me no reason to distrust her, but then neither has her brother. I just think he's sus. Guy's too happy, you know what I mean? I bet he's trying to discredit his future brother-in-law in order to scupper the marriage so he can keep his sister's fortune or something like that. Men in these stories do seem determined to stop female relatives from marrying.

Or maybe he's just a jovial man and I'm being paranoid.

He probably murders puppies.

That might be too far.

Nope. I'm right. He's evil. I refuse to hear otherwise.