Pagina 307 de 657

In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old

briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the

corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him,

silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set

aquiline features. So he sat as I dropped off to sleep, and so he

sat when a sudden ejaculation caused me to wake up, and I found

the summer sun shining into the apartment. The pipe was still

between his lips, the smoke still curled upward, and the room was

full of a dense tobacco haze, but nothing remained of the heap of

shag which I had seen upon the previous night.

"Awake, Watson?" he asked.

"Yes."

"Game for a morning drive?"

"Certainly."

"Then dress. No one is stirring yet, but I know where the

stable-boy sleeps, and we shall soon have the trap out." He

chuckled to himself as he spoke, his eyes twinkled, and he seemed

a different man to the sombre thinker of the previous night.