For a question to attain immortality and the answer to
it to be altogether forgotten must be a rare combination of circumstances. We all know that Stanley asked : " Dr. Livingstone, I presume ? " How many of us can quote Dr. Livingstone's reply ? I came across it the other day in a recent American anthology called A Treasury of Great Reporting. Stanley's original dispatch to the New York Herald, after describing how he saw an old white man in a group of natives, ended as follows: " I am shaking hands with him. We raise our hats, and I say:'' ' Dr. Livingstone, I presume V And he says: ' Yes.' Finis corona! opus."
In a travel book published subsequently a little more of the limelight which illumined this dramatic encounter is diverted from the rescuer to the rescued. " And he says: ' Yes,' " becomes "' Yes,' said he with a kind, cordial smile, lifting his cap slightly." It seems a very sensible reply. One could hardly say less, and there was no need to say more. I'm not sure that it isn't just as deserving of immortality as the slightly superfluous question which evoked it.
S-ratx.
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