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Stead as described by his Peers  "Stead was impossible as a
colleague: he had to work single-handed because he was incapable
of keeping faith when excited; and as his hyperaesthesia was
chronic he generally was excited. Nobody ever trusted him after
the discovery that the case of Eliza Armstrong in the Maiden
Tribute was a put-up job, and that he himself had put it up. We
all felt that if ever a man deserved six months' imprisonment
Stead deserved it for such a betrayal of our confidence in him.
And it was always like that, though the other cases were not
police cases. He meant well: all his indignations did him
credit; but he was so stupendously ignorant that he never played
the game. The truth is that he seldom knew that there was any
game to play, and was delivered up to a complete infatuation
with his own emotions which prevented him from noticing or
remembering or even conceiving that other people were otherwise
preoccupied. He had, as far as I