Identify this short story (excerpt?)?

Cafe Society
1

My memory of this is sketchy, at best, but maybe someone will recognize it…

Two men (A and B) were walking down an alley when A says … something. I forget what. B amazed because, whatever A just said was EXACTLY what B was thinking at the moment.

“However did you know I was thinking that?” says B.

A goes off into a long, convoluted story about B kicking a cobblestone which got him thinking about this and then that and then the other and then the play they had just seen and then Orion (and here A says “And just at that moment you glanced up at the sky, so I knew you were thinking of Orion.”) and then yet another thing, all of which led up to the initial comment.

For some reason I think this is Poe or A. C. Doyle.

Any guesses?

2

You’ve got a very, very distorted memory of the opening of a Holmes story–if I get a moment I’ll track down which one. Holmes & Watson are sitting in their quarters & Holmes breaks in on Watson’s train of reflection to make an uncanny reply to what he’s thinking, & then in response to Watson’s incredulity retraces his deductions. My recollection was that Holmes’s comment was something about the foolishness of nations’ settling quarrels by means of war.

3

Found it. It’s the opening of “The Resident Patient”, in the Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes.

4

Amazing, ndorward. Simply amazing. However did you know that?

5

ndorward…close, no cigar, but you’ve led me closer to the answer.

I found Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes online (I love The Gutenburg Project…I should send them money).

Paragraph eight:

I did say my memory was sketchy, but I clearly remember the reference to the constellation Orion. Now I have to go search Poe…

Thanks for the lead :slight_smile:

6

It’s the narrator’s first recollections of Dupin in Murder on the Rue Morgue.

7

Now that I look it also has a correct title - The Murders in the Rue Morgue.