Quizmageddon on Page 577

Every year at this time, this column presents a quiz to its readers. It's a simple quiz, under ten questions, about a single page from the Doubleday one-volume Complete Sherlock Holmes. Not many readers respond to this quiz, which I found rather disheartening at first.  Who wouldn't want to beat their head against a twisted, obscure, brick wall of a quiz?

Someone with a head harder than brick, obviously. And, amazingly  enough,   there  are   a   few  such  remarkable Sherlockians out there. Most subscribers to this monthly tour de Sherlocklana are sensible enough to be daunted by the annual Dissecting Room Bowl Quiz. A scant few daredevils of the mental flying trapeze are not, however, and they return, year after year, to match wits with each other.

This year, however, I'm going to make things easier on the majority of you. I'm going to make the quiz so incredibly difficult  that not even the  regulars  are  going to  send answers  in.  Yes,  this  year's  quiz  shall  be  the  great equalizer. No Sherlockian will stand undaunted before the sheer horror of  it.  And  so,  with  no  further  ado,  the questions, all derived from page 577 of the common Doubleday (or pages 673-674 of theuncommon one — the story is CHAS).

1. One from two, two from one. cite these two examples of science playing God with the human organism.

2. Spot the talking pets.

3. A comic movie actor and Andromeda of the Legionnaires. A "Happy Days" character who sang. The U.S. District Attorney for the District of Columbia (1833-41) and a Swedish author born in 1849. The feistiest brother in "The Big Valley." The fellow who popularized "Minnie the Moocher." Three famous mystery authors. The man who directed a second movie named on this page. My grandmother. Name all of the above people.

5.

4. Change a single letter of a single word and you have ample reason for Holmes's plan to be a complete foul-up.

6. Melvin Cross had a paper published in the fourth issue of The Baker Street Journal on this Victorian artifact. How is said artifact referred to on this page?

7. The number of steps to 221B divided by its maximum tenancy, plus the landlady's number of X chromosomes, times the first word of your final answer, minus the decade in which the last story was told. And your final result is?

That's it! I shall now fall faint with exhaustion and shame at having concocted such an odious inquisition.  The usual deadline for the Dissecting Room Bowl is October 10, and I suppose we'll keep it that way, despite the fact no one is going to send any answers in.

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Since there's space left, a few Sherlockian questions that have nothing to do with the quiz:

Why can you get an action figure of Dracula, Peter Pan, Hamlet, or Wyatt Earp for under five dollars, but Sherlock Holmes only comes in pewter for ninety bucks?

Is it proper, when asked your scion affiliations at a Sherlockian function, to mention that you are a BSI, or is that bragging?

Is the cult of Holmes growing, dwindling, or just mutating? Should we care? Do we? Sure, the company's good, but where's the bus headed? What a lovely thing a rose is.

Why in America can't we have novels about Sherlock Holmes, for fear of tarnishing Doyle's works, but we can have novels about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle himself?

When am I going to mention the annual Merriweather Memorial Whist Tournament that almost occurs every year at this time, and then what am I going to do about it?

How many Doyleans does it take to change a light bulb?

Have you ever noticed that the longer you spend trying to say something, the less you have to say, especially when you're trying to fill two pages for Plugs & Dottles?