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It was a few weeks before my own marriage, during the days when I

was still sharing rooms with Holmes in Baker Street, that he came

home from an afternoon stroll to find a letter on the table

waiting for him. I had remained indoors all day, for the weather

had taken a sudden turn to rain, with high autumnal winds, and

the jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as

a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence.

With my body in one easy-chair and my legs upon another, I had

surrounded myself with a cloud of newspapers until at last,

saturated with the news of the day, I tossed them all aside and

lay listless, watching the huge crest and monogram upon the

envelope upon the table and wondering lazily who my friend's

noble correspondent could be.

"Here is a very fashionable epistle," I remarked as he entered.

"Your morning letters, if I remember right, were from a

fish-monger and a tide-waiter."