at home. Tell us what you can, but stop when you are tired and keep up
your strength with a little stimulant.
Thank you, said my patient, but I have felt another man since the
doctor bandaged me, and I think that your breakfast has completed the
cure. I shall take up as little of your valuable time as possible, so I
shall start at once upon my peculiar experiences.
Holmes sat in his big armchair with the weary, heavy-lidded expression
which veiled his keen and eager nature, while I sat opposite to him,
and we listened in silence to the strange story which our visitor
detailed to us.
You must know, said he, that I am an orphan and a bachelor, residing
alone in lodgings in London. By profession I am a hydraulic engineer,
and I have had considerable experience of my work during the seven
years that I was apprenticed to Venner & Matheson, the well-known firm,
of Greenwich. Two years ago, having served my time, and having also
come into a fair sum of money through my poor father s death, I
determined to start in business for myself and took professional
chambers in Victoria Street.
I suppose that everyone finds his first independent start in business
a dreary experience. To me it has been exceptionally so. During two
years I have had three consultations and one small job, and that is
absolutely all that my profession has brought me. My gross takings
amount to 27 10_s_. Every day, from nine in the morning until four in
the afternoon, I waited in my little den, until at last my heart began
to sink, and I came to believe that I should never have any practice at
all.
Yesterday, however, just as I was thinking of leaving the office, my
clerk entered to say there was a gentleman waiting who wished to see me
upon business. He brought up a card, too, with the name of Colonel
Lysander Stark engraved upon it. Close at his heels came the colonel
himself, a man rather over the middle size, but of an exceeding
thinness. I do not think that I have ever seen so thin a man. His whole
face sharpened away into nose and chin, and the skin of his cheeks was
drawn quite tense over his outstanding bones. Yet this emaciation
seemed to be his natural habit, and due to no disease, for his eye was
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