Arthur Conan Doyle 
How Watson Learned the Trick 

In 1924, several authors were approached to contribute to the library of Queen Mary’s Dolls’ House. Conan Doyle wrote a short Sherlock Holmes story, just 503 words long, onto the tiny pages of a specially constructed miniature book: ‘How Watson Learned the Trick’. The story was later published alongside works by other authors in ‘The Book of the Queen’s Dolls’ House Library’. Though written 28 years after ‘The Field Bazaar’, this is almost a companion piece to that story. Like ‘The Field Bazaar’, this story is a breakfast scene, during which Watson attempts to mimic Holmes’ style in guessing his thoughts. Watson’s intuitions are proved wrong, however. Unlike almost all parts of the Sherlock Holmes story it is written in the third person, presumably due to its length.