Сколько телеграмм на полу?

[DoctorW]

Помните ли вы (если нет, то посмотрите) что в Рейгетских сквайрах Уотсон пишет, что приехав к Холмсу в гостиницу, обнаружил, что пол номера "буквально по колено" усыпан поздравительными телеграммами? Так вот, переводя примечания к фику (начала с конца, да)) наткнулась на ссылку. Вы знали, что есть статья (шуточная, разумеется)); на английском), где подсчитывается сколько же этих телеграмм там было? Кому интересно:
members.cox.net/jprazan/PAPERS/Telegrams.html

Так как ссылка у меня не всегда открывается, продублирую текст сюда.

The Curious Matter of the Congratulatory Telegrams

The Curious Matter of the Congratulatory Telegrams

by Carol P. Woods

May your attention be called to the curious matter of the congratulatory telegrams in Dr. Watson s account of The Reigate Puzzle?

You will recall that upon the fourteenth of April in 1887 Watson received a telegram from Lyons informing him that Holmes was lying ill in the Hotel Dulong. The faithful doctor sped in great haste to Lyons and to the sick-room. He found Holmes suffering from reaction to his terrible exertions in the matter of the Netherland-Sumatra Company, even while Europe, Watson said, was "ringing with his name."

Now is the matter to which reference is made as being curious. Watson asserts that Holmes' room was literally ankle-deep with congratulatory telegrams. We must note Watson's own words, "literally ankle-deep." "Literally" is the key word. Shall we doubt Watson's statement? Indeed, we may not. His integrity has never been in question.

There are one or two matters worthy of contemplation here. For one, why were the telegrams still on the floor? Obviously Holmes had been, as a sick man, confined to his room for more than one day. Had these telegrams, by some peculiar coincidence, all arrived on the same day as Watson's appearance? If not, may we not question the degree of attention to duty of the chambermaid? Or, if she had daily started the task of tidying the room, did Holmes, in a rather characteristic testy mood, daily order her to desist? If so, we can imagine the poor creature, in performance of her duties, constantly plowing through this formidable mass of paper.

This brings us to the second matter for consideration, the stated fact that the telegrams were ankle deep in the entire room.

Now think a bit about this room, literally ankle-deep in telegrams. Let a quick analysis be made.

Madame Dominique Bertin, Maître de Conference à l'Université Lumière Lyon II department histoire de l'art, Lyon, states, "In good quality hotels for travelers in Lyon in the late eighties, a room situated in the first floor was often square and could be about twenty square meters in size. It was preceded by a sort of antechamber-salon of about seven square meters, containing a fireplace." This information is made available through the courtesy of the director of Heritage of the French Ministry of Culture in Paris.

A room of twenty square meters would be approximately 215 square feet. We will ignore the anti-chamber-salon and consider only the bedroom. In the interest of accuracy we must subtract from the 215 square feet an estimate of the space occupied by the room's furniture, perhaps, 24 square feet for a bed, five square feet for a chair, six for a dresser. this totals 35 square feet, leaving an effective floor space of 180 square feet available for the telegrams.

A short but conscientious experiment made with a supply of ordinary newsprint cut into six by eight inch pieces, approximately telegram size, reveals some curious facts indeed.

Taking ankle deep as five inches, one finds that depth to contain in one pile alone, quite close to five hundred telegrams. There would be three such piles, or fifteen-hundred, in one square foot. And there are one-hundred and eighty square feet to be covered. Even without a pocket calculator, one arrives at once to the amazing figure of 270,000 congratulatory telegrams.

Does this stagger the imagination? Indeed it does. One certainly does not wish the imagination to stagger to a suspicious degree.

We will then adjust our estimate by assuming that when Holmes tossed his telegrams to the floor, he first crumpled them. This would perhaps conform to his once expressed comment, in a rather ill-chosen Latin phrase, that he did not attach much value to the applause of the world. Further experimentation is required.

It is then found that crumpled telegrams would total 49.9 per square foot, ankle-deep. It then follows, as night does day, there were 10,741 crumpled telegrams on the bedroom floor. The delivery system for telegrams must have indeed been severely taxed. But this is in the Canon expressed in Dr. Watson's own words and must then be accepted. It is, to say the least, curious, is it not?

May we make one more adjustment to the amazing figure. This, one would do for purely sentimental reasons. Would it not be pleasant to think that Mrs. Godfrey Norton, nee Irene Adler, having heard the ringing of Holmes' acclaim, out of the goodness of her great woman's heart, had added her congratulations to those of the multitude? Holmes surely would not have crumpled this telegram and thrown it on the floor with the rest. One distinctively, touchingly flat telegram, probably on the dresser, then joins the 10,741 crumpled ones, and brings the total to a grand 10,742. But at any rate, ten thousand seven hundred and forty-one telegrams to open, read, crumple and toss on the floor.

Might it be suggested that Homes' illness was not due entirely to the exertions put forth in the Netherland-Sumatra cast? Those telegrams exacted a formidable amount of exertion themselves, in addition to that already expended in the Netherland-Sumatra matter.

Allowing one minute to open, read, crumple and toss on the floor one telegram, we find it would require 10,741 minutes, slightly over 179 hours, to handle them all.

The already exhausted Holmes should not have been expected to spend more than seven full hours a day in this task. This, of course, means he made what must indeed have been a most arduous way through these telegrams over a period of actually twenty-nine and a half days. A formidable task, indeed. Certainly a curious pursuit for a man who considered himself ill enough to summon his friend from a distance of some five-hundred miles away, including, of course, a channel crossing.

As Watson, the attending physician, may well have expressed it, "Try to get some rest now, Holmes."

Давясь смехом едва проглядела статью, чтобы узнать результат, но подробно не вчитывалась. Если кто-то её переведёт, это будет замечательно). Мне пока фика хватает) при моём-то владении языком).