In the Sherlock Holmes story “The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone,” the narrator declares that “Holmes seldom laughed, but he got as near it as his old friend Watson could remember.”
Is that so? In 1960, Charles E. Lauterbach and Edward S. Lauterbach compiled this “Frequency Table Showing the Number and Kind of Responses Sherlock Holmes Made to Humourous Situations and Comments in His 60 Recorded Adventures”:
| Smile | 103 |
| Laugh | 65 |
| Joke | 58 |
| Chuckle | 31 |
| Humor | 10 |
| Amusement | 9 |
| Cheer | 7 |
| Delight | 7 |
| Twinkle | 7 |
| Miscellaneous | 19 |
| Total | 316 |
In a 1964 issue of the Sherlock Holmes Journal, A.G. Cooper claimed to have counted 292 instances of Holmes’ laughter. The Lauterbachs suggest that Watson may have been deaf.
(Charles E. Lauterbach and Edward S. Lauterbach, “The Man Who Seldom Laughed,” Baker Street Journal Christmas Annual 1960, 265–271.)