One is sweet champagne and the other amateur detectives--their stories, their methods and everything about them.

I chanced to sit upstairs in the restaurant, within hearing of Mr.Ledsam and his friend Mr.Wilmore, the novelist, the other night, and I heard Mr.Ledsam, very much to my chagrin, announce his intention of abandoning a career in which he has, if he will allow me to say so,"-- with a courteous bow to Francis--"attained considerable distinction, to indulge in the moth-eaten, flamboyant and melodramatic antics of the lesser Sherlock Holmes.

I fear that I could not resist the opportunity of--I think you young men call it--pulling his leg." Every one was listening intently, including Shopland, who had just drifted into the room and subsided into a chair near Francis.
"I moved my place, therefore," Sir Timothy continued, "and I whispered in Mr.Ledsam's ear some rodomontade to the effect that if he were planning to be the giant crime-detector of the world, I was by ambition the arch-criminal--or words to that effect.

And to give emphasis to my words, I wound up by prophesying a crime in the immediate vicinity of the place within a few hours." "A somewhat significant prophecy, under the circumstances," Francis remarked, reaching out for a dish of salted almonds and drawing them towards him.
Sir Timothy shrugged his shoulders deprecatingly.
"I will confess," he admitted, "that I had not in my mind an affair of such dimensions.

My harmless remark, however, has produced cataclysmic effects.