Everything was
in exquisite order, and the desk where he wrote was as scrupulously neat
as if the sloven disarray of most authors' desks were impossible to him.
He had a number of ingenious little contrivances for helping his work,
which he liked to show you; for a time a revolving book-case at the
corner of his desk seemed to be his pet; and after that came his
fountain-pen, which he used with due observance of its fountain
principle, though he was tolerant of me when I said I always dipped mine
in the inkstand; it was a merit in his eyes to use a fountain pen in
anywise. After you had gone over these objects with him, and perhaps
taken a peep at something he was examining through his microscope, he sat
down at one corner of his hearth, and invited you to an easy chair at the
other. His talk was always considerate of your wish to be heard, but the
person who wished to talk when he could listen to Doctor Holmes was his
own victim, and always the loser. If you were well advised you kept
yourself to the question and response which manifested your interest in
what he was saying, and let him talk on, with his sweet smile, and that
husky laugh he broke softly into at times. Perhaps he was not very well
when you came in upon him; then he would name his trouble, with a
scientific zest and accuracy, and pass quickly to other matters. As I
have noted, he was interested in himself only on the universal side; and
he liked to find his peculiarity in you better than to keep it his own;
he suffered a visible disappointment if he could not make you think or
say you were so and so too.
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