"What are you going to do, then?" I asked.

"To smoke," he answered. "It is quite a three-pipe problem, and I beg
that you won't speak to me for fifty minutes." He curled himself up in
his chair, with his thin knees drawn up to his hawk-like nose, and
there he sat with his eyes closed and his black clay pipe thrusting out
like the bill of some strange bird. I had come to the conclusion that
he had dropped asleep, and indeed was nodding myself, when he suddenly
sprang out of his chair with the gesture of a man who has made up his
mind, and put his pipe down upon the mantelpiece.

"Sarasate[221-1] plays at the St. James's Hall this afternoon," he
remarked. "What do you think, Watson? Could your patients spare you for
a few hours?"

"I have nothing to do to-day. My practice is never very absorbing."

"Then put on your hat and come. I am going through the city first, and
we can have some lunch on the way. I observe that there is a good deal
of German music on the program, which is rather more to my taste than
Italian or French. It is introspective, and I want to introspect. Come
along!"

We traveled by the Underground as far as Aldersgate; and a short walk
took us to Saxe-Coburg Square, the scene of the singular story which we
had listened to in the morning. It was a poky, little, shabby-genteel
place, where four lines of dingy two-storied brick houses looked out
into a small railed-in enclosure, where a lawn of weedy grass and a few
clumps of faded laurel-bushes made a hard fight against a smoke-laden
and uncongenial atmosphere. Three gilt balls and a brown board with
JABEZ WILSON in white letters, upon a corner house announced the place
where our red-headed client carried on his business. Sherlock Holmes
stopped in front of it with his head on one side, and looked it all
over, with his eyes shining brightly between puckered lids. Then he
walked slowly up the street, and then down again to the corner, still
looking keenly at the houses. Finally he returned to the pawn-broker's,
and, having thumped vigorously upon the pavement with his stick two or
three times, he went up to the door and knocked. It was instantly
opened by a bright-looking, clean-shaven young fellow, who asked him to
step in.

"Thank you," said Holmes, "I only wished to ask you how you would go
from here to the Strand."

"Third right, fourth left," answered the assistant, promptly, closing
the door.

"Smart fellow, that," observed Holmes, as we w