I am afraid that I rather give myself away when I explain," said he. "Results without causes are much more impressive.

Mr. Sherlock Holmes, who was usually very late in the mornings, save upon those not infrequent occasions when he was up all night, was seated at the breakfast table. I stood upon the hearth-rug and picked up the stick which our visitor had left behind him the night before.

His incredible untidiness, his addiction to music at strange hours, his occasional revolver practice within doors, his weird and often malodorous scientific experiments, and the atmosphere of violence and danger which hung around him made him the very worst tenant in London.

Data!data!data!" he cried impatiently. "I can't make bricks without clay.

For strange effects and extraordinary combinations we must go to life itself, which is always far more daring than any effort of the imagination.

Man, or at least criminal man, has lost all enterprise and originality. As to my own little practice, it seems to be degenerating into an agency for recovering lost lead pencils and giving advice to young ladies from boarding-schools.

Have you tried to drive a harpoon through a body? No? Tut, tut, my dear sir, you must really pay attention to these details.