13265 'Thank you,' said Holmes, shutting his eyes; 'pray go on.'
13266 'I did exactly what he had indicated, and waited until the other clerks had departed.
13267 One of them in my room, Charles Gorot, had some arrears of work to make up, so I left him there and went out to dine.
13268 When I returned he was gone.
13269 I was anxious to hurry my work, for I knew that Joseph, the Mr. Harrison whom you saw just now, was in town, and that he would travel down to Woking by the eleven o'clock train, and I wanted if possible to catch it.
13270 'When I came to examine the treaty I saw at once that it was of such importance that my uncle had been guilty of no exaggeration in what he had said.
13271 Without going into details, I may say that it defined the position of Great Britain towards the Triple Alliance, and foreshadowed the policy which this country would pursue in the event of the French fleet gaining a complete ascendency over that of Italy in the Mediterranean.
13272 The questions treated in it were purely naval.
13273 At the end were the signatures of the high dignitaries who had signed it.