The Sign of the Four

No, no: I never guess. It is a shocking habit, – destructive to the logical faculty.

he always employed two prize

Winwood Reade's 'Martyrdom of Man.'

How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible whatever remains, HOWEVER IMPROBABLE, must be the truth?

The emotional qualities are antagonistic to clear reasoning.

Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth

Still, I bear no grudge for that. It is all fair and above-board

Twenty long years in that fever-ridden swamp, all day at work under the mangrove-tree, all night chained up in the filthy convict-huts, bitten by mosquitoes, racked with ague, bullied by every cursed black-faced policeman who loved to take it out of a white man

It's been the sign of four with us always.

There goes the reward!" said he, gloomily. "Where there is no money there is no pay. This night's work would have been worth a tenner each to Sam Brown and me if the treasure had been there

love-story or an elopement into the fifth proposition of Euclid."

. I claim no credit in such cases.

abhor the dull routine of existence

"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me problems, give me work,

Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss of those great powers with which you have been endowed

seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try it

great powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had had of his many extraordinary qualities

conscience swelled nightly within me at the thought that I had lacked the courage to protest.

to day I had become more irritable

With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some