Talk:Gasogene

Happy Birthday to Sherlock Holmes!

Gasogene an 'unexplained' feature?

From the first pages of "A Scandel in Bohemia" we find this item. Dr. Watson is the narrator; he refers to Holmes, of course:

"His manner was not effusive. It seldom was; but he was glad, I think, to see me. With hardly a word spoken, but with a kindly eye, he waved me to an armchair, threw across his case of cigars, and indicated a spirit case and a gasogene in the corner. Then he stood before the fire, and looked me over in his singular introspective fashion."

If a spirit case is a liquor cabinet, then the presence of a gasogene is not so hard to rationalize. One could use it to prepare a scotch and soda, for example.

The text you quote does not make the nature of the object clear. This fact was pointed out in the introduction to the paperback collection of the Holmes stories. Which is, I'm sure, precisely why the word has an entry here.

MarkinBoston (talk) 03:39, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

Vehicle

I read a story about this being the name of a type of vehicle which produced gas in a charcoal burning container used as fuel to run the motor. Jokem 01:13, 4 October 2007 (UTC)

Those were also called gasogenes, but not the same thing as the soda-water machine. --ABehrens (talk) 01:19, 20 June 2021 (UTC)

cryptic?

why is the presence of a gasogene in a holme's story "cryptic"?

Doktordoris (talk) 18:03, 27 August 2010 (UTC)

I was wondering the same thing.--Surv1v4l1st ^{(Talk|Contribs)} 17:00, 12 January 2012 (UTC)

While the contemporary readers of the Holmes tales probably knew what it was, it's almost a nonsense word to 20th century Americans. The Baker Street Irregulars literary society had a Gasogene, a Tantalus and a Commissionaire as officers rather than a President, Secretary and Treasurer. WHPratt (talk) 18:47, 10 February 2012 (UTC)