“I reached this one,” said my friend, “by sitting upon five

pillows and consuming an ounce of shag. I think, Watson, that if we drive to

Baker Street we shall just be in time for breakfast.”


VII.THE ADVENTURE OF THE BLUE CARBUNCLE

I had called upon my

friend Sherlock Holmes upon the second morning after Christmas, with the

intention of wishing him the compliments of the season. He was lounging upon

the sofa in a purple dressing-gown, a pipe-rack within his reach upon the

right, and a pile of crumpled morning papers, evidently newly studied, near at

hand. Beside the couch was a wooden chair, and on the angle of the back hung a

very seedy and disreputable hard-felt hat, much the worse for wear, and cracked

in several places. A lens and a forceps lying upon the seat of the chair

suggested that the hat had been suspended in this manner for the purpose of

examination.


“You are engaged,” said I; “perhaps I interrupt you.”


“Not at all. I am glad to have a friend with whom I can discuss my

results. The matter is a perfectly trivial one”—he jerked his thumb

in the direction of the old hat—“but there are points in connection

with it which are not entirely devoid of interest and even of

instruction.”


I seated myself in his armchair and warmed my hands before his crackling fire,

for a sharp frost had set in, and the windows were thick with the ice crystals.

“I suppose,” I remarked, “that, homely as it looks, this

thing has some deadly story linked on to it—that it is the clue which

will guide you in the solution of some mystery and the punishment of some

crime.”


“No, no. No crime,” said Sherlock Holmes, laughing. “Only one

of those whimsical little incidents which will happen when you have four

million human beings all jostling each other within the space of a few square

miles. Amid the action and reaction of so dense a swarm of humanity, every

possible combination of events may be expected to take place, and many a little