"Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantelpiece, and his
hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white nervous
fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff.
For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and
wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he
thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston and sank back into
the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction. Three times a day
for many months I had witnessed this performance, but the custom had not
reconciled my mind to it. On the contraty, from day to day I had become more
irritable at the sight, and my conscience swelled nightly within me at the
htought that I had lacked the courage to protest. Again and again I had
registered a vow that I should deliver my soul upon the subject; but there was
that in the cool, nonchalant air of my companion which made him the last amn
with whom one would care to take anything approaching to a liberty. His great
powers, his masterly manner, and the experience which I had of his many
extraordinary qualities, all made me diffident and backward in crossing him. 
Yet upon that afternoon, whether it was the Beaune which I had taken with my
lunch, or the additional exasperation produced by the extreme deliberation of
his manner, I suddenly felt that I could hold out no longer. 



 "Which is it today", I asked "morphine or cocaine?" 
 He raised his eyes languidly from the old black-letter volume which he had
opened. 
 "It is cocaine", he said, " a seven-per-cent solution. Would you care to try
it?" 
 "No, indeed," I answered brusquely. "My constitution has not got over the
Afghan campaign yet. I cannot afford to throw any extra strain upon it." He
smiled at my vehemence. 
	"Perhaps you are right, Watson," he said. "I suppose that its influence is
physically a bad one. I find it, however, so transcendingly stimulating and
clarifying to the mind that its second action is a matter of small moment." 
	"But consider!" I said, earnestly. "Count the cost! Your brain may, as you
say, be roused and excited, but it is a pathological and morbid process, which
involves increased tissue-change, and may at last leave a permanent weakness.
You know, too, what a black reaction comes upon you. Surely the game is hardly
worth the candle. Why should you, for a mere passing pleasure, risk the loss
of those great powers with which you have been endowed? Remember that I speak
not only as one comrade to another, but as a medical man to one for whose
constitution he is to some extent answerable." He did not seem offended. On
the contrary, he put his finger-tips together, and leaned his elbows on the
arms of his chair, like one who has a relish for conversation. 
	"My mind," he said, "rebels at stagnation. Give me a problem, give me
work, give me the most abstruse cryptogram, or the most intricate analysis,
and I am in my own proper atmosphere. I can dispense then with artificial
stimulants. But I abhor the dull routine of existence. I crave for mental
exaltation. That is why I have chosen my own particular profession, or rather
created it for I am the only one in the world." 




  "The only unofficial detective?" I said, raising my eyebrows. 
 "The only unofficial consulting detective," he answered. "I am the last and
highest court of appeal in detection. When Gregson, or Lestrade, or Athelny
Jones are out of their depths - which, be the way, is their normal state -
the matter is laid before me. I examine the data, as an expert, and pronounce
a specialist's opinion. I claim no credit in such cases. My name figures in no
newspaper. The work itself, the pleasure of finding a field for my peculiar
powers, is my highest reward. But you have yourself had some experience of my
methods of work in the Jefferson Hope case." "Yes indeed," said I, cordially.
"I was never so struck be anything in my life. I even embodied it in a small
brochure, with the somewhat fantastic title of "A Stusy in Scarlet"." He shook
his head sadly. 
 "I glanced over it," said he. "Honestly, I cannot congratulate you upon it." 
