July 5 - Desperate Measures
Jul. 5th, 2017 11:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pompey_01Author: Pompey
Universe: ACD
Rating: G
Warnings: none
Word count: 100
Summary: What’s a Victorian to do when he doesn’t have a notebook handy?
Prompt: July 5 – reminder, note to self
Watson surreptitiously flipped through the pages of his small notebook. Holmes was already questioning the butler, his fountain pen was filled – all he needed was just one or two clean pages of paper.
Nothing. Not even the cardboard covers of the notebook. At this point his linen cuffs offered more blank surface area.
Watson hesitated for only a moment and started writing. He only wondered, when his notes were no longer needed, what the wisest course of action: confess to Mrs. Hudson and hope that her laundering magic might salvage the cuffs, or concede defeat and simply buy new ones.
Author’s notes: My research says that men’s shirt cuffs really did come in cloth versions and disposable paper versions. Presumably paper cuffs were the ones meant to double as notebooks. Fountain pens were common in the late 1800s but they did have a tendency to leak and had to be filled with eyedroppers.
no subject
Date: 2017-07-10 11:52 pm (UTC)