|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 43
"There had been a daughter, I heard, but she had died
of diphtheria while on a visit to Birmingham. The
father interested me extremely. He was a man of
little culture, but with a considerable amount of rude
strength, both physically and mentally. He knew
hardly any books, but he had traveled far, had seen
much of the world. And had remembered all that he had
learned. In person he was a thick-set, burly man with
a shock of grizzled hair, a brown, weather-beaten
face, and blue eyes which were keen to the verge of
fierceness. Yet he had a reputation for kindness and
charity on the country-side, and was noted for the
leniency of his sentences from the bench.
"One evening, shortly after my arrival, we were
sitting over a glass of port after dinner, when young
Trevor began to talk about those habits of observation
and inference which I had already formed into a
system, although I had not yet appreciated the part
which they were to play in my life. The old man
evidently thought that his son was exaggerating in his
description of one or two trivial feats which I had
performed.
"'Come, now, Mr. Holmes,' said he, laughing
good-humoredly. 'I'm an excellent subject, if you can
deduce anything from me.'
"'I fear there is not very much,' I answered; 'I might
suggest that you have gone about in fear of some
personal attack with the last twelvemonth.'
"The laugh faded from his lips, and he stared at me in
great surprise.
"'Well, that's true enough,' said he. 'You know,
Victor,' turning to his son, 'when we broke up that
poaching gang they swore to knife us, and Sir Edward
Holly has actually been attacked. I've always been on
my guard since then, though I have no idea how you
know it.'
"'You have a very handsome stick,' I answered. 'By
the inscription I observed that you had not had it
more than a year. But you have taken some pains to
bore the head of it and pour melted lead into the hole
so as to make it a formidable weapon. I argued that
you would not take such precautions unless you had
some danger to fear.'
"'Anything else?' he asked, smiling.
"'You have boxed a good deal in your youth.'
"'Right again. How did you know it? Is my nose
knocked a little out of the straight?'
"'No,' said I. 'It is your ears. They have the
peculiar flattening and thickening which marks the
boxing man.'
"'Anything else?'
"'You have done a good deal of digging by your
callosities.'
"'Made all my money at the gold fields.'
"'You have been in New Zealand.'
"'Right again.'
"'You have visited Japan.'
"'Quite true.'
"'And you have been most intimately associated with
some one whose initials were J. A., and whom you
afterwards were eager to entirely forget.'
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|