Sherlock Holmes' eyes glistened, his pale cheeks took a warmer hue, and his whole eager face shone with an inward light when the call for work reached him.
'Lie down there on the sofa, and see if i can put you to sleep.' He took up his violin from the corner, and as I stretched myself out he began to play some low, dreamy, melodious air,โhis own, no doubt, for he had a remarkable gift for improvisation.
'I get a wife out of it, (...) what remains for you?'
'For me,' said Sherlock Holmes, 'there still remains the cocaine bottle.' And he stretched his long white hand up for it.
It was in the year โ95 that a combination of events, into which I need not enter, caused Mr. Sherlock Holmes and myself to spend some weeks in one of our great University towns.
'Youโll come with me, wonโt you?'
'If I can be of use.'
'Oh, a trusty comrade is always of use; and a chronicler still more so. My room at The Cedars is a double-bedded one.'
He was much too absorbed with his own thoughts to give any immediate answer to my remonstrance. He leaned upon his hand, with his untasted breakfast before him, and he stared at the slip of paper which he had just drawn from its envelope.
My friendโs temper had not improved since he had been deprived of the congenial surroundings of Baker Street. Without his scrap-books, his chemicals, and his homely untidiness, he was an uncomfortable man.