When the practice of portraits in words becomes generalized, as will no doubt very soon be the case, members of all those professions at which the laws of most countries persist in looking askance will have but a sorry time, if, indeed, they are able to subsist at all. Within the space of an hour or two telegraph and telephone will have carried a brief but unmistakable word-portrait of them to every corner of the civilized world if necessary. In large towns like London and Paris, twenty thousand pairs of trained eyes, covering the entire area of the city, can be set simultaneously on the search for the fugitive murderer or burglar, who will discover that the old methods of disguise are of but little use to him. A rumour that certain London banks contemplated having all their _employés_ measured and photographed on M. Bertillon's system caused a considerable amount of murmuring recently, the measure being considered as somewhat derogatory by the clerks. By this extension of the method, however, their portraits can be taken without their knowledge, since neither camera nor measuring rule is necessary. Absconding cashiers will, in future, therefore have to be remarkably circumspect in their choice of foreign residence. Impostors like the claimant to the Tichborne estates, whose trial convulsed the Anglo-Saxon world over thirty years ago, will be given short shrift. It may be remarked, however, that one of the principal points brought forward at the trial to prove that the Claimant was not the man he pretended to be was precisely that the lobe of his ear was quite differently formed to the lobe of the real Roger Tichborne. This only proves once more the old adage that under the sun there is nothing new. [Illustration: DETECTIVES RECEIVING A LESSON ON EARS. _From a Photo._] The writer would here express his thanks to M. Lepine, the Prefect of Police, and M. Bertillon for their extreme courtesy in acceding to his request to be allowed to attend the course of lessons, and also for permission to use the photographs now reproduced. DIALSTONE LANE[A] BY W. W. JACOBS CHAPTER VII. Mr. Chalk made but a poor breakfast next morning, the effort to display a feeling of proper sympathy with Mrs. Chalk, who was presiding in gloomy silence at the coffee-pot, and at the same time to maintain an air of cheerful innocence as to the cause of her behaviour, being almost beyond his powers. He chipped his egg with a painstaking attempt to avoid noise, and swallowed each mouthful with a feeble pretence of not knowing that she was watching him as he ate. Her glance conveyed a scornful reproach that he could eat at all in such circumstances, and, that there might be no mistake as to her own feelings, she ostentatiously pushed the toast-rack and egg-stand away from her. "You--you're not eating, my dear," said Mr. Chalk. "If I ate anything it would choke me," was the reply.