"What ineffable twaddle!" I cried, slapping the magazine down
on the table, "I never read such rubbish in my life."

"What is it?" asked Sherlock Holmes.

"Why, this article," I said, pointing at it with my egg spoon
as I sat down to my breakfast. "I see that you have read it
since you have marked it. I don't deny that it is smartly
written. It irritates me though. It is evidently the theory
of some arm-chair lounger who evolves all these neat little
paradoxes in the seclusion of his own study. It is not
practical. I should like to see him clapped down in a third
class carriage on the Underground, and asked to give the
trades of all his fellow-travellers. I would lay a thousand
to one against him."

"You would lose your money," Sherlock Holmes remarked calmly.
"As for the article I wrote it myself."

"You!"

"Yes, I have a turn both for observation and for deduction.
The theories which I have expressed there, and which appear
to you to be so chimerical are really extremely practical --
so practical that I depend upon them for my bread and cheese."

"And how?" I asked involuntarily.

"Well, I have a trade of my own. I suppose I am the only one
in the world. I'm a consulting detective, if you can