Corvallis gazette. [volume] (Corvallis, Benton County, Or.) 1900-1909, 1902-07-29

A STUDY IN SCARLET.

BY A. CONAN DOYLE.

cences of John Fl. Watson, M. D., late
of the army medical department.
CHAPTER 1.
In the year 1873 took my degree oi
Doctor of Medicine of the University OF
London and proceeded to Netley to 60
through the course prescribed for sur
geons in the army.
Having completed my studies there,
was duly attached to the Fifth North
umberland Fusiliers as assistant sur
geon. The regiment was stationed in
India at the time, and before 1 could
join it the second Afghan war had
broken out.
On landing at Bombay learned
that my corps had advanced through
the passes and was already deep in the
enemy's country.
1 followed, however, with many other
officers who were in the same situation
as myself, and succeeded in reaching
Candahar in safety, where found my
regiment, and at once entered upon my
new duties.
The campaign brought honors and
promotion to many, but for me it had
nothing but disaster and misfortune.
/ was removed from my brigade and
attached to the Berkshires, with whom
I served at the fatal battle of Maiwand.
There / was struck on the shoulder
by Jezail bullet, which shattered the
bone and grazed the subclavian artery.
I should have fallen into the hands of
the murderous Ghazis had it not been
for the courage and devotion shown by
Murray, my orderly, who threw me
across a pack horse and succeeded in
bringing me safely into the British
lines.
Worn with pain and weak from the
prolonged hardships which had under
gone, l was removed, with a great
train of wounded sufferers, to the base
hospital at Peshawur.
Here l rallied, and had already i'm
proved so far as to be able to walk
about the wards, and even to bask lit
tie on the veranda, when l was struck
down by enteric fever, that curse of our
Indian possessions.
For months my life was despaired
of, and when at last came to myself
and became convalescent, l was SO
weak and emaciated that a medical
board determined that hot a day should
be lost in sending me back to England.
was dispatched accordingly in the
troopship Orontes, and landed month
later on Portsmouth jetty, with my
health irretrievably ruined, but with
permission from paternal government
to spend the next nine months in at
tempting to improve it.
l had neither kith nor kin in Eng
land, and was therefore as free as air
or as FREQ as an income of eleven shill-
ings and sixpence day will permit a
man to be.
Under such circumstances natural
ly gravitated to London, that great
cesspool into which all the loungers
and idlers of the empire are ilresistab-
ly drained.
There 1 stayed for some time at a
private hotel in the Strand, leading a
comfortable, meaningless existence and
spending such money as I had consid-
erably more freely than ought.
So alarming did the state OF my
finances become, that / soon realized
that l must either leave the metropolis
and rusticate somewhere in the country
or that I must make complete altera-
tion in my style of living.
Choosing the latter alternative, be-
gan by making up my mind to leave
the hotel and take up my quarters in
some less pretentious and less expen-
sive domicile.
On the very day that had come to
this conclusion, was standing at the
Criterion bar, when some one tapped
me on the shoulder, and, turning
round, recognized young Stamford,
who had been a dresser under me at
Bart's.
The sight of friends face in the
great wilderness of London is a pleasant
thing, indeed, for lonely man. In
old days Stamford had never been a
particular crony of mine, but now 1
hailed him with enthusiasm, and he,
in his turn, appeared to be delighted to
see me.
In the exuberance of my joy asked
and we started off together in hanson.
"Whatever have you been doing with
yourself, Watson?" he asked, in undis-
guised wonder, as we ratified through
the crowded London streets. "You are
as thin as lath and as brown as
nut"
l gave him a short sketch of my ad-
ventures, and had hardly concluded it
by the time that we reached our desti-
nation.
"Poor devil!' he said, commiserat-
ingly, after he had listened to my mis-
fortunes. "What are you up to now?"
Looking for lodgings" answered.
"Trying to solve the problem as to
whether it is possible to get comiorta-
BILE rooms at reasonable price"
"That's a strange thing" remarked
my companion; ''you are the second
man today that has used that express
sion to me-"
"And who was the first" I asked.
ga fellow who is working at the
chemical laboratory up at the hospital.
He was Demoaning himself this morn
ing because he could not get some one
to go halves with him in some nice
rooms which he had found and which
were too much for his purse"
'By Jove!" cried, ''if he really
wants some to share the rooms and the
expense, l am the very man for him.
/ should prefer having partner to be-
ing alone"
Young Stamford looked rather