The Adventure of the Speckled Band the snake wrong, a theory that the swamp adder was an artificial hybrid between the Mexican Gila monster ("Heloderma suspectum") and "Naja naja". His speculation suggests that Doyle might have hidden a double-meaning in Holmes' words. What Holmes said, reported by Watson, was "It is a swamp adder, the deadliest snake in India"; but Klauber suggested what Holmes really said was "It is a "samp-aderm", the deadliest skink in India." "Samp-aderm" can be translated "snake-Gila-monster": "Samp" is Hindi for snake, and the suffix "aderm" is derived from "heloderm", the common or vernacular name of the Gila monster generally used by
The Best Day (short story) The Best Day (short story) "The Best Day" is a short story by Orson Scott Card. It appears in his short story collection "Maps in a Mirror". Card originally published this story in his novel "Saints" (1983) under the pen name Dinah Kirkham. This story is about a woman who is happy but is afraid that the happiness in her life will come to an end. She prays for eternal happiness and the next day an old peddler shows up selling plain things. When she asks him if he has anything for happiness he tries to explain that happiness is