been
so slight or so commonplace that I could not feel justified in laying
them before the public. On the other hand, it has frequently happened
that he has been concerned in some research where the facts have been of
the most remarkable and dramatic character, but where the share which he
has himself taken in determining their causes has been less pronounced
than I, as his biographer, could wish. The small matter which I have
chronicled under the heading of "A Study in Scarlet," and that other
later one connected with the loss of the Gloria Scott, may serve as
examples of this Scylla and Charybdis which are forever threatening the
historian. It may be that in the business of which I am now about to
write the part which my friend played is not sufficiently accentuated;
and yet the whole train of circumstances is so remarkable that I cannot
bring myself to omit it entirely from this series.

It had been a close, rainy day in October. Our blinds were half-drawn,
and Holmes lay curled upon the sofa, reading and re-reading a letter
which he had received by the morning post. For myself, my term of
service in India had trained me to stand heat better than cold, and
a thermometer of 90 was no hardship. But the paper was uninteresting.
Parliament had risen. Everybody was out of town, and I yearned for the
glades of the New Forest or the shingle of Southsea. A depleted bank
account had caused me to postpone my holiday, and as to my companion,
neither the country nor the sea presented the slightest attraction to
him. He loved to lie in the very centre of five millions of people, with
his filaments stretching out and running through them, responsive to
every little rumor or suspicion of unsolved crime. Appreciation of
Nature found no place among his many gifts, and his only change was
when he turned his mind from the evil-doer of the town to track down his
brother of the country.

Finding that Holmes was too absorbed for conversation, I had tossed
aside the barren paper, and leaning back in my chair, I fell into a
brown study. Suddenly my companion's voice broke in upon my thoughts.

"You are right, Watson," said he. "It does seem a very preposterous way
of settling a dispute."

"Most preposterous!" I exclaimed, and then, suddenly realizing how
he had echoed the inmost thought of my soul, I sat up in my chair and
stared at him in blank amazement.

"What is this, Holmes?" I cried. "This is beyond anything which I could
have i