Tooled up on Baker Street

[slightlyfoxed]

On Dr Watson's first adventure with Sherlock Holmes, the laconic consulting detective asks him:

"Have you any arms?"
"I have my old service revolver and a few cartridges."
"You had better clean it and load it..."

A few years later, in The Sign of Four Holmes asks him:

"Have you a pistol, Watson

Comments

[braisedbywolves]

I imagine that it's not the second, but that's just because (as I was just saying the other day) one of the things that Watson brings to the table, apart from being as thick as the rest of us and thus a good exposition sponge, is his trusty revolver. I was wondering what they would do with the remake (as people presumably no longer keep their guns once they leave the service), but no it appears that they do. Though the friend I was talking to said that it was as odd if not more so for the original Watson to have his.

[lovingboth]

I like the way it's suddenly become hyphenated.

'Do you still have..'? Because a chap does not look in another chap's drawers!

[janinazew]

Why would Watson definitely have kept hold of his gun?

[slightlyfoxed]

Good point, and it's a few years apart.
I'd like to know how trusty-service-revolver ownership generally works, as well - do you get to keep the army-issue one, do you have buy your own while in service... The Internet will tell me.