Mysterious Encounter - Part 1

You met Sherlock Holmes! says Pliny the Elder. Impossible!

Not impossible, I say, staring hard at him. I'm almost one hundred per cent sure it was him.

Almost! says Pliny.

Well he was very old, but let me tell you how it happened and how I became convinced he was Sherlock Holmes.

I'm listening, says Pliny.

First I must go and find the book of poems that I wrote ten years ago, because that is where the encounter is recorded, I tell him.

I go away. I return with an old stained brown-paper-covered exercise book. I open the book.

Here we are, I say. Written on the thirteenth of June, in the year 2000. It's called "Dog". I called it "Dog", because at the time I wrote this poem I was unaware of the identity of the old man.

Read it to me, says Pliny.

I read:

Dog
A bent old man with a Toby dog
On a cold frosty night walk
Shuffles slowly, feeling the path with a stick,
Shepherding the dog through the dead leaves.
We pass him; and do not talk;
I perform an oblique stare.
If he looks at me I'll say.....
I'll say Good evening, and smile.
He looks down at his dog, all the while
Of our passing
And I look away.

That, says Pliny, doesn't prove anything. And it isn't even very good.

Wait, Pliny, I say. It is only part one of three. I see him again. As for your saying that it isn't any good, I think you may well change your mind.