The Return of Sherlock Holmes

by Arthur Conan Doyle

He had gone out before breakfast, and I had sat down to mine, when he strode into the room, his hat upon his head and a huge barbed-headed spear tucked like an umbrella under his arm. “Good gracious, Holmes!” I cried. “You don’t mean to say that you have been walking about London with that thing?” “I drove to the butcher’s and back.” “The butcher’s?” “And I return with an excellent appetite. There can be no question, my dear Watson, of the value of exercise before breakfast. But I am prepared to bet that you will not guess the form that my exercise has taken.” “I will not attempt it.” He chuckled as he poured out the coffee. “If you could have looked into Allardyce’s back shop you would have seen a dead pig swung from a hook in the ceiling, and a gentleman in his shirt-sleeves furiously stabbing at it with this weapon. I was that energetic person, and I have satisfied myself that by no exertion of my strength can I transfix the pig with a single blow. Perhaps you would care to try?” “Not for worlds. But why were you doing this?”