Anthropomorphic conversations with Canonical objects.

Okay, here's a question that hasn't been asked in a Sherlockian venue before: If you somehow moved something from the Canon of Holmes to the world of PeeWee's Playhouse, could we talk to it?

Take Black Peter's sea-chest, for example. A sea-chest has kind of a mouth to it, to open and close its lid as it talks. If a part of the carvings on Captain Peter Carey's chest could pass as eyes, it would quickly fit right in. One imagines its voice to be something like the pirate that sings the SpongeBob Squarepants song. So how would that conversation go?

"So. Black Peter's sea-chest. You're probably full of stuff, right?"

"Yes. But no South American securities, no, sir. None of those."

"How would you know if you had South American securities in you? You have some papers in you, certainly. Papers are papers."

"They taste like yams and peanuts. South American papers always taste like yams and peanuts."

"Not sure I believe you, but okay, let's move on. Did anyone dig through you after Captain Carey got harpooned? Stanley Hopkins? Some other policeman?"

"I'm a sea-chest, but I have my pride. I'm not going to discuss the intimate details of who I open my lid for. Bad enough that Watson guy publishes that a land-lubber banker was using me for a stool."

"I always wondered about that. You had the tantalus sitting on you, too, correct?"

"That's different! That tantalus and me, we have been mates going way back. And don't look at me funny about that -- liquor cases and sea-chests are always pal-ing up at sea. It's a lonely life in the captain's cabin! Things happen."

"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to imply anything. I'm just trying to find out if the crime scene got a full investigation. It seemed like they paid more attention to the tantalus than you."

"Yeah, yeah, everybody always eyes the tantalus. That's why he's so locked up tight. Look, I'm traumatized, here. I saw the captain, a man I'd spent all my life with, harpooned like a great gray whale."

"The crime scene layouts I've seen had you pointed the other direction. I don't think you saw anything."

"Okay, okay, I have South American securities in me. Here, they're right under the sewing kit on the right. Just reach in and move it over . . ."

"AAAAAAAH! MY HAND! YOU SON OF A . . ."

"Serves you right, you nosey Sherlock-lover. Now get out of here before I bite down on something more important, like that thing you think with."

Maybe it isn't such a good idea to start moving items from the Victorian crime world of Sherlock Holmes to the anthropomorphic land of Peewee's Playhouse. Some of them probably wouldn't have pleasant personalities of Chairry or Mr. Window. But it does give a different perspective on certain elements of the Canon, and as Sherlock Holmes once said:

"It is, I admit, mere imagination, but how often is imagination the mother of truth?"

Be careful of sea-chests, in any case. You never know where they've been.