“I suppose it is pretty thick, now that you mention it.”
“Thick! It is intolerable.”
“Open the window, then! You have been at your club all day, I perceive.”
“My dear Holmes!”
“Am I right?”
“Certainly, but how?”
He laughed at my bewildered expression. “There is a delightful freshness about you, Watson, which makes it a pleasure to exercise any small powers which I possess at your expense. A gentleman goes forth on a showery and miry day. He returns immaculate in the evening with the gloss still on his hat and his boots. He has been a fixture therefore all day. He is not a man with intimate friends. Where, then, could he have been? Is it not obvious?”
“Well, it is rather obvious.”
“The world is full of obvious things which nobody by any chance ever observes. Where do you think that I have been?”
“A fixture also.”