This is a case of my reasoning being, with one partial exception, perfectly correct. Everything I had deduced would no doubt have fitted the real owner of the clothes.
Watson asked rather irrelevantly why I had not noticed that the clothes were not the man's own clothes.
A stupid question, as the clothes were reach-me-downs which fitted him as well as such clothes ever do fit, and he was probably of the same build as their rightful owner.
January 12.—Found a carbuncle of unusual size in the plum-pudding. Suspected the makings of an interesting case. But luckily, before I had stated any hypothesis to Watson—who was greatly excited—Mrs Turner came in and noticed it and said her naughty nephew Bill had been at his tricks again, and that the red stone had come from a Christmas tree. Of course, I had not examined the stone with my lens.
[IX]
FROM THE DIARY OF THE EMPEROR TITUS
Titus reginam Berenicem ... cui etiam nuptias pollicitus ferebatur ... statim ab urbe demisit invitus invitam.—TACITUS.
Rome, Monday.—The eruption at Vesuvius does not after all appear to have been greatly exaggerated, as I at first had thought on receiving Pliny's graphic letter. One never can quite trust literary men when facts are in question. It is clear that I missed a very fine and interesting spectacle. In fact I have lost a day. Good phrase, that. Must try and bring it in some time or other.
Tuesday.—I fear there is no doubt of Berenice's growing unpopularity. It is tiresome, as I was hoping that the marriage might take place soon—quietly. She insists on wearing a diadem—which is unnecessary; and her earrings—made of emeralds and gold cupids—are too large. She asked me, to-day, if I didn't think she resembled the Rose of Sharon. I said I supposed she meant the rose of Paestum. She said, "Ah! You've never read the Song of Songs." I said I had read all Sappho. She said, "It's not by Sappho, it's by Solomon." I had no idea King Solomon wrote.