For those of you who don't know, one of our fellow authors, chuxter, was hacked and her FF account trashed by some perverted jerk. Instead of reviewing this, do send this new author a PM telling her not to give up writing, will you? Many thanks, friends.
Chuxter, this is for you - and listen carefully:
I was in the midst of a crucial experiment involving combustible chemicals when Watson, who normally remained intelligently silent during such risky experiments, gave a short cry imbued with such horror that I nearly dropped the test tube.
Once said volatile chemicals were safely stowed, I whirled round to find him standing at the table, an opened letter in his hand and absolutely no colour left in his face.
"Watson! What on earth's the matter?" Concerned, I hurried over and took his elbow as he turned an absolutely aghast face to mine.
"Read that," he whispered, shoving the letter in my direction. I scanned its contents…what the blazes?!
"As you can see, it's from my agent at the Strand – someone's been submitting manuscripts ostensibly from me when I never authorized nor ever would authorize them!" he gasped, handing me a copy of said manuscript.
I glanced at the first few pages…and felt my ears nearly burn off my head. Never in a hundred years would my Victorian-to-his-very-core Watson have written this…gutter-press.
"What did the Strand have to say about it?"
"That they didn't want to publish anything else until they find out what in the world is going on," he whispered dismally, sinking into a chair and rubbing his temples.
"That's ridiculous! You have a public waiting for your next installment!"
"Yes, I know – but they don't want this to happen again. No more stories until we find out who's responsible. Heaven only knows how long that will take," he murmured, his honest face a picture of embarrassed misery.
I was thoroughly incensed. Beating up Watson's writing was my exclusive privilege and no one else's. And when they moved from his writing to trying to trash his reputation, I forewent the normal warnings and went straight for the throat.
"You write. I'm going out," I growled.
"Going where?"
"To find the perpetrator – until then, you write, I command it!"
He broke into a loud guffaw at my imperiousness, and I was glad to have brought a smile to his worried face.
"You've a public, Watson, and one that doesn't care about these filthy idiots that are trying to discredit and discourage you," I snapped, "don't leave them hanging just because some person with nothing better to spend their life on is doing this."
He glanced up at me, and finally his eyes lost that hurt look, warming to my (unheard-of) rare praise.
"So my writing does have merit, after all?" he smirked, taking out his notebook.
"I never said that," I shot dryly over my shoulder, "but whoever this is will rue the day that he attacked the work of my Boswell!"