DarqueDante/test2 · Datasets at Hugging Face

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with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former
friend and companion.

One night--it was on the twentieth of March, 1888--I was returning
from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil
practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the
well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with
my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was
seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was
employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit,
and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in
a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly,
eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped
behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude
and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had risen
out of his drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new
problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had
formerly been in part my own.

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.

"Wedlock suits you," he remarked. "I think, Watson, that you have put
on seven and a half pounds since I saw you."

"Seven!" I answered.

"Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I
fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me
that you intended to go into harness."

"Then, how do you know?"

"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting
yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and
careless servant girl?"

"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have
been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had
a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I
have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary
Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but
there, again, I fail to see how you work it out."

He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.

"It is simplicity itself," said he; "my eyes tell me that on the
inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the
leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have
been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the
edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you
see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and
that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the
London slavey. As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my
rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver
upon his right forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his
top-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be
dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce him to be an active member of the
medical profession."

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his
process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I
remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously
simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive
instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your
process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours."

"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself
down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. The
distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps
which lead up from the hall to this room."

"Frequently."

"How often?"

"Well, some hundreds of times."

"Then how many are there?"

"How many? I don't know."

"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just
my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have
both seen and observed. By-the-way, since you are interested in these
little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or
two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this." He
threw over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted note-paper which had been
lying open upon the table. "It came by the last post," said he. "Read
it aloud."

The note was undated, and without either signature or address.

"There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight o'clock,"
it said, "a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the
very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of the royal houses
of Europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with

with all the readers of the daily press, I knew little of my former

friend and companion.

One night--it was on the twentieth of March, 1888--I was returning

from a journey to a patient (for I had now returned to civil

practice), when my way led me through Baker Street. As I passed the

well-remembered door, which must always be associated in my mind with

my wooing, and with the dark incidents of the Study in Scarlet, I was

seized with a keen desire to see Holmes again, and to know how he was

employing his extraordinary powers. His rooms were brilliantly lit,

and, even as I looked up, I saw his tall, spare figure pass twice in

a dark silhouette against the blind. He was pacing the room swiftly,

eagerly, with his head sunk upon his chest and his hands clasped

behind him. To me, who knew his every mood and habit, his attitude

and manner told their own story. He was at work again. He had risen

out of his drug-created dreams and was hot upon the scent of some new

problem. I rang the bell and was shown up to the chamber which had

formerly been in part my own.

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.

"Wedlock suits you," he remarked. "I think, Watson, that you have put

on seven and a half pounds since I saw you."

"Seven!" I answered.

"Indeed, I should have thought a little more. Just a trifle more, I

fancy, Watson. And in practice again, I observe. You did not tell me

that you intended to go into harness."

"Then, how do you know?"

"I see it, I deduce it. How do I know that you have been getting

yourself very wet lately, and that you have a most clumsy and

careless servant girl?"

"My dear Holmes," said I, "this is too much. You would certainly have

been burned, had you lived a few centuries ago. It is true that I had

a country walk on Thursday and came home in a dreadful mess, but as I

have changed my clothes I can't imagine how you deduce it. As to Mary

Jane, she is incorrigible, and my wife has given her notice, but

there, again, I fail to see how you work it out."

He chuckled to himself and rubbed his long, nervous hands together.

"It is simplicity itself," said he; "my eyes tell me that on the

inside of your left shoe, just where the firelight strikes it, the

leather is scored by six almost parallel cuts. Obviously they have

been caused by someone who has very carelessly scraped round the

edges of the sole in order to remove crusted mud from it. Hence, you

see, my double deduction that you had been out in vile weather, and

that you had a particularly malignant boot-slitting specimen of the

London slavey. As to your practice, if a gentleman walks into my

rooms smelling of iodoform, with a black mark of nitrate of silver

upon his right forefinger, and a bulge on the right side of his

top-hat to show where he has secreted his stethoscope, I must be

dull, indeed, if I do not pronounce him to be an active member of the

medical profession."

I could not help laughing at the ease with which he explained his

process of deduction. "When I hear you give your reasons," I

remarked, "the thing always appears to me to be so ridiculously

simple that I could easily do it myself, though at each successive

instance of your reasoning I am baffled until you explain your

process. And yet I believe that my eyes are as good as yours."

"Quite so," he answered, lighting a cigarette, and throwing himself

down into an armchair. "You see, but you do not observe. The

distinction is clear. For example, you have frequently seen the steps

which lead up from the hall to this room."

"Frequently."

"How often?"

"Well, some hundreds of times."

"Then how many are there?"

"How many? I don't know."

"Quite so! You have not observed. And yet you have seen. That is just

my point. Now, I know that there are seventeen steps, because I have

both seen and observed. By-the-way, since you are interested in these

little problems, and since you are good enough to chronicle one or

two of my trifling experiences, you may be interested in this." He

threw over a sheet of thick, pink-tinted note-paper which had been

lying open upon the table. "It came by the last post," said he. "Read

it aloud."

The note was undated, and without either signature or address.

"There will call upon you to-night, at a quarter to eight o'clock,"

it said, "a gentleman who desires to consult you upon a matter of the

very deepest moment. Your recent services to one of the royal houses

of Europe have shown that you are one who may safely be trusted with