A Study in Scarlet — page 173: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A STUDY IN SCARLET. i6¢ “TI have little more to say, and it’s as well, for I am about done up. I went on cabbing it for a day or so, intending to keep at it until I could save enough to take me back to America. I was standing in the yard when a ragged youngster asked if there was a cabby there called Jefferson Hope, and said that his cab was wanted by a gentleman at 2218 Baker Street. J went round, suspecting no harm, and the next thing I knew, this young man here had the bracelets on mv wrists, and as neatly shackled as ever I was in my life. ‘That’s the whole of my story, gentlemen. You may consider me to be a murderer; but I hold that Iam just as much an officer ef justice as you are.” So thrilling had the man’s narrative been, and his manner was so impressive, that we had sat silent and ab- sorbed. Even the professional detectives, d/asé as they were in every detail of crime, appeared to be keenly in- terested in the man’s story. When he finished we sat for some minutes in a stillness which was only broken by the scratching of Lestrade’s pencil as he gave the finishing touches to his short-hand account. “There 1s only one point on which I should like a little more information,” Sherlock Holmes said at last. “Who was your accomplice who came for the ring which I advertised ? ” The prisoner winked at my friend jocesely. “I can tell my own secrets,” he said, “but I don’t GOMiGcdoo